Проект Lluvia Health помогает детям с нарушениями развития ходить самостоятельно

At Gbagada General Hospital in Lagos, a young girl named Sherifat arrived at Lluvia Health’s play and psychosocial support hub unable to walk independently. During her visit, she became interested in toys placed on another shelf. She wanted to get closer to them and, as she moved towards the shelf, she was able to do so on her own with noticeably less difficulty than when she arrived. For a child who had struggled to walk independently, those few steps carried far more weight than the short distance she covered. Lluvia Health has since supported hundreds of paediatric patients through its Play and Thrive Project, a service innovation that uses therapeutic play and psychosocial support to improve the care experience for children, including those dealing with chronic health conditions or developmental challenges. The project is also one of five solutions in the first cohort of the Better Access for Babies and Young Children, B.A.B.Y. Scale Accelerator. Launched in April 2026, the B.A.B.Y. Scale Accelerator focuses on improving total wellbeing for babies and young children by supporting solutions around early childhood development, healthcare financing, maternal wellbeing, psychosocial care and access to quality care. For Lluvia, the challenge is taking a model that is already helping children in one place and finding a way for it to reach more hospitals, schools and communities. The other three solutions in the group include VitaBRIDGE Technologies, which tackles the cost of healthcare and is working to make healthcare financing and insurance easier to access for underserved Nigerians. If the model can grow further, it could help more families get the care they need anywhere without cost being the first barrier. MamaSafe AI in Kenya, which works on gaps in maternal and primary healthcare. The platform supports care and follow-up for mothers, with the hope of making health support easier to continue after a hospital or clinic visit. JoyeDapp, which focuses on women before, during and after childbirth, with special attention to maternal mental health and postpartum depression. Its technology helps mothers get support at times when timely care and guidance can make a real difference. OASIS by DAWN AI STUDY is the fifth solution. It works on gaps that can delay support for neurodivergent babies and young children. It uses technology to help families and professionals diagnose and understand developmental needs earlier and provide the right support. Together, the five solutions show the range of problems the accelerator has chosen to work with. They also reflect a broader idea behind the programme that innovation in Africa does not always have to begin and end with technology. The B.A.B.Y. Scale Accelerator is part of Innovate2Scale initiative of Ade Adeks Global Consulting. The lab focuses on helping useful ideas and solutions move beyond small pilots so they can be affordable and accessible to more people. That focus comes from a familiar weakness in Africa’s innovation ecosystem. The continent has spent years building a pipeline of entrepreneurs and new solutions through incubators, hubs and accelerator programmes. Many have produced good solutions. However, the harder stage often comes when an innovation has to move beyond early reach to make it more accessible and affordable to people who need it. According to Ade Adeks Global Consulting, the B.A.B.Y. Scale Accelerator was created to close that gap. Its model places attention on scale acceleration itself, not simply an assessment of an organisation’s readiness to grow. Adebayo Adekola, Managing Director of Ade Adeks Global Consulting, said the programme was created to change the way innovation programmes work in Africa. “The B.A.B.Y Scale Accelerator stems from a need to redefine the business model for innovation programmes in Africa. It seeks to build a value chain of what we call ‘scalepreneurs’ who are taking proven products and services to scale, making them more affordable, accessible and impactful for the communities they serve,” Adebayo said. Proof of progress is an important part of the programme. The accelerator looks beyond taking part in a programme. It pays attention to whether a solution is reaching more people, building useful partnerships and finding people who are willing to pay for what it offers. This makes it easier to see if the solution is truly growing. The programme is also trying to move away from one-time intervention. Innovators often leave incubator and accelerator programmes with better knowledge but still face the difficult work of translating to real world practice when faced with business challenges. B.A.B.Y. Scale is built around a support system that continues to respond to them as new problems come up. Its approach to value chains pushes the model further. The thinking is that building a good product is not always enough to take an innovation to scale. The surrounding relationships also have to work, particularly where adoption depends on institutions, strategic partners, supportive policies, regulation or access to new markets. This is where Adebayo idea of the “scalepreneur” becomes relevant. The term describes innovators whose work has moved beyond proving that a product or service can function and into the more difficult task of making that solution accessible to a much larger group of people. The B.A.B.Y. Scale Accelerator also takes a wider view of innovation. While some of the solutions use technology, the programme also sees innovation as finding better ways to solve problems and make services, business model, financing and frugal innovations work for more people. Behind the B.A.B.Y. Scale Accelerator is Innovate2Scale platform through which Ade Adeks Global Consulting supports African solutions from small pilots to impact at scale. B.A.B.Y. Scale is one of the initiatives under the platform, other initiatives include the Kirakira Africa Collective and We-Scale, which all focus on different parts of the challenge of helping African solutions scale with the future in mind. Ade Adeks Global Consulting, which houses Innovate2Scale Platform and the initiatives under it, works across international development, innovation consulting, entrepreneurship and economic development. Its Managing Director, Adebayo Adekola, brings more than 20 years of experience across programmes, development, partnerships and systems strengthening across health, youth development, financing, education, gender, climate, nutrition, humanitarian action and supply chains including policy and ecosystem development. For the B.A.B.Y. Scale Accelerator, that wider experience is being used to support the five solutions as they move towards their next stage of growth. Since the programme began in April 2026, the first group of innovators has been working through the stories behind their solutions, shaping their models with the Scale Acceleration Index and what they need to enhance scalability. The programme is also bringing in people and organisations that can support that growth through useful knowledge, ecosystem connections and access to new markets. The goal is to give the five solutions support that can continue as they grow, instead of ending with a short accelerator programme. It is still the first cohort, so the real test will be what happens as these five solutions continue to grow and move into more communities. As Africa’s innovation system looks for better ways to move useful ideas beyond the pilot stage, the B.A.B.Y. Scale Accelerator continues to help these solutions move beyond a few people or places so that their impact can reach many more communities across Africa. Sherifat’s experience at Gbagada General Hospital is one example of what can happen when the right solution is connected with the right person and ecosystem. Across the other solutions, mothers, girls, children and families are also at the centre of the work. Website: www.adeadeksconsulting.com Innovate2Scale Platform Socials Linkedin: Ade Adeks Global Consulting Limited: Overview | LinkedIn Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/19GjYruSSJ/?mibextid=wwXIfr Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adeadeksglobalconsulting?igsh=Nnd3ZmQ0eXVuNHFu&utm_source=qr X: https://x.com/adeadeks56297?s=11