By Milton Tella – The IA-Foundation held the 3rd edition of her annual charity event on Saturday 26th February 2022. The event, which was held virtually via zoom had 361 registered participants, whilst 200 were present on zoom many others watched the live stream on Facebook and YouTube.
The Annual Charity event was an opportunity to socialise and network, whilst raising funds to take Nigerian children off the streets.
The Theme of the event was #ImpactingLives. The Foundation is indeed on a mission to breaking barriers such as poverty, security and other societal challenges that could prevent a Nigerian child from having access to formal education.
Led by CEO/Founder, Mrs Ibironke Adeagbo, a Chartered Accountant and Education Advocate, who has a vision to ensure every Nigerian child is educated to reduce poverty and improve social mobility.
To support this vision, the IA-Foundation organises the flagship fund-raising event annually with the aim to raise funds to enable the Foundation to achieve its objectives. The 2022 virtual event was endorsed by popular music star – Davido.
The headline sponsors of the 2022 Virtual event are British Airways and Halogen Security and it was organised by a 10-man Organising Committee made up of high-profile members of the community both in the UK and in Nigeria. Mr Tolu Deru, a gentleman with brilliant organisational skills, chaired the committee.
The event had high profile Guest Speakers such as Dr Oby Ezekwesili, the President/CEO of Human Capital África and Former Minister of Education who highlighted the dangers of what the high rate of our-of-school kids portends for the future of Nigeria as well as the change she made during her stint as a Minister for Education in Nigeria.
Pastor Ituah Ighodalo – Founder of Trinity Church gave comparison on how seriously education was taken in the past and now.
Zuriel Oduwole – Internationally acclaimed Education Advocate challenged everyone to do something to reduce the out-of-school numbers.
A versatile fundraiser, Mr Tunde Falode, coordinated the Fundraising part of the ceremony. The event gave all participants the opportunity to brainstorm and proffer ways in which we can reduce the number of out-of-school children as well as improving the standard of education in Nigeria. There was good music and a raffle draw was held which had the star prize as a return ticket from Lagos to London, laptop, and tablets amongst others.
A notable project embarked on by the Foundation in 2021 was the Borehole project at Makoko, which drew local and international accolades due to its impact on the community. There were scholarships given to students as well as distribution of educational resources.
In the build-up to this event, two 10KM Charity walks were organised in the UK and Lagos by The Founder – Mrs Ibironke Adeagbo and the Operations Manager – Mr Dami Cole together with Volunteers respectively to raise awareness and funds for the Foundation and ensure the Nigeria children are off the streets. Adeagbo said: “I am all about catalysing, I always have been, but especially in the last couple of years, as I relish the opportunity to invest in so many people through the Foundation.”
According to a survey by United Nations, the population of ‘out of school’ children in Nigeria has risen from 10.5 million to 13.2 million. The highest in the world. Ibironke believes this cannot be right, nor fair. “We need to change this narrative very quickly too”!
The education crisis in Nigeria is one that requires urgent, collective, and concrete action to surmount. At IA-Foundation, we do not believe that we are the solution to this problem, but we do believe that we are a part of the solution. A total of about £13,000 was raised on the night of the event.
The IA-Foundation set up in 2019 was setup to reduce the out of school children in Nigeria. To date, about 12 children are fully sponsored by the Foundation with much more number receiving educational resources. The Foundation’s website is www.ia-foundation.org
Dr Oby Ezekwesili’s speech highlights at the 3rd Annual Charity Event of the IA-Foundation
Dr Oby was the first speaker at the event. She commenced her speech at 6:38pm with gratitude to the IA-Foundation for the opportunity to be at the event. She commended Ronke Adeagbo for leading the initiative. The theme of her speech was – Impacting lives and her angle was from the African perspective as Nigerian and DR Congo had the combined largest number of out-of-school children in the world.
By 2035, we ought to focus on meeting the SDG 4 goal, which is increasing access to Education.
From the current estimate we aren’t scratching the surface. She quoted Victor Hugo that said, “He who opens a school closes a prison door” as well as Federick Douglas that mentioned that it Is easier to build strong children than heal broken men.
Oby reminisced about her time as 1year stint as Minister for Education in 2006 in which the out of school numbers was 6.8m. Among the initiatives she brought onboard were:
Setting up a bankers committee intervention to work with the government by adopt-a-school initiative.
Building boreholes in school as an incentive for parents in the north to send their children to school.
Provision of sanitary facilities to encourage parents. Role modeling was also done.
Within one year 600,000 more children got enrolled in schools however it was short-lived due to non-continuation in governance.
Her proposed solutions include: The middle class shouldn’t leave the work to the government alone. Numeracy and literacy should be emphasized as well.
Pastor Ituah Ighodalo in his speech thanked the IA-Foundation for the opportunity. He spoke from the perspectives of the causes of out of school are:
Unseriousness on the part of the government: They have weaponized poverty and illiteracy. Unfortunately, there is little the private sector can do without a serious government.
Lack of literate teachers culture, the solutions around this are:More advocacy to the government by the IA-Foundation.
Getting statistics and data gathering. Getting funding from DFIDs and quasi-government institutions. Seeking to engage the government on policy.
He commended the governments of Edo, Lagos, Kaduna and Peter Obi of Anambra during his tenure as Governor.
Zuriel Oduwole, an Education Advocate commended the IA-Foundation for the opportunity to be a speaker.
She spoke on the efforts she has made at ensuring girl-child education. Zuriel emphasized that all hands should be on deck to ensure the out-of-school numbers in Nigeria as this is a collective effort with the government.
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