Passion for community development
Apart from the family unit, the community is the most important unit of the society. If it fails, the nation will eventually fail. Every community has its unique set of ideals, beliefs, culture and aspirations; and for government to be effective, policies and programs must be felt at the community level. In most cases, the government either due to limited resources or lack of political will might not be able to solve all the problems at the community level, hence visionaries with a passion for service and societal development take on community development projects in order to collectively generate solutions to common problems that we face.
As an individual, I do not have the capacity to solve all the problems faced by the nation but with the dedication and commitment of thousands of other young, vibrant and dynamic individuals with whom I have a shared vision, we can develop our communities and eventually influence national development.
Reason for slum 2 school and success story
I am of the opinion that as young people we must not just sit back, complain and criticize the government, our roles as active citizens should also be backed by action in creating a better society. I have been involved in so many developmental projects right from my teenage years. However, during my national youth service program in 2012, I discovered that there was too many negative news about Nigeria and Africa; negative stories about dying, impoverished and out-of-school children all over CNN. One day I watched a report about the state of our education and learnt that Nigeria had over 10 million out-of-school children which were over 30% of the global figure. This planted a seed in my heart which at the time I had no idea was there, but as time passed I began to notice that there were a lot of children hawking and doing menial jobs on the street instead of in school and I was deeply bothered, but I couldn’t get away from the discomfort that this new realization about my environment gave me. I tried to forget what I had come to know without success until one evening, I was on the 3rd mainland bridge, in a huge traffic; I noticed the community sitting on the lagoon called Makoko. The traffic was really slow which enabled me take some pictures, but that wasn’t enough. I love the uniqueness of the community, it was so different from the normal as all the houses stood on the water and the only means of transportation was by canoes.
Some days later, out of curiosity I found my way into the community to see for myself what happened in the smoking huts and to my greatest shock I was faced with the reality that I had watched for months. I saw thousands of little children without clothes littered everywhere; children who should be in school but were not. It was too sad to behold, that day birthed the decision to resign from the bank and try to solve some of their problems which at that moment I wasn’t sure of how I would do it. It was a very huge and challenging decision but to cut the long story short that was how Slum2School Africa came to be.
Looking back, we have had so many success stories in 4 years. We have over 700 beneficiaries from Makoko community under our scholarship program and we have provided them with a standard E-Library with over 6500 books, a computer development center which has been adopted by the Lagos state education board and is being used by over 20 primary schools. We have also set up a sick bay for about 3000 children and a standard Early childhood development center. These facilities also have staff/volunteers who manage the daily operations. Our presence has not only been limited to Makoko community, we have reached out to over 11,000 children across 15 communities and IDP camps in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Kaduna and Borno states. We have organized campaigns across 15 countries and attracted thousands of online feedback.
One of our major success stories is the fact that we are a volunteer driven organization and since 2012 we have worked with over 5000 volunteers from 25 countries on several projects and campaigns.
Challenges in running S2S
One thing about such a journey is that one can hardly envisage some of the challenges that might be encountered. It has been such an amazing journey; all the eight core stages of our integral operational strategy have their unique challenges. You have to advocate, convince, threaten and even force some caregivers to allow their children go to school. There is ensuring that the schools are conducive and equipped enough for the children to learn. Then the issue of funds, sourcing for funds to support the children in schools and provide their school supplies and fees is not an easy task. Imagine when there are 3 children in school, the challenges are both tasking and educative in the sense that with each challenge that the organization overcomes, we learn a new way of doing things. We have hundreds of children, each new day/week brings new challenges, one or two may fall ill, some won’t attend school due to family challenges, others may need to replace their uniforms, etc. all these are issues that we need to respond to in order to ensure that our impact is sustained.
But the beauty of the journey is in the results that we achieve. I always tell young people that every process has its price and we must be willing to go through the pain to achieve the promise.
How government can intervene
One thing we have realized is that the government cannot solve all the social problems by itself. One critical success factor for any government is building and inclusive governance system where individuals and communities see themselves as critical stakeholders and not just as benefactors. I believe that there are so many social enterprises and developmental organisations doing a whole lot and creating so much impact with limited resources. So I think that the government should: Create an enabling environment for such organizations to thrive. And in doing this facilitate access to information, data, agencies and leaders, boost incentives to encourage corporate organizations to invest in and support such organizations hence building the social capital of the state as well as achieving their social responsibilities, facilitate the development of a structured coalition of such organizations to enable an efficient tracking, collaboration and progress evaluation framework and assign a particular percentage of the budget for such work which in turn will enhance productivity and boost development at a much lesser cost.
What is next for S2S?
As an organisation we have short, medium and long term goals. However, our goal eventually is to reach out to every community and every disadvantaged child across Africa.
We plan to give many young people an opportunity and the best platform to volunteer in creating and building the society they desire.
Over the next few years we plan to build a structured presence and impact across all regions of Nigeria and in two major countries in the West African region.
How NGOs get support for their projects
Personal funding, family and friends, corporate funding and return on investments are ways through which NGOs get support but most importantly when the impact can speak for itself, it will be easy to attract more support once people can see that you are really adding value to the society.
Volunteers who help in running S2S
Our model is majorly a volunteer driven one. We provide a platform for young people to create solutions to the most challenging social issues, so we have a structure that provides carefully selected volunteers with over 40 different teams to actively participate. From Human resources, to children management, to administration and photography, to media/ communications, research and partnership management, fundraising and legal, etc, every volunteer is actively engaged for over a period of 6months to 1year, doing what they love to do and in turn impacting the community at large. They can always renew their volunteer status and even become part of the management team or management support team.
Advice to the youths even in trying times like this
The world’s greatest towers usually come with the strongest foundations, so does the tallest trees with the deepest roots. It takes time to build a strong foundation and whilst doing that someone would have completed several bungalows and duplexes. In most cases it could look like the builders of the towers are not serious, however they are deep beneath the earth building strong foundations that cannot yet be seen. However someday it becomes visible and stands high up in the sky. We must spend our youthful age building strong foundations. You can either decide to build bungalows or towers. Great things don’t come easy and usually comes disguised as challenges. Don’t give up because where there are challenges there are also opportunities. The nights have to get very dark before the morning breaks.
KEMI AJUMOBI
Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date
Open In Whatsapp
