Through her work as a Regulatory Affairs and Medical Marketing Manager at DKT, Morenike Fajemisin is works to improve knowledge and increase contraceptive use. She has worked on the launch of DKT Bees, a team of community health extension workers who provide door-to-door contraceptive and health information and supplies in high-need areas of Nigeria, and the Sayana Press free mobile reminder alert program, which helps women keep tabs on their contraceptive re-injection date. She also runs Pharmacist Reny, a website offering youth information, unbiased advice and referrals for contraception and sexual health.

“Reni is an experienced pharmacist, her knowledge in contraceptive product development and understanding of Nigeria’s regulatory framework for product registrations makes her unique in the area of family planning. She is passionate about women.“

– Debu Satapathy, Program Director at DKT International

Describe your contributions to and achievements in family planning.

I successfully set-up a contraceptive delivery channel branded ‘DKT Bees’ for providing door-to-door services. To tackle misconceptions and improve providers’ and clients’ knowledge, I developed various communication materials and DKT’s efficient sales team has distributed over 3million of these materials. I helped set up an innovative Sayana Press ‘Free mobile Reminder Alerts’ allowing over 4000 users to keep tabs of their contraceptive re-injection date. I run a top-ranking sexual health website with over 30,000 visits; my website offers youth access to information, unbiased advice and referrals for contraception and sexual health. Also, I successfully registered a number of contraceptives including IUCDs, COCs, ECPs, and a variety of condoms expanding the basket of options to Nigerians.

What sparked your passion for family planning?

In 2010, while gathering data for my thesis on STDs, I came across several sexually active young women who knew little about contraceptives but had done one or more abortions. These women saw me as a channel to discretely source for reliable information and services and helping other young women like me, made me realize there was so much to do and sparked my passion for Family Planning. Through my work in DKT, I am passionately involved in improving knowledge and increasing contraceptive use.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced in your family planning efforts, and what have you done to overcome it?

My biggest challenge came in late 2015 when we began to implement the door-to-door contraceptive program-DKT Bees. Setting up a new channel for contraceptive delivery such as this was easier imagined than done and I addressed these hurdles by tackling regulatory issues, developing a suitable training curriculum and introducing strategies for reducing dropouts among the engaged community health workers (who were not used to out-of-clinic jobs) by ensuring the program design is profitable to them.

What is your (country/region/city)’s biggest challenge in family planning, and how can it be addressed?

For more than 10 years Nigeria’s mCPR has remained stagnant at about 10%. mCPR can be improved by using new channels of delivering contraceptive information and services that reach young people in a shame-free, discreet manner. We also need to segment our communication, for e.g. ‘family planning’ or ‘birth spacing’ often infers that contraceptives are for persons with families and is often a turn-off for >40% of Nigerian sexually active population who are unmarried and just need ‘contraception’.

What do you want to accomplish in the next 5 years?

In the next 5 years, the ‘DKT Bees’ would have improved the face of contraceptive delivery in Nigeria and my website would be the no 1 platform where millions of online Nigerians access unbiased contraceptive and reproductive health information and services. Also, I would have grown the user base of my contraceptive social enterprise mobile app. that targets millions of youth. I am confident that by this time, all these efforts would have significantly helped to increase CPR in Nigeria.