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understand why I was insistently inclined towards making this commitment to ensure that hope for every child, especially children living in slums and remote communities, was restored through access to quality education. I quit my job in that moment, shared my vision with some friends and began this journey that has become so much more than just me
or the sum of our increasing stakeholders when put together.
In a little over eight years,
I have seen first hand the power of vision, faith, belief, and collaborative efforts.
From the inspiring stories of our amazing beneficiaries who
have shown relentless pursuit
of their dreams through the opportunities given to them,
to the incredible support of our board, staff, leadership team, volunteers, partners, community leaders, and every other stakeholder, I’ve seen that impossible is nothing. There’s no height that our children cannot reach and there are no barriers we cannot overcome as a team with a clear purpose and transparent process.
Our results as a community/ organization has impacted well over 110,000 beneficiaries across 45 communities
in Nigeria. We’ve directly sponsored 3,060 children into schools, engaged over 10,100 volunteers from across 40 countries, set up one of Africa’s foremost virtual learning studios and currently onboarded 948 children onto this platform
while presently raising funds to support 10,000 children by
the end of 2020. Empowered professional and community based volunteers, set up effective state of the art learning facilities within and outside these communities while advocating for several policy reforms to ensure that we do more for the every child.
Our journey isn’t in any way a thorn-free path. It has been laced with several challenges, setbacks, and much more but I’ve seen a team that has been dauntless in the face of all this. I’ve seen the transformation
of our beneficiaries and communities. We’ve seen individuals, private and public corporations inspired to take positive action in ensuring
that every child has access to quality education and that most importantly, we are able to inform the policies that realise
this. We keep going. We don’t rest on our laurels or stop due
to challenges. There are millions of children in Nigeria and beyond the borders of the country that are waiting on us. This inspires me and the team to keep moving forward.
How do you get people to buy into your vision and convince them to support your initiative?
Otto Orondaam: Our mission is clear, empower children
to realise their greatest potentials through access to quality education, good health care, and a happy community while promoting advocacy, volunteerism, community ownership, private-public- partnership, and informing relevant policies which affect education (the quality) for children. Especially children living in slums and remote communities.
When you are able to make a vision clear, people are able
to see how they fit into the narrative. Generally, reformers arise and key into any vision the moment they understand value alignment. There’s very little (active) convincing to be done as our processes, our brand record, and the impact stories speak
for themselves.
What are three principles that are crucial in developing a well-run NGO?
Otto Orondaam: Clarity of vision that inspires sustainability; Alignment of purpose with
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