Poverty has constantly become a staple for majority of Nigerians, especially among orphans and vulnerable children. All of government’s efforts to keep poverty low over the years don’t seem to be yielding the desired results.

Chairman of Oladiran Olusegun Adebutu (OOA) Foundation, Mr Oladiran Olusegun Adebutu
and Mrs. Kemi Sokenu-Morris, OOA Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer during in a bonding session with the OVCs

Everywhere you go in all the six geographical zones of Nigeria, poverty stares you in the face; one is confronted with hungry and malnourished school age children (the future leaders of our great nation), many of whom do not have any hope or chance of getting any form of education and access to any form of medical facilities.

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It is no longer news that the population of hungry and malnourished school age children is constantly on a geometrical increase and a sizeable percentage of this population consists of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVCs). In view of this sad reality and given the passion of its chairman and founder, Oladiran Olusegun  Adebutu Foundation rose up as a formidable entity, launching her humanitarian interventions with a well packaged support programme for orphaned and vulnerable children. In less than four years of operation, the Foundation has won plaudits with a knack for giving voice, hope and hardship relief to orphaned and vulnerable members of its host communities.

With a vision of reducing poverty among vulnerable children and women in the country, OOA Foundation is shaping and implementing sustainable development activities to include poverty reduction, zero hunger, increase access to good health and wellbeing, increase access to quality education, create an enabling environment for gender equality, facilitate the provision to clean water and sanitation, and strategic partnership for achieving the goals.

OOA Foundationkicked off its intervention programmes with the OOA OVC – a pilot scheme it carried out in the two-year pilot intervention programme  within six LGAs of Ogun State -Odogbolu, Ikenne, Imeko, Yewa South, Abeokuta South and Abeokuta North, covering three selected senatorial districts, as well as in Jalingo, Taraba state of Northern Nigeria. The selection was done using the USAID guidelines, leveraging and scaling up previous OVC interventions, secondary data from the State Agency for the Control of AIDS, Ministry of Women Affairs and other NGOs with AONN as a base line for the assessment on selection process.

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OOA Foundation has demonstrated this pilot with 300 children who are either infected or affected by HIV, double or single orphans, heads of households etc. The unique but effective charitable strategy of placing these orphaned and vulnerable children in family setting with volunteer caregivers provides much needed psychological, emotional and robust stability.

Since the commencement of the OVC intervention, success stories from the impact of OOA Foundation have continued to reverberate with the children progressing impressively. While all the children have been promoted to their next classes, there are also records of outstanding performances of the Foundation’s Orphans and Vulnerable Children, including: Odusanya Lekan, a paternal orphan adopted by OOA Foundation at Ibefun, has consistently had the best result since his. Lekan, who was then an 11 year old primary 4 pupil has emerged with the best result through primary 4, 5 and 6 at Holy Trinity primary school, Ibefun.

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The Foundation’s impact has been particularly visible in several other children, such as Adekoya Anuoluwapo, a 10 year old paternal orphan beneficiary of the Foundation, who emerged overall best primary 3 pupil of Wesley primary school, Iperu. Afolabi Micheal, a paternal orphan and a product of a child-headed household, adopted by the Foundation, emerged with first position and best in  primary 4 at St.  Paul’s Anglican School, Owode, Yewa South LG and several others. Signs of impact such as these are quite visible among under the care of the Foundation.

Chairman of Oladiran Olusegun Adebutu (OOA) Foundation, Mr Oladiran Olusegun Adebutu

The case of AfusatFatai is particularly inspiring and demonstrative ofhope. Afusat was adopted by the foundation in 2016. She is a child of two persons living with disability. Both of Afusat’s parents have hearing impairment and she lives with them and her siblings. Afusat has demonstrated high intelligence and good behavior and has been consistently excellent in her academic performance. Afusat was unanimously appointed as the head girl of Ibefun/Ilado Comprehensive High School and emerged the best overall in JSS1 promotional examination at AUD primary schoolI be fun.

Rather than focus solely on orphaned and vulnerable children only, OOA Foundation expanded its intervention programme to consider the entire family or household as the programming unit which included interventions ranging from shelter, provision of clean water, educational, health, nutritional, psychological and recreational support.

According to Mrs. Kemi Sokenu-Morris, OOA Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer, who expresses hope and desire that her organisation would be able to add more children to the programme. “Through this intervention, we have impacted the lives of 300 orphaned and vulnerable children we set out to help till they finish Primary School and enrol in Secondary School,” she stated.

Kemi Sokenu-Morris explained the differentiating factor between OOA Foundation and other NGOs to be the organization’s zeal for economic strengthening. “Our interventions are designed to identify a vulnerable person and attempt to change the life of that beneficiary while impacting on his/her household or community in the short, medium or long term”.

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“In executing our Household Economic Strengthening (HES) programme, we are taking few but strong steps to reduce the economic vulnerability of families and empower them to provide the essential needs of the children in their care,” she went further to explain.

Currently, OOA Foundation is in partnership with Wheels to Africa, USA, to ensure it carries activities in the Northern Nigeria, particularly areas where transportation is a major impediment to economic advancement, quality service etc.

The Foundation, through this partnership has set out to use bicycles as a tool to improve access to education, economic strengthening, improves access to the markets, improved value chain processing to farmers, and communities as well as improved healthcare delivery particularly to pregnant women and children.

In October 2017, OOA Foundation earned global recognition, joining the very few Africa-based donors accepted as delegate at the 2017 opportunity collaboration summit held in Mexico. The event brought together a sea of thought leaders and the most innovative donors all over the world. OOA Foundation stood out as the sole representative of Africa’s rising philanthropic initiative.

OOA was recognised for its work with Generation Enterprise, another ground breaking Lagos-based non-governmental organisation. Through this partnership, thousands of youths were trained in entrepreneurial skills to become trusted business managers. The outcome of this partnership programme “social mobility enterprise’ was highly impactful and placed otherwise vulnerable youths on sustainable career paths.

Mrs. Kemi Sokenu-Morris, OOA Foundation’s Chief Executive Officer

OOA Foundation took centre stage and made meaningful contributions again in 2017, at the Stanford Africa business forum, where the foundation’s CEO Kemi Sokenu-Morris was on the panel for Education. The panel focused on Bridging the Gap and Training Future Leaders. The Foundation’s work with SMEs was showcased as a solution to poverty elimination.

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The latest intervention of OOA Foundation is an Impact Investment programme tagged Petrolex Impact Investment Network (PIIN).The PIIN programme, set for flag-off in the last quarter of 2018 focuses on impact investment in youth development, economic empowerment for women-headed households, quality education, healthcare and nutrition, transportation, Agriculture as well as training and capacity building, particularly in agriculture and non-oil commodity production.

The Foundation revealed, through its CEO that a series of baseline assessments, focus group discussions, mapping exercises, town hall meetings with community leaders, consultations and research had preceded this kick-off and a network will be formed among the beneficiaries to encourage peer support and sustainability. “This strategic development programme will be rolled-out soon!” says Kemi Sokenu-Morris.