In Nigeria, a country with staggering rates of preventable diseases, Declan Okpalaeke is creating a newspaper and online health section to hold Nigerian officials accountable for improving policies.

Knight International Journalism Fellow Declan Okpalaeke, an award-winning health and environmental journalist, is working with reporters and editors at one of Nigeria’s most popular newspapers, This Day , to create multimedia coverage for a new weekly health section. Aimed at reaching millions of tech-savvy young people in Africa’s most populous country, the health journalists will produce stories about deadly diseases and public health policies designed to raise the quality of life.

Okpalaeke also is working to build a network of citizen journalists covering health in the Niger Delta region, an area rich in resources but wracked by severe poverty. The citizen journalists will use mobile phones to send information to media organizations in Lagos, ensuring that coverage of disease outbreaks and other health problems reaches policymakers.