Pictures: Nwuliareads Initiative distributes over 100 literary resources to Students in Lagos, Nigeria

On 20^th July 2017, Nwuliareads Initiative, an education development social enterprise, held a literary outreach at the Department of Art and Industrial Design, Lagos State Polytechnic. Led by its Southwest coordinator, Mutiu Yusuf, the initiative in a chat with students, advised on ways that will see the students read beyond the prescribed texts required of them.

In the words of the coordinator who equally was from the Art background, “a student armed with knowledge of his field and other fields is better off than the student that is only informed about his field. The world has already evolved to the information age where the better informed play more roles than the under-informed and some of these knowledge are hidden in books which can be only be discovered by reading widely and diverse.”

In a way of support, the department Staff Adviser, Mr. Kehinde Adepegba, a writer and an author of many books, urged the students to maintain a vast library and avoid being swept away by the tides of social media.

There was Question and Answers segment where the students and the Nwuliareads team interacted effectively on the wonders of reading. At the end, 100 Literary materials and novels, donated by Nkem Akinsoto with the pen name Myne Whitman, a renowned Nigerian writer, were given to the hundreds of students and lecturers available as a little gesture to encourage their reading culture.

See pictures and the video after cut:

                       
                                            Literary Books distributed to the students

Short Video of the Event:

#iMatterToo Uyo Street Children: Misconception: Street children left homes on their own

One of the misconceptions about street children in some quarters which plays a great role in hindering the necessary attention that street children matters deserve that will spark the engagements and conversations around their issues  is that street children and teens GLADLY abandon their homes and parents on their own to seek refuge in the ‘comfort’ of the streets, thus, they prefer the street life to the comfort of the homes, unbridled freedom to the monitoring and guidance of the parents. 

A street child/teen may appear happy and resilient on the streets, but behind those smiles and struggles is a child neglected by the parents, the government and society; a child unable to be fed, clothed, loved, cared and educated by his/her family, a child orphaned by AIDS, a child maltreated by the family, a child working on the streets to earn and support his/her family. Truth is, there is no child or teenager that will ever prefer the ‘comfort’ of the streets when there is an option of better feeding, shelter, education, love and care, and grooming.

So no! Street children did not choose the streets as their best option, rather the streets became their last option in the face of the challenges they faced with their biological care-givers because the society generally failed to come to their rescue.

Be a light to a street child today. Help show that the world truly cares about street children

Support the #iMatterToo Uyo Street Children project. #Uyostreetkids #streetchildren #identity #beyondaglance

#iMatterToo Uyo Streetchildren campaign: A day in the life of a street child

For a street child, waking up and seeing the sunrise is a normal occurrence which brings no new bust of excitement but realizing that the daily hustle continues. There is no new activity in school to look out for, no new skill to acquire with a set of classmates, no new kind of nutrition at home, no new clothes to wear, or even a bucket of cleaner water to bathe and start the day. There is only now.  The hope of seeing discarded and spoilt eatables of others to eat that morning or being called to run errands and earn stipends.

A day in the life of a street child is a normal day devoid of new training or experience. Sometimes, there is a pop of excitement depending on the mood of the streets; as terrible as it may sound, his/her life existing till the next day depends on the benevolence of the streets, on the unwanted dirts of others and the kindness of random strangers. An unproductive day adds to days, a week to weeks, a month to months, and a year to years, yet, nothing concrete to be called capacity building, nothing to be called a growth that will aid them in any form to earn a legitimate and improve their living lifestyles, away from the coldness and ruggedness of the streets.

You could be the light in making a major shift in the lifestyle of a street child and teen. Reach out to at least one today. They deserve a normal life, education and skills that will empower them for life.

Support #iMatterToo Uyo Street Children Project. Sponsor a street child/teen to have access to education and soft skills. #30streetchildren #Uyostreetkids #beyondaglance 

See the full #iMatterToo Uyo Street Children project campaign video here as Consortium for Street Children supports by retweeting

Consortium for Street Children (CSC), the biggest network of organizations working on street children issues and challenges recently supported this camapign by  retweeting this video instagram link on your twitter handle. See the picture below

Watch the 3 minutes campaign video of #iMatterToo Uyo Streetchildren project below:

#iMatterToo Uyo Street Children Project Press Release

Street children and teens are recognized as growing social problem in cities around the world. One key challenge associated with them is their lack of identity both at the individual and social levels. At the individual level, they are faced with herculean task of personal identity, self-definition, imbibing societal values, setting personal goals, illiteracy and charting ambitions; they are also faced with the challenge of self-esteem which is usually very poor. They do not see themselves beyond their today and most times, do not think about their future and career paths; they are not knowledgeable in how to set SMART life goals which will direct their life ambitions and take them off the streets; they are also not very knowledgeable with entrepreneurship opportunities despite being situational street entrepreneurs with little sales and services they offer in different capacities on the streets, which we believe can be harnessed by equipping them with the proper knowledge of entrepreneurship and exposing them further to entrepreneurial soft skills that will see them prospering their way out of the streets and into the future.

These glaring challenges are what #iMatterToo Uyo Street Children Project intends to address. Thus, the project is a collaborative effort between two young passionate individuals, Benjamin Omin Itu and Chimezie Vivien Anajama, both resident in Uyo, Nigeria, who are willing to go extra mile in helping 30 street children/teens who desire to have positive self-identity, improved self-esteem and capacity, personal grooming, basic literacy development and entrepreneurial soft skills in the city of Uyo, Nigeria, during the first quarter of 2017. This project is expected to kick off with an online crowd-sourcing campaign in the month of January while the execution of project proper begins in February – March 2017 with 8 week-ends workshop classes. Subjects will include: Basic Communication, Arithmetic, Social Etiquette, Goal Mapping, Personal Re-orientation, and Hand Craft.

This idea behind this project is an out-of-box thinking because in the words of the organizers, “though we acknowledge that we lack the capacity to take them off the streets but we can ameliorate their lives, empower them with knowledge and skills and make them to be better even while on the streets.”

Watch the #iMatterToo Campaign video Here

Nwuliareads Initiative organizes Book Reading of Tari's Golden Fleece to the recently rescued street children of ROLIF, Uyo, Nigeria.

Following a successful book donation on January 4th 2017 by the author of Tari's Golden Fleece, Lagos based  Francisca Ogechi Okwulehie, the initiative reached out to the recently rescued street children of Reach Out Life Foundation (ROLIF), Uyo headed by Mr. Frankline Maduka, to organise the first ever book reading of the book in the city, as part of build-up activities for the #iMatterToo Uyo Street Children Project that will kick off sometime in the first quarter of 2017.

In the words of the founder of the initiative, Chimezie Anajama, in her Facebook post:

"Today. I had the opportunity of being the chief reader of Tari's Golden Fleece authored by Francisca Ogechi Okwulehie and teaching the street children and teens recently rescued by Maduka Frankline led Reach Out Life Foundation (ROLIF), Uyo. Those little bursts of excitement and smiles spread across the faces of these kids when i mimicked the voices the character and trying to explain the situation the teenage Tari, the protagonist, found himself. With this character, we discussed social etiquette and societal expectation of the child to his parents. 

Interestingly, to my less expectation, they paid attention, followed the story and answered questions. At least, they know who an aunt or uncle is. lol. One of them told me that Pere were is the mother of Tari, which of course was wrong but i guess that name Pere Were will be famous with them. Thank you Francisca for giving me the permission to read this book to them and the kids and Mr. Frankline for having me around."

Photo credit: Benjamin Omin Itu 

#iMatterToo Uyo Street Children Project Call for volunteers

#iMatterToo Uyo Street Children Project Call for volunteers

·         Are you a humanitarian eager to help humanity solve its problems?

·         Does getting involved in a social cause fascinate you?

·         Do the plight and helplessness of street children hurt you?

·         Are you willing to be part of a project that will attempt to address the challenges of street children?

·         Do you want a better future for orphaned and vulnerable children living on the streets?

If the answers are all YES, then consider being a volunteer for this project.

#iMatterToo Uyo Street children Project is a collaborative effort between two young passionate individuals, Benjamin Omin Itu and Chimezie Vivien Anajama, both resident in Uyo, Nigeria, who are willing to go extra mile in helping 30 street children/teens that desire to have positive self-identity, improved self-esteem and capacity building, grooming, basic literacy development and entrepreneurial softskills in the city of Uyo, Nigeria, to be trained during the first quarter of 2017. The organizers have recognized that their efforts alone cannot make this project successful, thus they are reaching out to individuals willing to be part of the project during the online crowd-sourcing campaign and the actual implementation of the project after the crowd-sourcing.  Therefore, there are 2 categories of volunteers – online and offline.

Online volunteer requirement:

Interested person should send his/her email address to imattertoostreetchildren@gmail.com or reply by typing his/her email address in the comment box of this post.

Job Description:

Help to raise awareness about the issues of street children, with special focus on Nigeria, and the messages of the campaign by helping to circulate the crowd-sourcing campaign posts that will be sent to his/her email address on his/her various social media platforms for the period the online crowd-sourcing campaign will run.

Offline Volunteer Requirements:

Interested individual should be a resident of Uyo, Nigeria.

He/She should in two paragraphs introduce himself/herself including his/her Whatsapp number and state reason(s) he/she wants to volunteer apart from the above stated introduction of this post via sending an email to imattertoostreetchildren@gmail.com titled “iMatterToo offline volunteer”.

The person should be specific about the location of his/her place of residence in Uyo, Nigeria.

N.B: The first 16 emails that met the above requirements for offline volunteering shall be selected and further contact will be made.