Happy Children’s Day to every child across Nigeria! Today, I celebrate the resilience and boundless potential of children while also acknowledging the collective responsibility to protect and nurture their wellbeing.

The 2025 theme, Stand Up, Speak Up: Building a Bullying-Free Generation, reinforces the importance of safe, respectful environments where children are empowered to express themselves without fear. At the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, this commitment is embedded in our Respectful Relationships framework, which promotes empathy, equity, and inclusion from early childhood through adolescence, not only in homes and classrooms but also in health and hygiene spaces.

Respect, dignity, and agency must be present in every aspect of a child’s environment, including their access to the basic conditions for good health. That’s why our work continues to focus on ensuring that children can access essential services, not only through policy shifts and #glocal commitments, but through the consistent, community-led delivery of interventions that meet them where they are.

To celebrate Children’s Day, our Wellbeing Foundation Africa Kwara Team is leading a Dettol Nigeria Hygiene Quest Walk and WASH-focused outreach, as part of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa–Dettol Hygiene Quest Curricula and Programme, supported by our social impact partners Reckitt. Now in its third year, this structured, evidence-based initiative has reached over 232,000 schoolchildren across Kwara State, Lagos State, and Abuja FCT, nurturing Ambassadors. Through interactive WASH education, the programme equips children with essential hygiene knowledge and behaviours that reduce the spread of infectious diseases, improve sanitation practices, and strengthen health outcomes across homes and communities.

When children understand how to protect themselves and others from illness, they become agents of change, not only in their own lives, but in the environments around them. These are the kinds of early, preventive interventions that contribute to stronger health systems and reduce future vulnerabilities across generations.

As we mark Children’s Day 2025, I extend my appreciation to the dedicated WBFA DHQ school nurse-visitors, coaches and educators, midwives, caregivers, programme officers, and policymakers who work each day to advance the wellbeing of children. Most importantly, I honour the children themselves, whose participation, learning, and leadership remind us that they are not simply beneficiaries of development, but vital partners in progress.