I finally got tired and angry in 2015.
I was tired of seeing children and youths drinking from the same outdated school curriculum that I drank from. Born into a family of 4 children, from primary school until University - 17 years of my life, my parents had it rough sending us to school. So tough, that at some point we lived in a house without drinking water, electricity and toilet.
I was angry seeing teachers spend hours teaching, yet children learn nothing. Parents and the Government invest more resources in education, it’s like pouring treasures down the drain - the statistics of unemployment is blowing through the roof. 3 years before my anger in 2015, I graduated from the University and became a biology teacher on the compulsory 1-year National Service, called National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).
Fortunately, I was posted into a hard-to-reach rural community in Benue State. While my job was to help students learn Biology, something shocking happened that I couldn’t ignore. Some students stopped coming to school. From my inquiry, I found out that there were 2 problems that led to this situation. Poverty – the parents could no longer afford the cost of sending their children to school; Secondly, the quality of education was too low to raise skilled youths.
For 3 nights, I couldn’t sleep; I saw in these students the same struggles I went through to get educated. Sadly, I didn’t have the money to pay the school fees for all the students. I decided to start small, rather than do nothing. The question I kept asking myself was, “what can I do to help rural children and youths to get tailored, personalized and quality education that will ensure they learn effectively, have the competencies to get jobs, be engaged and lead peaceful lives in the future, no matter where go to.
I set up a capacity building program with 200 students for 3 days to listen to them and perhaps develop a long-lasting solution with them. It was at the program that the surprise of my life hit me – I saw that the students had various gifts, beyond their needs – they are creative (since there are limited resources in their community, without creating they won’t survive), they were curious (as showed them innovation on my phone) and they had a passion to want to grow. At that program, the students were able to create new small enterprises.
For the first time, these students helped me get a different perspective about rural communities – that everything isn’t wrong, they are strong too. I instantly found myself ready to go on a lifetime journey – to learn, and create more possibilities in such communities. With this new insight, mixed with my anger in 2015 about the state of Education, I went to Kanthari International, India for 7 months to learn more about how to turn education into community solution.
By January 2016, I started Prikkle Academy in Benue State Nigeria. Prikkle Academy is a non-profit organization that uses Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) and design-thinking approach to trigger the creativity, ingenuity and social solutions among rural and peri-urban youths. We engage (in-schools and out-of-school) youth in TVET (Technical and Vocational Training) that help them to uncover the assets, resources and potentials within their community, then mobilize these resources to create street-smart solutions.
I found this Educational approach exciting so far because we start with gifts instead of needs: We ask, ’what do you have?’ before ‘what do you lack?’ People try to ‘fix’ what is wrong with people, but our work is to nurture strengths. We created the DIY report cards for each participant to track their own development and we encourage peer-to-peer learning.
In 2017, we opened the first Solar-powered rural makerspace (a centre where anyone can freely walk into, find tools, resources and people that will help them turn their ideas into action). This makerspace has helped to break the stigma of poverty, illiteracy, the knowledge gaps in rural communities and connecting them with emerging technologies around the world. Some of the solutions created include; creation of virtual jobs; creating cooking fuel (charcoal) from human faeces; Creating organic composts out of kitchen food waste; Repurposing old clothes and jeans into school bags for rural children, etc.
We’ve been profiled by Center for Education Innovation (CEI), Washington DC, USA as one of the 450+ Innovative Education Programs and named by Social Enablers, India as one of the 100 most inspiring Social Enterprises in the World. From living in a different community to having a sincere discussion, I saw the importance of celebrating gifts, instead of honouring needs - my anger and tiredness forced my mind into creating a solution.
‘What will you turn your frustrations into - Solutions or Problems?’