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