Raphael James is a man of many parts. An exceptional social entrepreneur, the Abia State-born academic has written 53 manuscripts and published 23 books.
He is a graduate of Psychology from Ondo State University, Ado-Ekiti, and holds a certificate in
Conflict Resolution from California State University. He is founder and director-general of the Centre for Research, Information Management and Media (CRIMMD), an institution that runs free public library and free skills programmes for women.
He has received 113 awards from across the world, including the UK, the USA, China, and Spain.
James has received commendations from former USA President Bill Clinton, Queen Elizabeth of England, and, recently, President Barack Obama.
The education entrepreneur has served as registrar of African Institute of Entrepreneurship, Lagos, and has visited over 31 states since March 2015, when he commenced educational tours targeted at documenting historic and tourist sites in Nigeria.
He explains that the idea of the institute started while he worked in the presidency under General Sani Abacha in 1996. He once told his colleagues that Nigeria’s problem was lack of proper documentation. He tried to set up a documentation centre in his office then, but this did not work out.
He eventually started CRIMMD in 2003.
“At CRIMMD, we manage information; media and political research; biographical and autobiographical writings; documentations, exhibitions and script editing. We are a non-political, non-governmental, non-profit making but standard research developmental institution,” he tells Start-Up Digest.
He says CRIMMD reaches out to the public through participations in seminars, workshops, publications, conferences, excursions, humanitarian services, courtesy visits and awards presentations to deserving Nigerians.
“We run the richest photo museum on Nigeria’s history in Nigeria with over 36, 000 photos,” he discloses.
He explains that in less than one year of existence, CRIMMD donated a free public library to the Ejigbo community, in its effort to empower the youth.
James runs a free skills acquisition center for women, which started in February 2016.
By end of February 2019, he had trained 5,034 women free of charge in different vocations.
“I started the centre after I had a funny experience of a lady who had visited me for financial help but offered her body for sex in order to feed her kids,” he recalls.
“The lady was a widow who claimed that after her husband’s death almost all his friends slept with her before they could offer financial
help. So I wondered how many other women were going through such ordeal and decided that the only way to help was to set up a place where I can help by encouraging them to
learn a skill and be equipped for the challenges ahead in life if the unexpected should happen to them,” he explains.
In February 2016, the centre started with five sewing machines, four laptops and one computer desktop, for computer training, and some catering equipment.
He later convinced his wife Princess Folasade to join him in the project.
His women skill acquisition centre trains women and the girl-child on tailoring/fashion designing, computer training, bead-making, and soap-making, among others.
Initially, he made it strictly for married women and widows and provided teaching equipment and materials for practical, free. But the programme now accommodates spinsters and the girl-child.
Since 2017, his ‘Free Skill Acquisition Training Center for Women’ team visit schools to train girls and have visited 17 secondary schools for skill training programmes to empower the girl-child and the women.
He was voted as the Most Reliable Man in Africa in 2016 by a Chinese company— SDLG— and was awarded a cash prize of $1000 for the skills centre.
“So far all the funding is from my private pocket and maybe friends,” he says.
“A Facebook friend of mine, Lola, was so impressed with what I do that she sent me N50, 000 last year. I am not a rich guy in Nigerian standard, but I am open for assistance because I know if I get sponsors I will do more,” he states.
When asked how much N10 million can do for his institute, he says, “If we are offered N10 million, we will build more nations. We will train more women, more girls. We will visit more schools and empower them to start their own business, which we shall monitor on regular basis to help them grow.”
He says his centre has massive plots of land to build CRIMMD structure, which will be a stopover for information management and historical documentation.
For him, the only major challenge he faces is lack of funds.
He admonishes that skills acquisition should be introduced in higher institutions across the country.
“Look at China today taking over the world in practically all human endeavours,” he references. “Universities should stop teaching us 1950 theories in 2019. We need more practical and more skills in Nigeria and even Africa,” he says.
He adds that being an entrepreneur in Nigeria gives him a sense of fulfillment, knowing that he is an employer of labour.
ODINAKA ANUDU
