New Telegraph

LASU student wins Diana award as 4 alumni top UNESCO contest

For creating and sustaining positive change in their community, a 400-Level Medical student of the Lagos State University College of Medicine (LASUCOM), Toluwalashe Soyemi, has won the 2020 Diana Roll of Honour Award The Diana Award was established in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, as the highest accolade and most prestigious award for young persons for social action and humanitarian efforts.

 

A statement by the university and signed by the Head, Centre for Information Press and Public Relations (CIPPR), Ademola Adekoya, noted that after a rigorous selection process, Soyemi, one of the nine Nigerians in the contest, was selected alongside 184 recipients from 35 countries

 

According to the state, Soyemi, 18, is a co-founded Protostar Initiative, a  youth-led social venture committed to providing mental health education in communities while advocating for the de-stigmatisation of mental health conditions.

 

As the Team Lead, he was said  to be working with local communities to train young people in mental health first aid, as well as raising awareness in schools and other youth organisations.

 

“These training sessions dispel common myths and help people to recognise symptoms and access support mechanisms for mental health conditions,” the statement noted, adding that Soyemi and his team had been  working on a project that aimed at providing free online mental health services such as counseling and therapy, among others to 1,000 people within six months. In a related development, no fewer than four alumni of LASU have emerged among the top 10 best in the entry submitted to UNESCO for the “Call for Jingle/Short videos against the disinformation and misinformation on COVID-19.”

 

The call for jingle was necessitated in a bid to engage the African youths, through their creativities, to curtail the widespread of false information, especially on social media, that is ravaging even more than the global pandemic itself. The alumni, who are Elias Sanni, Olusegun Giwa, Sandra Animam and Babatunde Gandonu, are graduates of the institution’s School of Communication, who came up with the creative that emerged among the top 10 best across 41 other entries.

Read Previous

Rival cultists stab father of one to death

Read Next

Confusion over WASSCE cancellation

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *