GOOD HUMAN OF NIGERIA: FUNMI ADEBAJO
“Do you know Olorunfunmi Adebajo?” Yes, I am asking you.
“Yes, Funmi. That Funmi that trended online last year for helping Brother Gbolahan.”
“You still don't know her?” Okay, let me tell you about Funmi and why she is a Good Human of Nigeria.
Sometime in early October, I got a call from a client to come to Lagos for a photo shoot. I immediately obliged for another reason: Funmi Adebajo. I’d made all arrangements.
At exactly 2:33 pm this fateful day, I arrived at her place.
“Hope it wasn’t difficult to locate?” She asked; her voice, calm. You see, it was in Isolo. I’d never been to Isolo but it is from here that Funmi Adebajo reaches out to women and girls to impact their lives in her own little but daring way.
As she motioned me into her sitting room, I wondered why this tall, dark and beautiful lady would choose this path when she could be modelling for instance.
“What do I offer you, drink? Food? What exactly?” She interrupted my thoughts with her many questions in succession.
“I am good, Funmi," I responded. I was more interested in her efforts to transform women and girls in the low-income communities. I asked we get down to business on time.
Funmi has a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics but has always loved education. You know the kind of person who believes that you should use the light of your candle to bring light to another person’s life. She however knew that if her dream to help others get some level of education must materialise, “I have to be well grounded in it, and classrooms will be too small for me to do so,” she said. Today, she has a Masters degree in Education and Planning.
In the last eight months, Funmi’s beyond-the-wall-of-the-classrooms form of education has reached over six hundred women.
Here is how.
Over the past few months, she has built a relationship with women living in low-income communities and she partners with other organisations and individuals to equip them with vocational skills.
“The vocational training they receive empowers them for self employment and with the increased income, they can support their families and send their children to school,” she said.
Recently, the YALI fellow founded an NGO - Kindle Africa Empowerment Initiative with the aim of eradicating poverty in slums through education for women and children. The need for an NGO was to give her work a proper structure and facilitate partnerships and sponsorships with corporate organisations in order to reach more women living below the poverty lines. Kindle Africa is set to launch an adult education scheme where these women will have formal education.
“We believe this will inspire them to want to educate their own children,” she hopes that when women get an education, they can inspire their children to also get quality education.
When asked what else she could have done asides helping these women and girls; “I would still have been doing this,” she responded, with a shrug of the shoulders and a smile on her face.
Today, Funmi is another Good Human of Nigeria (GHN) who deserves to be celebrated in spite of Nigeria.