Story of a lady Painter cum tiler!

Nwabueze Eucharia, a graduate from department of African and Asian Studies in the University of Portharcourt Rivers state. She is currently doing her NYSC program at Eleme Rivers state. We were opportuned not to just post her pictures but also to have a one on one chat with her to know more about her course. Also we got a picture of her doing 'her thing'.

Hear from the super lady!

What actually inspired you to learn painting and tiling of all skills considering your gender? 
First off, I don't tag any job to a particular gender. If you have interest in anything you can learn it. Today Men do manicure,pedicure,fix hair etc. So there's nothing like man's job or woman's job.

I saw a man doing painting and tiling job,so I picked interest. When they asked us to learn a skill during Skill Acquisition and Enterprise Development(SAED), I decided to go for paint production amidst all others. I had to learn painting and tiling from someone whom i watched doing it. Very profitable and easy to learn.

Anyother thing about you which we need to know?
Well,Aside this I have other skills such as making of hair,disinfectant(which i learnt during seminar) polish,scouring powder(which I learnt in primary school),cake and chin chin(which I learnt from my home economic teacher mother), currently learning how to barb hair.  Right from 2012 I usually do promo jobs to sample and promote drinks and get paid for it, but presently not into that again. I did them to sponsor myself in the university.

How long have you been on this and how much do you make on the average?
Well I just started, so I can only say by the end of next month. Moreso i am not 100% into it brcause of my NYSC primary assignment. I will give it my all once i pass out come March 2017 because it's actually fun and profitable,you don't spend much to do your job,you only go with your work materials that's all.

How much do you charge for your service, let's say painting a room?
Between N2000 and N3000

Why would people patronize you, what makes your work different from others?
I paint patiently! I do my work with great Zeal and my clients get satisfied. Rushed works are usually not durable.

What is your plan regarding your business after youth service?
I will proceed with the business and also have some workers. Already I am making arrangements for that.

What do you aspire to become?
An Enterpreneur, A boss, An owner of a big firm.

Don't you desire a white collar job? If yes,how do you intend to combine both.
It's not bad, working in an office cannot and will never be an obstacle to my aspiration as I will have my workers and a manager.
I will definitely map out a workable plan for that.  At least for a start because I need some money to run my company.

Any current project(s)?
I just got two contracts in Anambra and Rivers. I have already seen a guy to work with.

You have a business plan and registered business name?
I am still working on my plans. As for business or company name,not yet but eventually will whrn the time comes.

You are a multifaceted young lady,
What actually motivates you to do all these?
Money making! I venture into anything profitable and I do many things.

What are your challenges?
Capital to set up the business proper. That is why I might need an office job to raise some funds. Another challenge is getting a trustworthy staffs.

Your word of advise to youths?
Skill acquisition is very important. Whatever profitable and genuine that one has Zeal for,let him/her venture into it, learn,practise and attain perfection. The country is really turning into something else on daily basis,white collar job alone is not enough,start from.somewhere. Successful enterpreneurs like Dangote,Innoson started from from little or nothing. Today their story has changed.

McFochGate: Thank you so much Eucharia,your story has encouraged someone out there. Not everyone will be an Enterpreneur but you know if you have that passion.
You may not have to quit your job,learning a skill pays for the sake of the unforseen.
For further enquiry or patronage about her services please contact us.

Oladayo - The Humanitarian,Entrepreneur...

Can you tell us who you are?

My name is Oladayo Amusan Joseph. I am a 400 level Geography student of Adeyemi College of Education Ondo state.

I am a young dynamic undergraduate Nigerian youth that believes in the development of our dear Nation, that is why i get myself involved in several humanitarian services and organization but aside that up to 15 other organizations that i represent in Africa, Nigeria and my school i also founded an organization for gender equality advocacy, female empowerment and youth employability. The name is Female Leadership Development in Africa (FLD)

What is FLD all about? In my organization as mentioned above, we deal more with empowering young girls especially in high school. We train them on Entrepreneurship, ICT, leadership etc. and we have been able to train 800 young people in the past 2 years.

Currently we are embarking a project to train up a million African young girls in high school on computer and ICT (Public School Students)

Which areas have you covered as regards training? Osun and Ondo State. We have covered 19 Secondary schools in Osun state and also trained the students of Adeyemi college of Education Ondo.

Which computers do you use as Government may not have provided schools with all that? The trainings we have done basically on ICT was on CBT training for students who could not afford charge for trainings for their UTME exam, so we only trained 120 of them and also partnered with Microsoft Nigeria to train 40 students of Adeyemi College of Education on basis and importance of ICT....

So during those trainings we used our laptops with optical mouse.

Do they pay for the training? No, it was all FREE! We don’t charge for our services in as much it is humanitarian and our plan is to train a million African young girls on ICT. There is always a supervisor to check and put the students through the trainings after the general teaching

So how do you maintain the gadgets, any sponsorship, what is your source of fund? No sponsors, we use our pocket money as students

You seem to focus on girls only, why? We focus on girls but do not forget we advocate for gender equality, so we do things for both gender sometimes too because we need tell the males to stop discriminating females too and we work with Youths.

Future plan? We intend to train a million young people on ICT In Africa high school, tackle unemployment as ICT and computer literacy is now an added advantage and also to enable youth come with innovative solutions to Africa's Problems.

We are currently developing a step-by-step syllabus that we believe students should learn in bits and not just heavy things at a time, so if only they can start from MS word and learn just "How to underline a word" in a week and all of them can do that, then we are happy. We want to take them practical because most schools just teach these students parts of a computer and Word Art but not how to do other things that the current contemporary world need. and currently we now have 150 volunteers in 20 African Countries and covering 21 States in Nigeria all ready to help achieve this goal

we want to stimulate the interest of females in ICT and also increase their decreasing population in the word especially Africa

our syllabus will span from Microsoft packages to basic simple coding, effective and positive use of social media, web development and application development. So we do hope to partner with organizations like LEAP Africa, Microsoft, Google, Computer Aid, Tigger, etc. for the smooth execution of the project as we are sure it will have a long way to go in the development of Africa.

Who are your workers? Volunteers or paid staffs? Presently we work with volunteers only.

Alright, so how do you motivate your volunteers?  The Clear vision we have and the capacity building they will be exposed to while on the project teaching them so many lessons and more so we expose them to opportunities in their field for them to know all they do is not a waste. The fact that they are nation builders and put smiles on the faces of students is good for them and more so when sponsors come we do hope to compensate them better.

So they take care of all expenses incurred in the process of executing these tasks? We have been taking care of their logistics earlier but for this project we have programmed it that volunteers/trainers spend little of no cost to carry out their project except the equipment to be used; they will all be done in the nearest places to them.

Are they majorly undergraduates? Our volunteers are more of undergraduates to teach them nation building and being relevant in the society but we do have working class and young graduates too and more so we do hope to work with corps members too.

Who handles the ICT training?  The first course is Microsoft packages and that was the prerequisite for accepting our volunteers , we will just give them few more instructions and we are sure they will all do well but we are in the syllabus designation process now equipping ourselves for the next session when we shall implement and start with the normal school session. We shall also have TOT(Training Of Trainers) for all volunteers in every country, because they will do, and when we move to more technical parts like basic coding then we put out applications for interested expects in the field who cares to help, but we plan to start small.

You guys are really doing a great work, continuously pushing even without sponsorship, “I bet your pocket money for don de cry lol”; don’t mind me. But that’s the truth. “E no easy at all oh”. Sometimes I don’t have a penny to eat. It’s as crazy as that.

What are or has been your challenges so far? In a nutshell My School, commitment of volunteers, Equipment and of course Funds.

So what would you require that it happens so as to help you on this course; Can you also elaborate more on the challenges pinpointed? Our challenges have mainly been that only limited people do believe in the importance of ICT and tech except the real educated people, commitment of volunteers, the fact that i am still a student has limited some of my actions as i need to attend classes and plan for academic success too, coupled with finances, most of our projects need support in term of human, networks, equipment and monetary/financial.

We require the help of ICT experts to help in the designation of the syllabus, we require government and important individuals to help materially and financially, also we require the help of corporate organizations to help with partnership and sponsorship, likewise we want more trainers and volunteers for this work ahead of us.

Have you solicited any sponsorship? No, we have not yet solicited for sponsorship because we believe we must get everything prepared before approaching sponsors.

Do you intend to continue with this after school? What if you get a mega mouth washing job appointment?  Oh, of course it’s my passion, it’s what i live for, to help people and i love it. No Job can take away my passion and more so i have my startup and businesses too so i am not sure any so called "Mega job" can stop or discourage me, it’s what makes me happy. No worker can ever be great than his boss but an entrepreneur could reach anywhere in life

NNPC offer could take you away if it comes, considering the lack of supports entrepreneurs get from government ***smiles**.  I could only do that if i needed to gather some experiences or needed some cash to sponsor a project but nothing can make me leave humanitarian work and I would rather resign if it stops me from living my passion and imparting lives.

McFoch Gate: Wow! I must say. You are really amazing and I trust you will shine beyond sight. A Nice fellow you are and i must appreciate your contribution towards my blog in the course of doing my work as well,we however worked for and with each other.Thank you so much for your time, expositions and for choosing to make a big impact regardless.

To the world, we all are unique, have plans, prospects, read and learn, above all don’t let that dream of making positive change die.

Try to SEE THE BIG PICTURE, share with others and make them see it too, and then work towards it nonstop!

Don’t forget why we are here…Invite us, write to us for mentorship, or share your story with us. You never will tell who is reading and how far it can go in inspiring others, connecting and building a network for your vision.

Join hands with McFoch Gate and build a great legacy as a youth.

Thank You!

Dale the young Nigerian entrepreneur!

Boladale Bada is an entrepreneur. She has an NGO, teaches and also owns a company by name Dale haven. Graduate of Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago-iwoye, department of Geology.

My story: My journey to entrepreneurship started in 2014 after I graduated; I decided to pursue my dreams with the whole of my strength and especially living above excuse. This urge gave birth to NEMP (No excuse motivational plat form) and the movement started in Akure in October 2014.

When I got to NYSC camp, I began to feel greater urge to reach out to more youths. I got an opportunity to speak to my fellow corps members on ‘Excuses’. This won the heart of over 40 colleagues to the drive. I was posted to warri delta, Ogbe secondary school to be precise and my first day in class was dramatic. My students stole my hand bag and this really drove me into action. I organized a conference to enlighten them on “purpose discovery” and from there we started a club (NEMP CLUB)

With the best participant of NEMP "white hands project",Ngozi

NEMP club aims at raising a no-excuse generation of leaders in public secondary schools. This club has helped a lot of students discover their talents and train their minds to aspire success.

May we know your vision in general? My vision is to see a Nigeria where public education system has the same education quality with the private school system. I want to see a Nigeria where there will be no discrimination in public and private school system. I believe the education quality in public school system can still be improved to its maximum, by giving prompt attention to the students and teachers in the system.

How do you intend to achieve this?  I have initiated a project through NEMP to organize free extra moral lessons to students in public schools on English language. This project is called “white hands project”. We have started this in Ogbe secondary school, Effurun, Delta state 5 weeks ago. Last week they wrote a brief exam and the best student was given a ticket to visit a cinema, in delta mall. We made the reward fun to make students understand that success is not boring but can be interesting and motivating. We want to improve the quality of education by giving students the motivation and inspiration they need to succeed.

Can you tell us other projects cum activities you have ventured into? We have also reached out to orphanages through our non-excuse campaign. This we did in October 2015 at little saint’s orphanage Effurun. This program inspired the children in the orphanage home to dream big and see no limit despite the challenges surrounding them.

Members of NEMP club Ogbe sec.schl

October 2015 program at little saints orphanage home

Currently I am a volunteer teacher in Ogbe secondary school delta state and I have taught all classes in the school on English language. My passion for English language arose when I discovered many of them can hardly speak or pronounce English words correctly. I rose to the challenge through my invention, “a self-learning sticker” made specifically to improve learning and reduce academic failure in government schools.

What are your Challenges?  Lack of support! From people around and the school itself. I sponsored most of my project with my ‘allowee’ while I was serving. There was little or no fund for my NGO activities and everyone I meet wants to date me before they support. You see and hear all sorts of things. I rose to this by awakening the entire entrepreneur spirit in me.

How do you get the funds you use currently? Well, we have a few individuals that send donations towards our project.

As a young lady, how do you survive with no income at the moment? My motto is “I have got no excuse for failure” so this has really kept me strong and beautiful in the midst of it all”. I have a very supportive brother who helps. I also clean toilets for houses as mentioned earlier, hoping to move into companies by God’s grace.

In September, I ventured into toilet cleaning business; I started washing toilets for people to support myself and my projects. In the quest for sustainability, I also started a sticker business which evolved to my recent invention. Right now I have invented a learning material that will make learning more accessible, simple, memorable and more fun to students especially the less privileged children that have little or no access to education.

Clean toilets? How do you do it and why toilet of all places?  I noticed that many toilets are unkept, people get lazy when it comes to cleaning it. So I do it and get paid. I visit people in their homes, give out fliers and introduce my business. I use chemicals which I mixed for myself. My inspiration?  I love doing extra ordinary and crazy things; I love to be humble at all time. I want an uncommon niche and I have created one already.

May we know your staff strength?  There is no staff yet, but we have four volunteers working with NEMP. We look forward to employing staffs by June this year for our white hands project.

NEMP conference May 2015

Request? We need support from schools, parents and teachers so we can implement our projects in their school. We also need partnership from our organizations that can sponsor and support our project. Individual and collective support will go a long way in making this vision actualized.  We also need sponsors for our school club project and our white hands project.

McFoch Gate: It is a great pleasure having you. Thanks for your time. We wish you greater success in all your endeavors.

This lady needs support, sponsorship, partnership whatsoever. Please kindly contact me if you want to be of any assist to her towards the actualization of this vision. From her story, she never allowed her lack of incentive; support etc. to stop her from moving towards her dream. She devised means of raising funds to sponsor her project. The visions she has are of paramount importance to her than anything else.

Principle of building is very vital in the life of an entrepreneur. Step by step, little by little, rushing might land one in a debacle. Don’t forget to diversify your efforts and means of raising funds. Be credit worthy if you must borrow, maintain high integrity, and let your yes be yes.

Stop giving excuses,make it work!

Cheers!

Graduate keke napep rider!

It’s never good to look down on people’s hustles; you don’t really know what it means to them.

About him: Williams hails from Anambra State. He is a graduate of Imo state University. He was spotted going about his business for the day inside a 'keke napep tricycle'. His determination, self-driven attitude, ardent passion, humility and sense of humor were all amazing.His poise,good command in English etc. drew us closer to him .

A little chat with him before passengers came on board; he expounded the whole mystery related to his keke napep business. He graduated in 2010, though offered various jobs but his take homes were merely a meager salary. He said his last job with a marketing company here in Abuja, where he worked Monday through Saturday 7.30am to 6pm. His salary was N50, 000 per month and after deducting all expenses he has N10, 000 left as savings. He was also squatting with a friend in a one room apartment. He added that while he was with his former company, he knew what he wanted from life and still had his visions intact despite the limited access and resources.

How he started: He thought of what he could do to help him mobilize funds so as to make his vision a reality. He tried some things which didn’t work out but then “I had to swallow my pride in order to make it; I dropped my certificates, my big boy swag lol and ventured” into keke napep business, he added. I used my little savings and also borrowed from friends to procure the tricycle(all settled now). He plies between kabusa junction and Galadimawa junction Apo Abuja, conveying 4 passengers paying N100 each. This simply implies that he makes N800 on one round trip. Sometimes he does drop services as well which fetches him more money.

How he makes his profit: He fills his tank with N600 and also buys extra in a gallon which costs N1200; eats twice a day which costs N600 also taking cognizance of sundries (airtime, pumping of tire etc.). Total expenses can be estimated for N2000. Working from morning till evening 6pm to be precise, he makes an average of N8000 that is for 10 trips. It can be more if he adds to the trips.

Deducting expenses from the returns will earn him N6000 each day. Working 25days in a month will however earn him N150, 000. He has been doing this for 6 months now and can make bold to say he has his own one bedroom flat apartment.

Future plans: He was so glad he could save good money, invest and currently setting up an IT firm gradually which is his area of expertise.He works monday to friday investing his weekends on courses he's currently running.  He has bought also one keke and employed someone who rides it for him. He intends to leave the keke business as soon as he’s sure he can stand on his own, move in and run his own firm. He wishes to create jobs for helpless youths out there that are in same condition he found himself.

His inspiration: He said God is his first inspiration, then his girlfriend. My family never believed I will make it as I never brought huge amount of money home. She works with a manufacturing company. She motivates me a lot even when I was at that edge. There are times when I don’t have food; she would share hers with me. Always saying, I know you are a star, follow the pathway and never give up. She encouraged me to join this business and has always stood by me. She is so proud of me regardless. God bless her even as we are currently working towards walking down the aisle.

McFoch Gate: Swallow your pride, attempt various options. If option A doesn’t work try B, don’t forget there are still left 24 alphabets. You may not necessarily have to do a keke napep business but you can derive an inspiration therewith. Don’t relax, stop heaping blames, keep thriving, think an idea, act it, live it, love it, execute it, fail, learn, get better and be the best of your kind. However, you can also give the business a try if you so desire.

“A great leader’s courage to fulfill his vision comes from passion, not position” – John Maxwell

The Talented Creative Artist

The Talented Creative Artist

This is a graduate of Sociology in University of Nigeria Nsukka. Hails from Awka Anambra state. 

He is indeed fun to be with. His flair right from childhood lies with Art. His first job at Giddimint was as a result of his talent. A firm that designs prints for T shirts. He also does story boards, TV ads and presentations.

Can you tell us more about you?  I started drawing for as long as I can recall. Art kind of runs in my family, have two elder brothers who are artists, one took it up for a full time profession. He was my first inspiration and encouraged me after he discovered I could draw too. His secondary school friends who love arts made my passion for it grow as I always found myself in their midst.

A little issue, back then nobody valued arts, only Medicine, Accountancy and Law. You will be seen as joke involving yourself with arts, most especially parents who always pushed their children into the recognized courses. However I moved to study sociology in school being the fact that my brother is in Art already.  Yet my passion for it waxed more and more. I met other art lovers like Martin Okonkwo in university who was instrumental to who I am today. His younger brother taught me the principles and rules I missed as a result of not studying art, he still teaches me. He’s my mentor in art. I later discovered I could have gone into fine art to study a different branch of it since my brother majored in painting. I am happy today because what I missed, I learn from great friends and brothers. 

Are you into art full time?  Well the slogan is ‘never stop drawing’.  I like being creative, it fulfills me. Presently am into it full time because it fulfills me and I am still learning. I work with Lineguage studios owned by Chris Okonkwo, it’s a safe haven for digital artists.

How are you working towards it? I am connecting with other artists here. I am with Chris Okonkwo, he taught me 70% of what I know today, he never stops learning, he never stops teaching me.

What is your goal in relation with arts? My goal is to make my drawing walk, come to life. To do that, I have to learn animation. I love imaginative drawing; I want to project our folklore as stories and animated movies too. I have met people who can’t draw but can tell stories, so my job is to bring those stories to life. 

What are your challenges? Well for now the challenge comes mainly from the society. People think art is all about making portraits, painting photography and sculpture.  Art has evolved and graphic art which I major goes into games and animated movies. 

Another challenge is lack of technological resources to pursue it to the extreme. There is no certified institute dedicated to training young graphic artists unlike the western world.

The societal pressure to start work and get married often lead most talented young artist and others to abandon their passion for something else.

In Nigeria, we depend on older cartoons, games and comics. We don’t have animation schools that give people certificates in animation. Most people depend on YouTube video tutorial, that’s if you can afford it.  

With these challenge, how do you intend to achieve the desired?  Alongside the video tutorials, sharing ideas, we also have experienced digital artists and my mentor is one of them.

What exactly is digital art? It involves art done with digital tools, programmes like Photo shop, Corel draw, adobe illustrator after effects, zbrush to name a few.

 

Have you started making money from your talent? The money comes but that’s not my driving force now. If you make it your driving force, you’ll lose the talent. I am making money already. I am working with my talent not my certificate. 

Where do you see yourself in the next one year? Animating my drawings or getting involved in some game production. I see myself doing better than i am now. Most things I know now, I didn’t know them by this time last year- I am growing rapidly!

What’s the plan as relates to Job creation? Well in line with Lineguage studios, we want to expand into game making movie production and animation. This will offer jobs of different kinds to youths such as Administrative, illustrators, computer programmers, sound engineers, legal jobs etc. It is going to be a big one once we go live.

Have you worked anywhere that is not art inclined?  No, strictly art. I started making money off art since secondary school. People come to me to make drawings for them. In university, they ask for party poster, valentine cards, birthday cards, etc. So why look somewhere when God has already given me something better.

Please what is your word of advice to youths out there? Hmm … All I can say is whatever you have, give it all your passion. Brace the storms that will come in the guise of criticisms. It’s all part of the hustle, once you make it, people will adore you.

Your talent will take you places your certificate won’t get you. It’s in the bible, ‘’ a man’s gift maketh way for him’’.  So keep moving no matter what. People like Kelechi Amadi Obi, Don Jazzy, Phyno etc. followed their talents and passion. These guys had it rough and yet followed their dreams. Add value to what you do because the value you attach to it is what people will use to add value to it. Above all, be proud of yourself and your talent.

McFoch Gate: Thank you so much for your time Tochukwu,you have inspired alot of people. Fellow youths, we have heard it all from another talented youth. Kindly contact us if you need his services,whatsoever. It sure pays to pursue one’s dreams as long as you are on the right path. Put your passions to work. Work as if all depends on it. Don’t relent, don’t be discouraged. All you need do is keep pushing.