News Highlights:
- Indwelt advocates for equitable sickle cell care as Nigeria bears the world’s highest disease burden
- The company links its CSR commitment to personal experiences with employees living with sickle cell disease
As the world commemorates World Sickle Cell Day on June 19, health advocates, caregivers, and affected families are drawing renewed attention to the urgent need for equitable access to care for people living with sickle cell disease, particularly in countries bearing the highest burden of the condition.
This year’s theme, “Closing the Survival Gap: Equity in Sickle Cell Disease,” underscores a critical global challenge: ensuring that a person’s chances of surviving and thriving with sickle cell disease are not determined by where they are born or the resources available to their families.
For Indwelt, the theme resonates deeply. It reflects the lived realities of countless individuals and families whose daily experiences reveal the stark disparities in diagnosis, treatment, and long-term care.
In Nigeria, the conversation is especially significant. The country accounts for the largest number of sickle cell births worldwide, with an estimated 150,000 babies born with the condition every year. Millions more continue to live with the disease into adulthood, navigating a lifetime of health challenges that often remain invisible to the wider public.
Behind these figures are stories of resilience and determination. They are the stories of children, young adults, and families who cope with recurrent pain crises, frequent hospital visits, and the emotional and financial pressures associated with managing a chronic condition. Despite these challenges, many continue to pursue education, careers, family life, and their dreams with remarkable courage.
Some of those people are our colleagues.
Since our inception, we’ve had and still have team members who live with sickle cell. They show up, they create, they pour themselves into the work we’re proud to put our name on, and they do it while carrying something most of us never have to think about.
Our team member with sickle cell put it to us simply: “People see the work I deliver, but they don’t see the days I show up after a night I didn’t think I’d get through. Sickle cell is part of my story, but it isn’t the whole of me; and being a part of an organisation that understands that, supports me and lets me do work I’m proud of continues to make a difference for me. I don’t want sympathy. I want a world that takes this seriously enough to change the odds for the next person.”
Supporting them, through medical interventions and through simply being a workplace that sees them fully, has never felt like a policy or a perk. It’s felt like family looking after family.
That’s where our commitment began. Not in a boardroom, but in the everyday reality of caring for our own.
If you’ve ever asked, this is the reason we’ve chosen to anchor our Corporate Social responsibility around sickle cell, supporting initiatives that improve care, and backing the research working toward a future where this disease no longer steals so many years from so many lives.
We believe the survival gap can close. We’ve seen what changes when someone living with sickle cell is met with the right care, the right understanding, and the right support; they don’t just survive, they thrive. They build, they lead, they make beautiful things. We know this because we work alongside them.
So, our promise is simple: to put our resources, our voice, and our craft behind the people and the science fighting for better outcomes. To keep learning. To keep listening to those who live this reality. And to use whatever reach we have to make sure that, in this country with the world’s heaviest burden, no one feels they’re carrying it alone.
For someone living with sickle cell, care that comes to you and care you can actually afford aren’t luxuries; they’re often the difference between a crisis managed and a crisis survived. We’re proud to walk alongside teams doing that quiet, necessary work.
To anyone living with sickle cell, today and every day, we see your strength, including the kind that doesn’t look like strength, the kind that’s just getting through a hard day and showing up for the next one. You are not your diagnosis. You are not a burden. You are someone we’re honoured to stand beside.
And to everyone reading: you don’t need a CSR budget to make a difference today. Learn what sickle cell really is. Know your genotype. Have the conversation. Give blood if you can. Be gentle with the people around you who may be carrying more than they let on.
Awareness is where compassion begins, and compassion, multiplied, is how survival gaps close.
This World Sickle Cell Day, we’re thinking of our own. And we’re committed to doing our part, not just today, but in all the days that follow.
To our clients, we owe a particular thank you. Every brief you trust us with, every project we build together, every time you choose Indwelt, you are doing more than growing your business.
You are helping fund the care, the awareness, and the research behind this cause. The work we do for you is quietly working for someone living with sickle cell, too. That partnership means more to us than you may realise, and we’re deeply grateful for it.
Awareness is where compassion begins, and compassion, multiplied, is how survival gaps close. This World Sickle Cell Day, we’re thinking of our own. And we’re committed to doing our part, not just today, but in all the days that follow.