ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2025
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. This year, 60,000+ young leaders applied to join the Class of 2025 on 7,000+ campuses across 170 nations. 290+ campuses worldwide (less than 5%) were selected to host the 4,500+ Millennium Fellows.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT UKEME-ABASI OSOM OKONO, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2025.
University of Uyo | Uyo, Nigeria | Advancing SDG 4, SDG 14 & UNAI 6
" My advocacy for mental health and cancer awareness is fueled by lived experiences and a desire to see well-being treated as essential as physical health. The Millennium Fellowship excites me because it will strengthen my skills, connect me with a global community, and help me scale projects that advance SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being. Through this platform, I aim to turn empathy into action and create healthier, more conscious communities. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: The Ideal Mindscape
We all know how demanding secondary and tertiary school is, from trying to understand what the teachers and lecturers are talking about to doing assignments, to reading and balancing our relationships with our siblings and other family members. The Ideal Mindscape is a project aimed at creating awareness on stress and depression, as factors that lead up to substance abuse among students in secondary and tertiary institutions in Uyo. We plan to educate and sensitize people on the different causes, how to deal with all the stress as people who have been through it in one way or another, and how to seek help. Our main focus is on substance abuse, we aim to expose the down sides, and make people understand how serious this is and the diverse ways they take part without even knowing.
About the Millennium Fellow
Ukeme-Abasi Osom Okono is a committed and globally conscious 200-level Medicine and Surgery student at the University of Uyo, Nigeria. Hailing from Nsit Ubium in Akwa Ibom State and having lived in Eket and Uyo, she embodies both a strong sense of community and a forward-looking vision for global health.
Her advocacy is rooted in a personal mission: to challenge the stigma surrounding mental health and raise awareness about cancer and other health crises. Having seen close friends struggle with mental health challenges, Ukeme-Abasi understands the critical role that psychological well-being plays in a person’s quality of life. This conviction fuels her work in promoting mental health as equally vital to physical health.
Ukeme-Abasi has strengthened her leadership and advocacy skills through her participation in the Orius Mental Health First Aider Program, her role as the program coordinator for NiMSA-UNICEF Uniuyo division, and her active role as a member of the Nigerian Medical Students’ Association (NiMSA) Standing Committee on Professional Health (SCOPH), Mental Health Division. These platforms allow her to engage with health professionals and peers in advancing mental health awareness across Nigeria, with different age groups.
Looking to the future, Ukeme-Abasi aspires to become an influential figure in the medical field, bridging medicine, mindset, and advocacy. Her vision aligns closely with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being, and she hopes to contribute to reshaping conversations around mental health while inspiring healthier communities worldwide.
