LEAP AFRICA

‘I try to help my students build their self-confidence, to speak up and stand up for their rights’.

These are the words of Chinazo who is worried about the prevalence of teenage pregnancy in her community. Chinazo is one of the fifteen iLEAD Fellows cascading leadership, employability and life skills training in five secondary schools in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. She observes that girls between ages 14 – 16 are pregnant within the Oron community, and is determined to chart a different course for the 30 girls under her guidance.

One in every five girls in Akwa Ibom aged 15 – 19 is either pregnant or has had a child. In Nigeria, 4 in 10 girls have been victims of sexual and gender based violence. One in six girls have experienced emotional violence before the age of 18 and only about 4 percent of abused girls get needed help.

The high prevalence of teenage pregnancy in Akwa Ibom has been blamed on limited parental care, social neglect, and poverty on the part of most vulnerable teenagers. Chinazo who is also from a humble background says she is able to relate with the daily realities of these girls. Chinazo says, that trainings on leadership, self-awareness and emotional intelligence is helping to change the mindset of her girls and believes the trainings will go a long way in shaping positive future outcomes for them.

Although she studied History and Education at the University of Benin, Edo State Nigeria, Chinazo was not sure of life after university. However, she noted that the opportunity to cascade leadership and life skills training has given her a renewed sense of purpose and clarity on her personal vision and life goals. She now considers herself an educational transformer, and wants to pursue a Master’s Degree in Educational Planning and Administration after the fellowship. ‘I want to organise teacher trainings, and work in the ministry of education…because national transformation begins with education’, she says.

There are many more like Chinazo who are interested in providing answers to social problems, but have limited ideas and a platform to launch out. Your kind donations can help increase the number of fellows from 15 to 50, so that every year 1500 girls and boys in secondary schools can have access to skills and tools that would reduce their sense of vulnerability, raise their aspirations, improve their academic and non-academic outcomes, and prepare them for the next phase of their lives.

Lagos is a coastal region and has been under severe flooding recently as a result of high tides. Collapsed buildings, damaged goods and properties are left in the wake of such occurrences. Areas mostly affected by this environmental issue are those close to lagoons, lakes, canals and other water bodies. The root cause has been traced to poor infrastructure across the state. This is a huge infrastructural deficit the government is working to resolve. By creating canals in every community; highway road expansion with proper water channels; carrying out weekly sanitation exercises; educating the public on clean drains and enforcing policies that see to it that structures are erected according to the Urban Plan design.  The state is strict about these policies and over the last four years have commenced the clean-up, take – down exercise in many local government areas. In spite of their efforts, the state’s plans are massive and expensive and small inner areas with minimal floods are at risk of neglect till it becomes too late.  

The student realize very quickly they can change the status quo because of the iLEAD training programme. The drainage system in front of the Iponri Senior High School had been a problem for the Iponri Estate community for up to ten years. It was filled with dirt and left a bad smell in the area; it also led to heavy floods in the area during the raining season. Julius Akpoguma, an iLEAD instructor and volunteer, felt that clearing the drainage would be a great change project for the students to start because it would not only lift a large burden from the community but it will also fall in line with the United Nations’ sixth sustainable development goal on clean water and sanitation.

The school’s principal, Mrs. Balogun sees the students as the major stars of the whole programme. “What these students have done for this community, is much larger than them and that is what leadership is all about,” she says. She felt that the programme had equipped these students with the responsibility to act proactively in any life situation. The children had become socially enlightened beyond their basic school education. Mrs. Balogun also explains, “Life is not only about having the knowledge of physics and chemistry but is about learning a social responsibility that guides all your actions in the society.”

Interestingly, there is a people problem for blocked drainages leading to floods. The drains are blocked before the rains by non-biodegradable materials. This makes it exceedingly difficult for government programmes to be success. #LetsFixOurDrains #PickUpTheTrash are some hashtags LEAP and other individuals are pushing to create awareness on human responsibility.

The principal now plans to go further than the iLEAD change projects by expanding the high school’s community cleanup program from once a school term to once a month. As the students’ actions continue to challenge the community, they will in due time become fully committed to willingly changing their society.

The impact of the 44 iLEAD students in the community has shown how just one change at a time can lead to the transformation of a whole society.