The Recyclespay Educational Project is changing the narrative of children in low-income schools who are unable to attend school due to a lack of funding.
The project developed a system in which recyclable waste is exchanged for school fees and other school necessities.
Most vulnerable communities lack a waste management system, they resort to dumping waste in canals or gutters around them.
This project has ensured that more children have access to schools, that communities are free of dirt because every recyclable is valued, and that our mission to make environmental sustainability a part of our local communities is being realized.
Coming out of lockdown, it was clear that more action was needed than ever before to address pollution and provide children with access to education. This is due to the economic devastation caused by the covid19 pandemic.
In our most recent report (March 2021), we described how the project had been impacted and what we were doing to adapt and stay on top of the situation. We have looked into forming more partnerships within the sector to help us maintain and reach more slum communities.
Worsening local economic conditions, particularly inflation of more than 18 percent, have contributed to the increase in fees and school materials. This means that we must put in twice the effort, now more than ever, to support the hundreds of children who rely on the Recyclespay Educational Project to get an education.
From our previous report in March 2021, we expanded the project to two additional schools, bringing our total number of school beneficiaries to Nineteen (19). We also recovered a total of 3,653.5kg/ 146,140 individual pieces of recyclables from the environment between April 2021 and June 2021.
This brings our total recyclable count from March 2020 to June 2021 to 12,076.91kg/ 483,076 individual recyclable pieces recovered from the environment to 12,076.91kg/483,076 individual recyclable pieces recovered from the environment.
We need your donations, recommendations, and partnerships now more than ever to help us reach more children in vulnerable communities.
Thank you to all of our incredible donors who have helped to change the story of children growing up in low-income neighbourhoods.
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Recyclespay for 1000 children in Lagos: A Decade of Action.
According to recent data released by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), 168 million is the number of children who could not go to school as a result of the covid19 pandemic, of this number sadly not every child would be able to go back to school as the world gradually returns to normalcy. There have been innovations around how classrooms are designed with the introduction of online learning spaces which eliminate the need for children to attend physical classes, but this also poses a risk of leaving a lot of children living in low-income communities behind, due to lack of access to the internet and tech devices required to connect to a virtual class.
While we build and improve on existing solutions, now more than ever, we need to accelerate efforts being put towards achieving the sustainable development goals by collaborating, targetted investments in solutions, functional policies and education.
The Recyclespay Educational project has for the past two years seen a growth in the number of children able to attend schools in low and middle-income communities by improving access through the repurpose of plastic waste, We have measured students attendance using school records and have seen an over 40% increase in the number of children now being able to attend and graduate first level education.
The pandemic has had its effects on project activity as precautions given by the World Health Organisation and local authorities have placed restrictions on gatherings and plastic pickup routines.
To maintain communication and monitor progress made on the field we have had to resort to doing more phone calls and online chats with school owners, parents and stakeholders in order to have first-hand information on the project performance as opposed to organising periodic PTA meetings.
Schooling provides children with an opportunity to grow, rediscover themselves, explore their creativity and form friendships.
We have been able to further extend the benefit to 17 schools, recovering a total of 8630.52kg/250,270 individual pieces of recyclables from the environment, while impacting 163 households, within a space of Eleven (11) months.
Along the line we had Two schools Zion Bells with 165 students and Kingston High School with 403 students (Identified as "School Donation" in the breakdown) who decided to bring their plastics as a single entity, the value generated is being used to fund projects which affect the wellbeing of the entire children, Funds are used to maintain and purchase school facilities like boards, teaching and learning materials, repairs and furniture.
It is a decade of accelerated action, help us reach more children in vulnerable communities through your donations, recommendations and partnerships.
Thank you to all our remarkable donors who have contributed to changing the story of children living in low-income communities.
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The socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on the Nigerian education system is limiting millions of kids from accessing quality education. From guardians losing jobs to schools being shut for months then coming out of lockdown and heading almost immediately into Protests calling for an end to Police brutality and injustice which has turned into a global movement with the now popular hashtag "ENDSARS”, these are amongst a few issues which have slowed down the pace at which progress is being made with out-of-school children. Lockdowns, health and security concerns witnessed as a result of both events meant schools had to be shut and the collection of recyclables being put on hold.
Now more than ever a solution the Recyclespay Educational Project has proved its relevance as more and more schools have continued to adopt the medium due to the alarming increase of parents who default in payment of school fees.
This waste to education intervention (Recyclespay Educational Project) which has both directly and indirectly made underprivileged communities see the value in the sustainable use of waste and in turn has brought about behavioral change and interests of more schools within disadvantaged communities to participate.
We established our presence through recycling advocacy programs in schools for students and sensitization programs during PTA (Parents Teachers Association) meetings prior to the lockdown in Nigeria as a result of the pandemic. Currently, we have adopted more virtual means of communicating with schools, this got us operating in eight (8) low-income schools and we have been able to pick-up recyclables from them before the lockdown and during the ease of the lockdown.
These eight low-income schools got to contribute their own quota by getting recyclables asides from what the parents bring to the school for their kids and at the end of the day whatever is realized is used to get academic materials, maintain the school structure and get more kids to remain in school.
So far we have recovered 2710.01kg of recyclables from eight (8) low-income schools and have impacted 107 households within the space of four (4) months.
We would like to extend our unreserved appreciation to every single person who has put a smile on the face of vulnerable kids’ and impacting the lives of their family. We appreciate you for your generous donations, your support has truly made a difference.
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In Nigeria, so many factors contribute to the increasing number of out of school children and this shortfall is contributing negatively to the economic growth of the country. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in 2018, affirmed that about 10.5million children are not in school and this is majorly as a result of finance.
With this in view, African CleanUp Initiative came up with the waste to education intervention (Recyclespay Educational Project) which has both directly and indirectly made under privileged communities see the value in the sustainable use of waste and in turn has brought about behavioural change and interests of more schools within disadvantaged communities to participate.
In view of this, we have established our presence through recycling advocacy programmes in schools for students and sensitization programmes during PTA (Parents Teachers Association) meetings prior to the lockdown in Nigeria as a result of the pandemic. Currently, this got us operating in four (4) low-income schools and we have been able to pick-up recyclables from them before the lockdown and during the ease of the lockdown.
These four low-income schools got to contribute their own quota by gathering her own recyclables aside from what the parents bring to the school for their kids and at the end of the day whatever is realised is used to get academic materials, maintain the school structure and get more kids to remain in school.
At this point, we want to use this medium to thank all those who have gone through their way to put smiles on these kids’ faces and impacting the lives of their family. We appreciate you and thanks to your donations, we were able to receive from GlobalGiving a sum of $4,539.42 which makes up 25% of the funds that have been utilized so far to recover 1,830.51kg of recyclables from four (4) low-income schools and have impacted 58 households within the space of three months. The remaining 75% is planned to be deployed on reaching out to more schools and making significant impact over the next nine (9) months.
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