Adekunle Gold Launches $20,000 Sickle Cell Fund With Pesa to Support Four Organisations in Four Countries
Nigerian music star Adekunle Gold has put his money where his message is. The singer’s foundation, the Adekunle Gold Foundation, has teamed up with global financial platform Pesa to launch a $20,000 initiative that will channel funding directly to four sickle cell organisations working in Nigeria, Canada, Ghana and the United Kingdom.
The programme, tagged “We’re Not Done”, was announced in a statement made available to PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday, and it marks one of the most concrete steps yet in the singer’s long-running campaign to turn sickle cell awareness into practical help for the people who live with the condition every day.
For Adekunle Gold, who has spoken openly about living with sickle cell disease himself, the initiative is personal. It is also deliberately practical: rather than funding another awareness campaign, the money goes to organisations already doing the work on the ground, so that patients, families and carers feel the difference where it matters most.
Four organisations, four countries
The inaugural cycle of “We’re Not Done” will support four beneficiary organisations, one in each of the four countries covered by the programme. In Nigeria, the funding goes to the Sickle Cell Advocacy Management Initiative. In Canada, it goes to Not Just You. In Ghana, the beneficiary is Sickle Life. And in the United Kingdom, the funding supports It Takes A Village.
According to the announcement, the organisations will use the support to expand access to healthcare, strengthen patient support services, improve public education and intensify advocacy campaigns for people affected by sickle cell disease. The funding is also expected to help them build on their existing work and reach more people within the sickle cell community.
The initiative will combine direct funding with activities including wellness support, psychosocial assistance, sickle cell screening, genetic counselling and public awareness, giving the four organisations room to grow programmes that are already running rather than starting from scratch.
Pesa joins the initiative as its programme partner, supporting both the launch and the first cycle of impact. The $20,000 commitment forms part of the financial platform’s fifth-anniversary celebrations, and it is the launch figure for a programme the partners say is designed to keep growing.
“Turning awareness into action”
Announcing the initiative, Adekunle Gold explained that the point of “We’re Not Done” is to move beyond talking about sickle cell disease and start funding the people who are already fighting it.
“We’re Not Done is about turning awareness into action. Incredible organisations are working every day to improve the lives of people living with sickle cell, and together with Pesa, we want to give them more resources to do that work and reach even more people,” the singer said.
In a video announcing the initiative, he drove the point home in even plainer terms. “The fight against sickle cell is bigger than any one person or foundation. There’s still so much work to be done, and so many lives waiting to be changed. We cannot do it alone,” he said. “With PESA’s support, we’re starting with twenty thousand dollars.”
He also explained that the initiative will redistribute donations received by his foundation to organisations carrying out critical work, a model that turns the foundation into a channel for resources rather than a single voice.
Tosin Olaniyi, Pesa’s Head of Global Growth and Marketing, described the partnership as a move to provide tangible support to people affected by sickle cell, rather than symbolic gestures.
Why this fight matters in Nigeria
Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder in which red blood cells, which normally carry oxygen around the body, become rigid and shaped like a sickle or crescent moon. Those misshapen cells can block blood flow, causing severe pain crises, anaemia, infections, organ damage and, in the worst cases, early death.
Nigeria carries the heaviest sickle cell burden anywhere in the world. Health experts estimate that around 150,000 babies are born with sickle cell disease in Nigeria every year, and the country accounts for a large share of the roughly 300,000 babies born with the condition globally each year. For many families, the disease means a lifetime of hospital visits, blood transfusions, medication and the constant fear of a crisis.
That burden is exactly why Adekunle Gold’s advocacy has carried weight. Unlike a celebrity lending his name to a cause from a distance, he has lived with the condition since childhood, and he has spoken about the pain crises, the hospital stays and the stigma that can follow people living with sickle cell. When he talks about the disease, fans listen because they know he understands it from the inside.
The singer first went public about his condition in 2022, revealing that he was born with sickle cell disease and that he had kept it private for years. The disclosure was widely praised, with many Nigerians living with the condition saying it gave them courage to speak about their own experiences. Since then, he has used his platform consistently to push for better care, more awareness and less stigma.
Building on earlier work
“We’re Not Done” is not the Adekunle Gold Foundation’s first intervention. The foundation has previously run medical outreaches and, through its 5 Star Care initiative, provided free health insurance support to 1,000 people living with sickle cell disease in Lagos. The new programme builds on that record, extending the foundation’s reach beyond Nigeria for the first time and into three more countries where African diaspora communities also live with the condition.
The choice of four organisations in four countries is deliberate. Sickle cell disease does not respect borders: it affects people of African, Caribbean, Middle Eastern and South Asian heritage around the world, and diaspora communities in Canada, Ghana and the UK face their own versions of the same challenges, from access to specialist care to public understanding of the condition.
By funding organisations in each of those countries, the initiative recognises that the work is local everywhere it happens. A patient support group in Toronto faces different problems from a clinic in Lagos, but both need resources, and both benefit when a global conversation turns into local funding.
A singer who turned his story into service
Adekunle Gold, born Adekunle Kosoko, rose to fame in the mid-2010s with songs such as “Sade”, “Orente” and “Pick Up”, building a career that has taken him from the Lagos music scene to international stages. Known to fans as AG Baby, he has released a string of successful albums and become one of the most recognisable voices in Afrobeats, collaborating with stars at home and abroad.
He is married to fellow singer Simi, and the couple are one of Nigerian entertainment’s most admired pairs, often collaborating musically and supporting each other’s work in public. But away from the music, Adekunle Gold has steadily built a second reputation as a health advocate, using his fame to draw attention to a condition that affects millions of Nigerians yet still struggles for funding and public understanding.
That second reputation is what makes “We’re Not Done” feel different from a routine celebrity charity announcement. The singer is not asking the public to care about a distant cause. He is asking them to support organisations that are already caring for people like him, and he is putting his foundation’s money behind that ask.
What the funding means on the ground
For the organisations receiving the money, the value of a grant like this is not only in the amount but in the freedom it gives them. Small patient-support groups often run on donations and volunteer time, and a lump sum can mean the difference between cancelling a screening drive and running it, between turning patients away and keeping a helpline open, or between a one-off outreach and a regular programme that families can rely on.
In Nigeria, where many patients pay for care out of pocket, support organisations often step in where the health system falls short, helping families with the cost of drugs, blood transfusions and hospital stays. In Canada, Ghana and the UK, the challenges are different but no less real: patients may struggle to find doctors who understand the condition, to get timely pain relief during a crisis, or to access the specialist clinics that can manage long-term complications.
That is why the initiative’s emphasis on education and advocacy matters as much as the money itself. Sickle cell disease is still misunderstood in many communities, and people living with it often face stigma at school, at work and even in their own families. Campaigns that explain the condition, encourage screening and genetic counselling, and push for better policies can change outcomes for thousands of people long after a single grant is spent.
What happens next
The four beneficiary organisations will now put the funding to work in their own communities, expanding healthcare access, strengthening patient support, improving education and pushing advocacy campaigns. The partners have not yet announced how much each organisation will receive, or when the next funding cycle will open, but the structure of the programme suggests this is a beginning rather than a one-off donation.
For the sickle cell community, the hope is that “We’re Not Done” becomes a model other celebrities and companies can follow: less talk, more funding, and a willingness to back the organisations already doing the hard work. Social media users have already praised the initiative, with many highlighting the importance of celebrity involvement in health advocacy when it comes with real resources attached.
As Adekunle Gold himself put it, the work is not done. But with $20,000 now committed and four organisations backed across four countries, the singer and his partners have given the sickle cell community something more useful than a hashtag: a start.
Source: PREMIUM TIMES, Pulse Nigeria, Legit.ng, The Trumpet