Safe City is a permanent, fitted-out primary healthcare clinic in Oworoshoki, Lagos. The building was donated by the local community, and Kwanda's funding turned it into a working clinic: renovated, equipped, stocked, and staffed by two salaried nurses. It opened in December 2024 and has not closed since.
AHA Initiative owns the clinic and the fit-out, in a building donated by the local community, which also covers the rent and utilities. The fit-out, the medical equipment and the solar backup power unit are built to last about 10 years.
It costs little to keep open. There is no rent or utilities to pay, partner pharmacies donate medication, and a plastic waste recycling scheme run with the community brings in cash. Nurse salaries and medical supplies are currently grant funded.
Free primary healthcare, every weekday, for anyone who walks through the door.
As at 31 July 2026, Safe City had treated 9,062 people since opening. That is consultations, treatment and medication for infections, malaria and chronic conditions, plus follow-up care from a team patients come to know. The clinic also hands out mosquito nets, menstrual products and health information alongside treatment.
The number that matters most is not the total. It is that roughly two thirds of visits are people coming back. In June 2026, 69% of patients were women.
Why this asset matters here Around 60% of Nigerians are multidimensionally poor and over 40% live on less than $1.90 a day. In that context healthcare is the first thing to go, and the choice between food and medicine is a real one that families make regularly.
Oworoshoki had no free option before Safe City. The clinic was placed where people already live rather than where a health system would draw it on a map, which is why a nurse is now a walk away rather than a bus fare and a lost day's income.
The economics are deliberately lean. The community donated the building and covers rent and utilities, so none of the funding goes on premises. Partnerships with local pharmacies bring periodic donations of medications and supplies. A plastic waste recycling scheme lets community members exchange waste in a way that contributes to running costs.
What remains is roughly $470 a month for two nurses' salaries and medical stock, which Kwanda's funding covers. In February 2026 a solar power unit was installed, so outages no longer stop consultations or take down the electronic medical records.
The clinic has already proved it survives disruption. A staff change in early 2026 caused patient numbers to dip, the clinic stayed open throughout, and by April it had recorded its best month of the year at 398 patients.
Safe City is run by the AHA Initiative, founded by Tolani Yesufu. Tolani returned to Nigeria in 2022 after studying at Harvard Medical School, Columbia Business School and Cornell University, concerned by the scale of health inequality she had watched from a distance, where people were dying of conditions that were straightforward to treat.
She started by working with communities to secure disused buildings, from churches to shopfronts, and turning them into low-cost clinics staffed by local nurses and volunteer doctors. Safe City was the first. AHA Initiative now runs a second clinic in Itire-Surulere.
