AGALA THRIVES
Agala Thrives is a collection of interventional projects targeted at more than 200 forcefully evicted families from Tarkwabay, Ebute Oko, Abagbo (all Lagos Island coastal communities) who were forced to migrate to neighbouring community called ‘Agala’ after their homes and communities were destroyed in January 2020.
Our interventions in Agala include the construction of a Learning Resource Centre (LRC) for the evicted children to have their own safe space to read, play and learn after school, as well as a microlending/microsaving scheme to help their mothers have access to financial literacy training and small business loans that will enable them pay their children’s school fees and afford other basic needs as they restart life in a new community.
YAN'UWA-24
Yan’uwa-24 (literally meaning ’24 families’) is a 12-month, double-pronged, pilot project targeting 24 indigent families in Gyallesu community, Kaduna state.
The first prong will build Information and Communication Technology (ICT) literacy among 24 former child beggars (Popularly called ‘Almajiris’), while the second prong will give small business loans to their 24 mothers (mostly widows) to sustain their small businesses which were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project is expected to complement other programs aimed at helping indigent communities achieve social mobility and economic relevance in the 21st century.
Funding is from World Connect and implemented by The Young Bookworms in collaboration with the Sardauna Child Destitution Eradication Foundation , a nonprofit in Kaduna state.
BOOK CHEWING COMPETITION
Bookworms are insects that bore through books. According to a Professor of Education and author of ‘Transformative Classroom Management’-John Shindler, healthy competitions are short activities where outcomes have to be trivial and which has to be focused on processes rather than on the outcomes.
We recognize that every child is different and should be appreciated for their natural learning style whether they be visual, auditory, reading/writing preference or kinesthetic learners.
Through this annual initiative, we host healthy competitions among pupils attending the public and mushroom primary schools that we have donated books to throughout the year. The aim is to encourage and reward the pursuit of knowledge and our pupils are tested on vocabulary development, pronunciation, spelling, tense identification and word construction.
FILL THE BOX CHALLENGE
We recognize the role that employee-engagement activities play in strengthening camaraderie and team bonding, so we created a fun way for employees of organizations to donate story books irrespective of whether there are 20 or 2,000 of them working in the organization.
Conducted all year round, through this initiative, employees of an organization donate new and gently-used story books, Dictionaries, Encycopedias, maps, educational toys and other educational materials to pupils in public and mushroom primary schools.
Lest we forget, we do not leave your office until our boxes are filled.
KNOWLEDGE ON
Like a light switch that has to be intentionally turned on, we believe that the pursuit of knowledge has to be an intentional process. So we help pupils in public and mushroom primary schools ‘switch’ on their desire for knowledge by donating story books, encyclopedias and other learning materials to their school libraries. All that is required is for the school to fill an application form to help us verify that the books will be used just as we told our generous donors we would.
SCHOOL COMMUNITY CINEMA
The combination of education and entertainment in the learning process can help teach children new concepts in a fun way, provides better understanding of theoretical subjects and enhances their creativity and visualization. In recognition of the fact that most pupils in mushroom and public primary schools have limited access to edutainment, we screen educational, age-appropriate movies to pupils in our adopted schools quarterly.
In order to ensure the educational element is not overshadowed by the entertainment, the pupils are engaged by our volunteers to discuss the new words they learn from these movies and their meanings.