Age
15
Country of Residence
Nigeria
Founding Story: What was the spark that led you to start your project? What was the "Aha!" moment that led you to get started and see the potential for this to succeed?
I was deeply motivated and desired to start this initiative from a humble beginning having seen how talented youths in my community could not attend school or get involved in useful ventures that would make their lives better through education and entrepreneurship. Moreover, most of our youths, girls and women in rural communities are denied of so many privileges and opportunities due to traditional practices, gender bias, poverty, domestic violence, little or no development presence. As a growing teenager, i have always observed my father contributing to community development work which also motivated me out of passion to mobilize my peers through my organization to help other youths, girls and women in rural and hard-to-reach communities through the generous support from philanthropist, freewill donations, youth groups and membership contribution to provide immediate assistance to distress youths and organize socioeconomic development, extramural classes, personal hygiene, entrepreneurship workshop and seminars to communities during holidays. Through these campaigns, a lot of boys and girls have gone back to complete their school who otherwise wouldn't have continue their education. Rural women who lived in abject poverty had started local agribusinesses which had improved their personal and family income. With funding we will reach more communities in our region.
How do you encourage other people to join your project or learn about the problem you’re working on? If you have a new idea, tell us how you will do this in the future.
The people see the impact of our solution; we reach out to them and discuss our missions with them to end vulnerable youths, boys and girls in our community and rural areas who don't attend schools and not engaged in any gainful ventures. The women too, in villages suffer economic hardships, poverty, hunger, domestic and gender violence. Hence, our goal is to boost education and increase enrolment of youths, boys, girls, and women emancipation. As they see the evidence of our impact, and positive output, majority of people and teenagers will be attracted to join our team, especially young adults and peers. We also dedicate some period during holidays to organize sensitization meetings, community advocacy, and media discussions to create awareness on the concept of our solution to the communities and the citizens. Evidence-based speak louder than words to garner supports.
How many people are on your team?
9
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
Currently, about 20 youths from disadvantaged families return to school, 5 vulnerable children enrolled to school, 8 orphans assisted for self-reliance, more than 20, 000 persons benefited from our entrepreneurship and economic empowerment workshops and health seminars. Advocacy visits had been done to government executives to extend development index to high burden vulnerable communities through provision of clean water, schools and hospitals to improve livelihood for better living. It's our believe that as funding improves, we hope to reach out to 30,000 youths and children, empower, 18,000 women, 6,000 girls and rehabilitates 15 communities with a population of 250,000.
Project Category
My project is an existing project that I started
Project Stage
Growth (We’ve moved past the very first activities and are beginning to have consistent weekly or monthly impact)
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
My organization provides economic empowerment and health for youths and women in rural and hard-to-reach communities, with priorities to mental health, economic and social rehabilitation for disadvantaged youths and women who had little or no access to self-development due to poverty, traditional and gender imbalance.
Project title
Economic empowerment and health for youths and women in rural and hard-to-reach communities
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Majority of youths, boys and girls in my community and those in rural and hard-to-reach communities find it difficult to enroll in school, complete their education or involve in gainful ventures that will bring them self-socioeconomic development and self-determination. Women and girls too in rural communities goes through hardships due to traditional beliefs, gender imbalance, poverty, disease and a lot of social issues. They are denied right to own properties, and girls not allowed to attend higher schools, rather goes for dictated marriage. In our model, we create social awareness to communities, support return to school for boys and girls, advocacy to community stakeholders, organize entrepreneurship workshop for women and girls in local agribusinesses, health and hygiene education. I am deeply motivated to address these long-term monsters which had denied talented boys and girls in our communities the opportunities to reach their potentials and to contribute meaningfully to family and community development through access to education and entrepreneurship innovations. Women and girls suffer gender-based violence, domestic and negative beliefs which predispose them to oppression, frustration, divorce and mental retardation.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
NA
What’s Next: What are the next steps you plan to take to grow or strengthen your project over the next year? If your project is still in the idea stage, describe the steps you will take over the next three months to launch or begin developing it.
The introduction of community-based integrated implementation team to support our model is a grassroot approach towards promoting continuity when we exit. The team has the responsibilities of fund raising, system development, logistics and monitoring and evaluation which are critical elements for community ownership and sustainability. Our organization acknowledged the contribution of members of the community, the civil society groups, government, philanthropist and the NGO's who were involve in the design, planning and implementation of the project to targeted communities. The engagement of community ambassadors, traditional leaders, community voluntary lay persons (cvlp's), and the community integrated implementation team are strong network to report incidences and to raise alarm when emerging challenges occur from the community to seek redress. To optimize funding gaps our organization initiated monthly contribution from registered members to cover for minor logistics. The Bauchi State Ministry of Health and Social Welfare had given us the permission to use its available facilities and ad-hoc staff when the need arises.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
Our community-based ownership approach given us better advantage over project acceptance and compliance. Involving the community stakeholders, government, civil society groups, NGOs earlier in the design, planning and implementation gave us better placement over envisaged challenges. Our community ownership and revenue drive through membership contribution, freewill donations, support from philanthropist, friends and well-wishers give us a sense of financial backing to continue with our activities when we exit the community, yet the program continued. Also, our proposal suggests the siting of schools, markets, hospitals and access roads in far rural and hard-to-reach communities in collaboration with our team is a milestone towards community sustainability and ownership is innovative, different from many programs which de-exist when the project ends. Ours is completely different which employ digital reporting of happenings in the communities to our team for prompt actions. Involvement of community voluntary lay persons (cvlps), community ambassadors to promptly report incidences of vulnerable issues affecting youths, women and girls from the community through digital platform or text messages to provide us the opportunities for tracking and linkage for timely support. This practically reduces the cost of information gathering and networking for prompt response according to our programs for positive outcome.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
We provide interventions to communities through, advocacy, dialogue with stakeholders in targeted communities, organizing outreaches and workshops for youths, women and girls on education, health, fighting poverty and entrepreneurship engagements to enable them to involve in gainful ventures that will improve their socioeconomic status towards contributing to family and community development. In our mandate, we are focused on returning out of school youth to return to school and those of school age to enroll in school. We also pay visit to education secretaries and Local Government Chairman to build schools and health centers in rural and hard-to-reach communities. Our funding comes from generous support from philanthropist, freewill donations, charities and membership contribution to support school dropout youths and girls return to school.
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
S/N Name sex Position/Roles Discipline 1. David Emmanuel Male - Co-founder/ Coordinator 2. Jacob David Sabo Male - Community engagement 3. Suzana Maigari Female - Gender officer 4. Dr Usman Emmanuel Male - Health Advisor 5. Hakuri Manasseh Gorum Male - ICT 6. Mohammed Lawal Ibrahim Male - M&E 7. Marcus Nehemiah Male - Admin 8. Alheri Muri Female - Treasurer 9. Yelkon Masoyi Female - Logistic
