“Our constructive actions affect the world around us directly or otherwise”.
Oluwasegun Adeniyi is a community mobiliser, Development, Sustainability, CSR, and #SDG Advocate, a Social and Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC) enthusiast.
As a 2020 Global Ambassador of the World Literacy Foundation and Volunteer with Teamcoby-Nigeria, he is passionate about education and community development issues.
In this interview by Pride Magazine, he speaks about his educational background and other experiences and passion for development, Nigeria’s 14 million out-of-school children, the deep educational inequality in public education. the challenge with implementing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria, and the new advocacy project he is involved with calling for A BLENDED LEARNING MODEL IN PUBLIC PRIMARY & SECONDARY SCHOOLS ACROSS LAGOS STATE in Nigeria.
Let’s Meet You Formally.
OLUWASEGUN ADENIYI is a pragmatist and self-motivated with a strong potential for growth. He is currently a volunteer with Teamcoby Nigeria, a social enterprise focused on grassroots mobilization, community engagement and development empowering poor/vulnerable households in low income communities in Nigeria. In this capacity I advocates, educate, engage and connect with grassroots communities through programs and projects that cuts across health, education, environment, and socioeconomic projects to enhance their livelihood and wellbeing.
Am a community mobiliser, Development, Sustainability, CSR, and #SDG Advocate, a Social and Behavioural Change Communication (SBCC) enthusiast passionate about education and community development issues.
As a World Literacy Foundation Global Ambassador, am passionate about literacy and lifelong learning, Nigeria’s 14 million out-of-school children and SDG challenges and empowerment of low income communities are issues that drives me.
My passionate desire to make a difference has been reflected with a level of Involvement and ownership in community services that has made me to be culturally-sensitive, service-oriented, a cross-functional leader and one that has shown leadership in a multicultural and diverse environment in attaining a communal goal.
I have demonstrated a strong sense to volunteering and community service clearly evidenced during his mandatory service where he worked, collaboratively with diverse stakeholders of different generations that resulted in a remarkable transformation within the rural community at that time in the North of Nigeria that had no access to clean water for more than 30 years with the construction of a solar powered bore hole for the community, a project delivered in 4 months with financial support and labor coming from many stakeholders.
This exemplary effort did earn me the National Youth Service Corps Yobe state Directors award.
I have been instrumental in facilitating the adoption of 2 development related proposals to the OGUN STATE GOVERNMENT:
- Hi-pact- A UK based Private Public Partnership Initiative using education as one of the means towards attaining the sustainable practical development of the state;
- The Best of Nigeria Expo, an international trade and events exhibition re-defining the brand Nigeria by introducing a coordinated and well packaged Nigeria and its notable achievements to the world, creating a market for Nigerian exportable items abroad and promoting Foreign Direct Investment into Nigeria.
I have also been an integral part of a community/stakeholder engagement effort that was helpful in addressing a 60% public infrastructure deficit of at least 15 years, an indication of my strong potential to impact development in Nigeria.
These experiences have been very rewarding and educational. I have learned to deal with challenges that has intensified my desire and that will deepen my knowledge.
I have been instrumental in developing some youth and community engagement and participation concepts, tools and strategies before now.
My innate desire for sustainability and development stem from the many social and environmental challenges seen while volunteering on several community outreaches around environmental, education and public health campaigns. This experiences shaped my perception about global development and steered me to further explore opportunities that will help develop my capacity in an unprecedented manner that will enable us to recreate a common prosperous and sustainable present and future. This experiences have given me good insight into some of the challenges associated with sustainable development and also help to guide me to development initiatives and projects that will be benefiting to millions of vulnerable households in Nigerians who are the worst affected by the adverse effect of these challenges.
What’s Your Motivation and Inspiration for The Work That You Have Been Involved in Over the Years
I believe in team work and collaboration in solving the world’s toughest problems. Am attracted to the possibility of making long-term sustainable change, inspired into action by an ever more connected world with the mainstream narratives creating more socially aware societies made up of individuals who recognize their roles and responsibilities within a global community. He is a goal oriented person with excellent leadership potential. He exploits the reverse engineering principle in handling new challenges and assignments, as doing so has helped opened him to new perspective that ultimately enhances his effectiveness and efficiency on any assigned responsibilities.
In What Ways Did Has Your Upbringing in Life Inspired You to Become an Advocate for Social Justice and Passionate About Community Development?
I was born and grew up in an average Nigerian family. Coming from a family and community that places priority on the education, I’ve always been perturbed by many such social and economic injustices and inequalities. I am privileged to have parents who supported me to aim higher and never settle for less. My late father understood and placed high priority on the education of my siblings and I as my grandmother’s lack of education is a constant reminder of the life they did not want for their children. This reality made me develop great passion for education—especially that of the girl child—and inspired me to give my best into my educational pursuit and lay a good example for others to follow. I did very well at all levels of my educational career till date to pass a strong message that investment in a child. My parents were elated on gaining admission to the university as the first in my extended family.
The World Literacy Foundation Recently Accepted You as One of Their 2020 Global Ambassadors. In What Ways Will This Shape Your Advocacy and Passion?
World Literacy Foundation (WLF), headquartered in Melbourne Australia, is an organisation that strives to ensure that every individual has the opportunity to acquire literacy and reading skills to reach their full potential, succeed at school and beyond. The WLF Global Ambassadors program aims to bring together passionate individuals from all over the world to develop their leadership and advocacy and fundraising skills, to be a local voice for literacy and education in their country and communities and be a fundraiser to support a literacy projects globally especially in Africa where there is one of the lowest adult literacy rates in the world. It is a privilege to have been selected. I believe the period of the ambassadorship will equip me with the leadership, communication, fundraising, and public relations skills to further amplify awareness around the importance of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with special interest in literacy and education.
What Motivated You to Co-Found Teamcoby-Nigeria? And, What Does This Social Enterprise Does?
Inclusion and diversity is something I had always been curious about especially because I have always believed policies and programs of government at all levels should be designed and implanted with it in mind. This was the major driver for TeamcobyNigeria as a social enterprise.
Teamcoby Nigeria, a social enterprise is focused on grassroots mobilization, community engagement and development with the aim of empowering poor/vulnerable households in low income communities in Nigeria. We are involved with advocacy, education, engagement and connecting with grassroots communities through programs and projects that cuts across health, education, environment, and socioeconomic projects to enhance their livelihood and wellbeing.
As a social enterprise organization we are big on community mobilization and engagement that is a proven development strategy that has helped communities around the world bring people together to identify and address pressing health-care issues. It strengthens and enhances the ability of the community to work together for any goal that is important to the community members. The end result of a successful community mobilization effort is not only a problem solved, but also the increased capacity to successfully address other community needs and desires.
We have executed several SDG related advocacy campaigns especially on public health, environment and clean and affordable energy collaborating with other organizations in the process.
Sustainable menstruation is an initiative we are championing on using eco reusable pad to help girls and women make sustainable, healthier, economical, eco-friendly and smarter choices about their menstrual hygiene, the reusable sanitary pad is made from 100% cotton& body friendly materials with aesthetic designs, perfume-free and unbleached. Our reusable sanitary pad fills the gap of the current pad designs that is failing women and girls on health, environmental and economic grounds however our target so far has been to use these reusable pads to empower girls both in/out of schools and young women.
We have also been a CSR implementation partner and in this respect associates with any corporates or NGO both local and international for their CSR initiatives especially in the area of sanitation & hygiene, community mobilization, outreach & stakeholder engagement, livelihood support/women empowerment.
What Does Sustainable Menstruation Mean, Does Menstrual Hygiene Have an Impact On Girl Child Education
Lack of menstrual knowledge, poor access to sanitary products and a non-facilitating school environment can make it difficult for girls to attend school. In Nigeria, WASH (water sanitation and hygiene) interventions need to be developed to reduce stigma attached to menstruation and the financial and environmental burden of menstruation for school girls by government and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These challenges related to menstruation is what fuels the need for sustainable menstruation.
Sustainable menstruation is a more environmentally friendly approaches to address menstrual hygiene or periods in order to reduce the plastic and environmental footprints on the earth.
Non-biodegradable sanitary napkins pose a huge challenge in Nigeria, where efficient disposal systems are largely missing in both our urban and rural areas.
The current population of Nigeria is 206,312,263 as of Friday, July 17, 2020, based on Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data with 102,713,964 million females with slightly close to half of the figure in Nigeria females already experiencing menstruation.
The end result is that a staggering 1 billion non-compostable disposable pads are landing up in urban sewers, landfills, as well as in rural fields and water bodies in Nigeria every month. 12.3 billion disposable sanitary pads are disposed of in Nigeria annually, creating 113,000 tonnes of menstrual waste.
“Not only do these products take hundreds of years to decompose but because of the super absorbent polymers contained in commercial disposable sanitary napkins, they absorb and retain thirty or more times their weight in fluid,” referencing studies by LeBlanc and Gupta conducted in 2017 and 2014, respectively. This means that they stay in the ground, not decomposing, and sucking in water, stopping its natural flow.
To achieve gender equality, it is important that girls can attend and reach their full potential in schools with adequate options for menstrual hygiene that is a barrier to education for girls in low and middle income countries. Studies have noted poor sanitation in schools and lack of access to good quality sanitary products can be associated with lower enrolment in schools, absenteeism, and dropout. Inadequate menstrual hygiene can potentially have health consequences such as increased risk of reproductive and urinary tract infections The problem of menstrual hygiene is multifaceted; girls need to be aware about menarche and be able to manage their menstruation in an enabling environment with access to hygienic menstrual materials and facilities for changing and disposal of menstrual items at home and school.
The out of school children population remains a daunting challenge for Nigeria, what are your thoughts on how to address this challenge to enable Nigeria meet the 2030 deadline for SDG4?.
My thoughts are that The situation of out-of-school-children in Nigeria is a serious one that government should take seriously and should come up with ways and means of collaborating with state governments on how to enroll the 14 million out-of-school-children urgently. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the challenge in Nigeria is that one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria despite the fact that primary education is officially free and compulsory.
In the north of the country, the picture is even bleaker, with a net attendance rate of 53 per cent. Getting out-of-school children back into education poses a massive challenge. Gender, like geography and poverty, is an important factor in the pattern of educational marginalization. States in the North-East and North-West have female primary net attendance rates of 47.7 per cent and 47.3 per cent, respectively, meaning that more than half of the girls are not in school,” Education deprivation in northern Nigeria is driven by various factors, including economic barriers and socio-cultural norms and practices that discourage attendance in formal education, especially for girls.
While Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children in the world, especially in the north where religion, culture and displacement of people by insecurity has made the situation worse, the issue of those left behind by the education system is also one that should be considered. The displacement has significantly increased the problem of access to education, especially in Northern Nigeria, where human development is lowest in Nigeria.
Children living with disabilities and those that require specialised training and teaching procedures due to their unique learning needs are usually left out in Nigeria’s educational system, adding to the number of out-of-school-children. Also, children from nomadic groups are not carried along in the education system. According to statistics, despite government interventions, such as the National Nomadic Education Commission (NNEC) over 5.2 million nomadic children are still out-of-school while over seven million students in the Almajiri education system in northern Nigeria are also excluded from quality education.
These groups of children are left out of the education system due to various reasons with reasons like policies that separate specific groups and make education inaccessible to them. This refers to exclusive policies that make education difficult for children with disabilities, special needs and nomadic children. This is in contradiction to the provision of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) which is focused on not leaving anyone behind in terms of access to quality education.
Insecurity which leads to displacement of people and poverty are other factors in my estimation
Experts have asked government to review the educational system to make it more inclusive and make educational policies clearly defined and holistically designed to capture all groups. Also, government is asked to increase funding for schools and create awareness on the need for all children to be in school while lawmakers are urged to make adequate legislation to make this a reality.
What kindled your interest in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG)? As an SDG advocate, do you think Nigeria—given its complex challenges—can attain the 17 global goals before 2030?
Sustainable development has three focal points which economic, social and environmental dimension and all projects must have measurable impact in this three areas. Every human alive today should take keen interest in sustainable development—that is, the development that meets your needs without compromising the need of the future generation. As an advocate and community mobilizer, I am always passionate about any projects committed to building my country and continent. Hence, my interest in the SDGs.
Attaining the SDGs in Nigeria has to do with willingness on the part of the government. How committed are all federal and state government parastatals, ministries and departments? What’s been the level and commitment to domesticate the goals into our project across different sectors? Do we have good monitoring and evaluation methods to track our performance? Thankfully, Nigeria is a part of the voluntary national review of the High Level Political Forum (HLPF) of the United Nations under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council. The HLPF annual meeting is the core United Nations platform for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. How often do we engage Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in this voluntary review and track progress or otherwise been made? For us to achieve the SDGs in Nigeria, there is need for a paradigm shift from the way we are currently doing things. The government should activate the last goal of the SDGs by partnering with private sectors and CSOs, youths should also be a critical stakeholder in this agenda.
The Covid19 pandemic has affected education in unimaginable ways and deepened the educational inequality many governments in developing countries like Nigeria are contending with. How best do you think this can be handled?
The COVID-19 pandemic led especially public education institutions into uncertain territory. While many private educational institutions leadership and faculty helped students navigate unprecedented times by quickly establishing or adopting the virtual classrooms which many of them established shortly after the Ebola crisis but the students that attend public educational institutions were mostly left behind.
This is the challenge that has necessitated the need for an advocacy as a World Literacy Foundation Global Ambassador am currently working jointly with other fellow ambassadors based in Lagos, Nigeria.
Tell us more about this advocacy and what does it seek to draw attention to.
This advocacy is calling for SUPPORT FOR A BLENDED LEARNING MODEL IN PUBLIC PRIMARY & SECONDARY SCHOOLS ACROSS LAGOS STATE.
Covid19 is the first pandemic to have had a profound impact on education across the world. One of the most affected segments of our society that has been shaken by the global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, is the education sector. The COVID-19 pandemic affected the lives of all learners almost globally since March. There have been many enthralling stories of learners being distressed by the spread of the deadly virus as schools across the country were closed.
It’s clear that online or blended education will be central to education and learning as long as COVID-19 or many health or climate change induced reasons causes disruptions.
Children in pubic primary and secondary schools in Nigeria are being left behind as they are not equipped to adapt or transition to new methods of learning. The pandemic has unmasked substantial inequities in the primary and secondary education sector.
The challenges faced during the closure of schools occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic have shown that relying only on traditional method of education could constitute a setback to learning considering that education cannot remain the same again without a readily available cure and vaccine for the coronavirus.
With the timing of a coronavirus vaccine uncertain and the inability to accurately predict that no global pandemic of this kind wont surface again, a significant amount of learning will take place outside the classroom for the near future globally and Nigeria public primary and secondary education institutions should start preparing for this uncertain times. This pivot to blended learning may accelerate the evolution of almost all levels of education for the benefit of students.
The global pandemic revealed in clear terms the need and benefits of blended learning and ways some of these advantages could be used to even reduce the many challenges facing the Nigeria public educational system.
What is Blended Learning and are their benefits of Adapting Blended Learning to public primary and secondary schools in Lagos, Nigeria
Blended learning is a learning approach that combines traditional face-to-face teaching method with online or media based instructions and some benefits include the following:
- Reduced cost on expansion and maintenance of infrastructures, learning
- Improved safety of lives and properties in schools,
- Reduction in national illiteracy level are some of the identified prospects.
- Reduce Educational Inequality During Crisis
- Self-pacing for slow or quick learners reduces stress, increases satisfaction, and information retention.
- Students can also learn through a variety of activities that apply to many different learning styles.
Are there ways you think this blended learning can best be approached
Sensing the need for blended learning system (i.e. 2 weeks, a term) across public primary and secondary schools in Lagos state, World Literacy Foundation 2020 Ambassadors LagosTeam recommends a combination of one or more of the following:
- Setting up of pilot primary and secondary schools in all the education districts across Lagos state,
- UNESCO reports that 75% of households globally have access to radio and in sub-Saharan Africa between 80% and 90% of households have access to a working radio set. Interactive Radio Instruction. (IRI) is an instructional approach that uses one-way radio to reach students and teachers via prerecorded, interactive lessons. Lagos state government uses broadcast radio for many reasons and this can be useful for educational purposes too, the archipelago of Cabo Verde, for example uses radio dramas, lessons, tutoring, and other educational broadcasts to reach students on its 10 islands
The state government can also consider a Public Private Partnership approach in setting up a community radio station strictly for educational purposes.
- As of 2018, 1.67 billion households globally had access to television (including 75 million households in sub-Saharan Africa). A quick scan suggests that most states in Nigeria have at least one state owned television and radio station and several have both state and privately run stations and with it comes have strong technical and human infrastructure that can be used to produce compelling television programming both for traditional TV.
- Given high rates of mobile phone ownership everywhere, including in sub-Saharan Africa where the purchase of low-cost smart phones has continued to rise over the last several years, phones should be considered another important educational tool to provide learning.
- Network Providers: Provide concessions on the costs of data and advertise them as solutions for the education sector. Some schools are able to deploy tech tools for online learning but data is still a major challenge, besides hardware.
- EdTech Companies: Support teachers and students with blended literacy trainings and resources. Provide increased access to online/remote learning resources for students from public schools that require no/less data
What’s your call to action?
For many persons passionate about the substantial and deep learning inequalities in the primary and secondary schools in Lagos state our call is for you to support our advocacy by adding your signature to this petition. Our appeal to all who have added their signature to further support by helping to share this petition among friends and network using WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and emails to increase the traction this campaign is gaining daily. This blended approach combines the best elements of adapted remote online or media and face-to-face learning. It is likely to emerge as the predominant model of the future— and to become far more common than either one alone and children in public primary and secondary schools must not be left behind.
The link is http://chng.it/PQrFqckBT9
What’s the outcome anticipated from this advocacy
- Our goal is to get 5000 signatures for this petition before the end of October, 2020.
- There after we will be making an advocacy visits to relevant government education agencies and policy makers to both present the petition to them officially along with names of persons who are supporting it and to request for an enactment for a blended learning approach adoption in Lagos state.
- We will also be engaging other non-state actors and other stakeholders to gain more support.
To Support and for Every Enquires Kindly Connect with Me Using Any of the Following;
Facebook.com/oluwasegun.a.adeniyi
Email: oluwasegunadeniyi9@gmail.com