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!