Oluwatomi Owopetu is a public health physician who has worked for over a decade in Nigeria. She is the founder and Executive Director of Chayil Health Initiative, born to improve health outcomes for women and girls in Africa. In 2016, as a resident doctor in training on rural community postings, she noticed significant information gaps between adolescent girls and the health system. Many girls in underserved, rural, hard to reach areas and unsurprisingly in urban areas are limited in making informed choices due to ignorance heightened by several contextual factors in Nigeria. She decided to bridge this gap by providing a social impact service that developed and incorporates a curriculum that helps an adolescent girl gain knowledge on making informed health decisions and an interactive session curated to answer anonymous questions from the girls. The program was designed to be delivered in an hour, taking into consideration attention spans and then, one on one counseling sessions as required thereafter.

This was deployed in various settings such as orphanages, public secondary/ high schools, private secondary/ high schools in rural and eventually urban areas in Oyo State Nigeria including Igboora, Sepeteri and Ibadan. That singular project eventually grew to host a team of 16 volunteers and had reached 4000 girls by 2023. The curriculum covered prevention of non-communicable diseases focusing on the major risk factors, self esteem and menstrual hygiene. Some of the girls reported making healthier decisions based on the interactions.