Country of Residence
Nigeria
Age
19
Project title
Leadvocacy for Utopia
Project Summary: Describe your project in one sentence
Leadvocacy for Utopia is a youth led network that believes that a utopian society begins with a utopian mindset, and so, we focus on raising young leaders to champion causes they are passionate about through our leadvocacy clubs where students learn about becoming leaders and changemakers.
Website URL(s) or social media handles.
https://www.instagram.com/leadvocacy?stkn=MXVlMGt4ZGdmbTBiMQ==
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)
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?
In 2024, I volunteered full time as a teacher for a year. During that period, I had the opportunity to create and establish an environmental storytelling club at the school where I taught. At first, it was just a movement to get the kids to learn about the environment and how to use storytelling to become environmental stewards. Later on, it became something that made the kids much more curious about the problems around them and how they can help tackle it. One standout story is the one of 11 years old Ese. During one of our club sessions where I was teaching about whales and how our environmental actions are affecting them, he said he wanted to help save whales. He brought up the idea of a plastic pollution campaign, and convinced his classmates to want to participate too. They came to me with the idea and we worked to bring it to life. During the plastic pollution campaign clean up walk, I watched these young students speak to peers and even adults about how plastics are harming our environment. That was when it hit me that every young person regardless of who they are and where they are from can lead the change. All they need is the right knowledge, tools, and resources to make it happen. This is why Leadvocacy for Utopia exists; to nurture these young minds to believe in their voice and ideas, and to help build by leading and advocating for the Utopia we desire.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve? Why does it matter to you and your community?
Leadvocacy for Utopia believes that a utopian society begins with a utopian mindset. That is, to build the utopia we desire, we must first help every person regardless of who they are, to first embody a utopian mindset – one that believes in equality, access, knowledge, growth, and opportunity for all. Unfortunately, a lot of young people, especially from low income and underserved communities do not have access to the tools, resources, and knowledge required to be leaders and changemakers of the utopian drive. Due to this, many communities are unable to develop change leaders that will lead and advocate for a better community, and in turn, a better world. It is very important to me for young people to have access to this knowledge, especially as someone who came from a low income, underserved community, who knew what it felt like to not have access. Every person deserves access to a better life, and I believe it is not just important to help them live it, but for them to also be the leaders that make the change possible.
Your Solution: How are you solving this problem? Share your specific solution.
Leadvocacy for Utopia believes in the power of young people to create change in their communities. So we provide access to resources, tools, and knowledge for young people to become leaders and changemakers. We do this by creating leadvocacy clubs in primary and secondary school where we run intensive 8 weeks program on Leadership and Advocacy. This 8 weeks long program is guided by a well curated curriculum from SDG experts and researchers. During the 8 weeks program, we also use practical means to teach this young people about leadership; from debates, essay writing, and even students presentation. By the end of the program, students in the club are expected to develop and lead their own social impact initiatives in their school and community. So far, students have led plastic pollution campaigns, health awareness and sensitization talks, school clean ups etc We also use books as a means to inspire these young people to become leaders. As the popular saying goes, “Readers are leaders.” We believe that books have a powerful way of inspiring people to dream and experience different lives. So we create library resources for students in our club, so they have access to a wide range of inspiring books to help shape their mindset. Beyond our club activities, we also believe in the power of social media and digital storytelling. Through our social media, we share posts that aim to inspire young people, beyond our clubs and classrooms, to also take up changemaking. To see leadership not as something that is very far away, but as something that can be done, regardless of who we are and where we are from, and all that we need is the right knowledge, and leadvocacy for Utopia is there to guide our audience on that path.
Impact: How has your project created impact / made a difference so far? Or, if at an early stage, what will impact look like?
So far, Leadvocacy for Utopia has created Leadvocacy clubs in 9 schools across 4 Nigerian states including Bayelsa, Kogi, Borno, and Lagos states reaching 300+ students who have undergone intensive leadership training with a means to lead their own social impact initiatives. Through these clubs, students have led plastic pollution campaigns, health awareness and sensitization talks, clean ups, book drives etc Leadvocacy for Utopia has also been able to distribute 100+ books across our clubs to help inspire students to not just become knowledgeable through literature, but to also use it as a means of taking initiative. Despite our focus being on young people in primary and secondary schools, leadvocacy has also helped pushed youth leadership through our volunteer network with members cutting across 10+ Nigerian states and countries including Iraq, India, Canada, and the United States of America. Our social media has also been a tool of impact as we continue to tell stories that inspire people to lead change through which we also collaborated with UNICEF’s U-Report on a social media campaign to talk about climate and environmental stewardship. Beyond the numbers, Leadocacy’s major impact lies in the people we continue to reach, whose mindset shift goes from just being students to students who actually lead.
Your Innovation: What is different about your project compared to other programs or solutions already out there? How is your project new or innovative?
For many social impact initiatives, they often times focus on solving on particular problem, mostly relating to the sustainable development goals (SDG), but Leadvocacy for Utopia focuses on raising leaders who identify these problems on their own, and proffer solutions to them. We realize that problem solving cannot be done alone, and so we push towards ensuring that we lead the everyone a ChangeMaker movement as the more people we have in the changemaking space, the more collective impact. Beyond the difference in what we do, another unique thing about Leadvocacy thing is that we use a club model instead of an outreach model to inspire youth leadership. Instead of just going to a school to speak to students, we make it a long term thing, where we create a club, and have sessions with the students every week for 8 weeks. Even after this duration, we still have a post mentorship program ensuring sustainability. The clubs exists even after the 8 weeks with a student-president led model, and we still offer mentorship for the students were needed. Another thing is our use of books to inspire change. For many other projects, books are mainly stationary equipments, but with leadvocacy for Utopia, we curate books with specific themes, that when read by our students during the 8 weeks training, inspire them to take initiative and lead the change.
How many people are on your team?
5
Your team: What role(s) do your team members play? How do you share leadership with them?
1. Ebipa David Ikpilifu - Founder and Executive Director: Oversees all organizational activity 2. Ebikonboere Faith Clement - Strategy and Operations lead: develops organization strategy, and heads operations 3. Helen Joy - Creative/Design Lead: leads all organizational creative design. 4. Ayebabebara Teilanyo-Diri - Liaison Officer: Oversees organization partnership with schools and corps. 5. Ebiowo Levi - Team Advisor: Provide mentorship advice where needed.
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.
While the leadvocacy club is our core activity, we are looking at expanding by creating a Lead a class for a day campaign. This is a campaign where people from different parts of the world can volunteer to take charge of a school classroom for a day. During this time, students will undergo leadership training alongside fun activities that will help them gain insight on what changemaking is all about. This program aims to take students out of their usual classroom curriculum for a full day and replace it with something fun, yet impactful, led by young leaders who see the world from a different lens. We are also looking at starting a yearly summer camp in our founder state. A chance for students across different regions to reside and learn about leadership, collaborate on projects, and most importantly, have fun while doing it. For these initiatives, we will first start by building partnerships with local schools and government ministries and agencies. Then we’ll move further to building the required volunteer network, and also push for partner led resource funding.
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.
How main means of encouraging people to join our project and learn about it is through our social media. We post information about our work and how we do it, and also put out openings for participation where and when necessary. Beyond social media, another effective way people learn about how work is through the people who lead it. Leaders and volunteers at leadvocacy for Utopia champion our vision and this is visible through our personal social media accounts and also the experiences and journeys we share with peers. So far, we have a volunteer network with over 50 members across 10 states in Nigeria, and also other countries like Iraq, India, Canada, and the United States of America. We are also currently building a leadvocacy network that will host young people from across different backgrounds who want to join in leading the change. Through this network, we will share opportunities, host webinars, and share insights to a larger community of young people on being leaders.
