Send a Child in Nigeria to School for a Year

PROJECT REPORT

Name of Organization: Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation.

Project Title/Name: Send a Child to School in Rural Southeast, Nigeria.
Focus Country: Nigeria.

Project Locations: Southeast, Nigeria.

Focus Area: Montessori Education

Project Type: Direct service, Street based Project

Proponent: Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation

Address Klm 1 Eke-Ahiara Junction, Umuofor Nnarambia
Ahiara, Ahiazu Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria

BRANCH OFFICE: 88 Murtala Muhammed way,
Yaba, Ebute Metta, Lagos.

EMAIL: support@samonyemaechihumanitarian.org
WEBSITE: https://www.samonyemaechihumanitarian.org

Introduction;
The mind is a terrible thing to waste. Thousands of children in Africa drop out of school each year simply because their parents cannot afford to cover tuition and school related costs. Their minds and potentials are wasted. The good things education brings: self-discipline, a sense of responsibility, team-work among children and prevents them from feeling social insecurity. It helps in being self-confident and a good decision-maker. Hence, every child must be educated so that they can lead a happy life. It means a lot to educate a child- ‘’it is an approach that values the human spirit and the development of the whole child-physical, social, emotional, cognitive. Sam Onyemaechi embarked on training children, not only on their physical development, but also their intellectual and social development. The hopeful news is that we can help create a new start for these children. We can mobilize a life-changing surge of love and support, by providing scholarship. These scholarships will ensure that children stay in school for a year covering tuition and related costs.

Executive Summary:
Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation have provided an opportunity for vulnerable children to have access to quality education and help each student reach his or her potentials and develop unique talents and interests. SOHF intends to fill the void for a first-class childhood care facility in rural southeast, Nigeria. There has long been a shortage for quality childhood care due to the lack of availability of a competent location. However, planning this innovative has been ongoing for over four years by the organization. The total cost of getting the school in operation is $250,000, which include building/property acquisition, equipment and operating capital. At present, we have located a suitable land for purchase. The asking price is $68,096.15. The Organization intends to raise all of the project’s costs through this offering.

Besides, Significant progress has been made to date in realizing some of our project goals. As an organization, we have accomplished to a greater extent the following: training and taking care of 98 students in different schools up to university level, training them in computer school and vocational skills. All of these where able to be accomplished and still in progress through the instrumentality of our stakeholders, who, voluntarily on their own expense paying their school fees. One of the problems we encountered and are currently investigating is that we are only able to reach out to limited number of children with little resources at hand.

Organizational Background
Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ started in the year 2012, officially registered September 7, 2017. Joined GlobalGiving community May 29, 2021, with a vision to ensure each child is valued, respected, feels safe and secure and develops a positive self-concept. Enable children for effective communication and foster both receptive and expressive language. Promote development and integration of the senses. Stimulate intellectual curiosity and develop conceptual understanding of the world around by providing opportunities to explore, investigate and experiment. Also, to create a platform for young people to actively engage them in social issues in the southeast, Nigeria. In the first 3 months of its operations, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ did a rapid assessment of existing youth program in the region to discover a dearth of serious, structured interventions with young people in the area. The team from ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ visited more than 20 rural communities and several NGO functionaries operating in the area to learn about the involvement of youth and adult in Social initiatives in the area. In these visits, most of the principals, teachers and social workers voiced a need to build leadership among young people on social issues and motivate them to take up social action initiatives. The educators expressed their concerns and difficulties involved in mobilizing young people for social action initiatives.

In the same period, a team from ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ participated in the ‘Change Makers program’ that was conducted jointly by The Nonprofit council with the aim of understanding the current community development initiatives of other NGOs across Nigeria. During this phase the team studied the program design and the community mobilization methods of these NGOs. The team also underwent a one year long mentoring and handholding under this program. In the process, the team also participated in a several learning programs with several NGOs working on community issues from across the nation. In these sessions, the team interacted with more than 12 NGOs and their several community leaders working in different parts of the country.

Equipped with an understanding of local issues and an understanding of the best practices of NGOs from across the country, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ started conducting basic life skill and active citizenship programs in communities in Southeast. The program was named ‘change for life’. These workshops caught the interest of educators and students alike and they welcomed ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ team to conduct repeat workshops on several issues in 15 communities with around 8,367 in attendant. This program also had an indirect outreach of another 4200 people. ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ also initiated a pilot program named ‘Metamorphosis’ that involved families in community outreach program. This program involved around 10,600 farmers from 15 different communities in the area. In the same period, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ conducted two parent counseling workshops in two different communities to discuss the issues of their children. This program titled ‘Parenting and grassroots child-care' helped us put forward our standpoints and increased our acceptance with parents who are the prime decision makers for their children

Now in its second year of operation, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has started conducting life skill and active citizenship workshops in 10 additional Communities. This program so far had a direct outreach of 2700 families. Parenting and grassroots child-care has been conducted in two new Communities in the year. Currently, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation is actively working with 23 communities in Southeast working on different issues in different communities. In order to give a push to these projects, 'Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has identified the need for:
a) Help the vulnerable improve and maintain a healthy and independent lifestyle and to maximize their quality of life.
b) Starting of 2 Resource Centers in southeast to address the needs of farmers
a) Resource Centers for youth to learn vocational skills.
b) Resource and Empowerment Centers for farmers to equip them with skills in farming.

Vision and Goal
The vision and goal of Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian foundation is to provide a safe place for children to be while parents are at work or school. Provide a place where children will be able to learn foundation skills to be ready for kindergarten. Provide a place where children and adults will be able to participate in a wide range of experiences and develop their potential. It is our vision to help each student to actualize his/her potentials, develop unique talents and interests. Understanding how the world works and how the people in it interact, especially in the area of developing perspective.

Core values
Involving people, applying knowledge and making things happen. We take as our Motto “Peace, social justice, diversity, fun and democracy as key values” which guide us.

Organizational Structure
‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ is registered as a Trust with Mr. AKARAONYE, Engr. Greg, Mr. Joseph and Ms. Rosita as the Board of Trustees. The ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ Team is currently led by Chief Anyanwu and comprises of Mr. Dominic, Ms. Agnes, Mr. Ezekiel, Ms. Anthonia etc.

Aims and Objectives
The aim and objectives of Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation is to ensure each child is valued, respected, feels safe and secure and develops a positive self-concept. Enable children for effective communication and foster both receptive and expressive language. Promote development and integration of the senses. Stimulate intellectual curiosity and develop conceptual understanding of the world around by providing opportunities to explore, investigate and experiment.

Target Beneficiaries
The project was implemented in the rural communities in Southeast and south west. The direct beneficiaries are children and youth-ages from one year to twenty-five years. 98 people are directly benefited comprising of 34 males and 64 females. The indirect beneficiaries are people within the communities with a combined population of 120 individuals and 70% of which is made of females.

The impact of the underlying problem on the target population.
The effects of out of school children are serious in communities in southeast and southwest. Children who grow up in poverty-stricken families suffer more persistent, frequent, and severe health problems and drop-out of school than children who grow up under better financial circumstances. In the Society, Issues like expensive tuition fee, discouraging environment, academic inadequacy, hunger, illness, and poor sanitation are all causes and effects of drop-out of school children. Students who drop out typically have a history of absenteeism, grade retention and academic trouble and are more disengaged from school life. School structure, curriculum and size are factors influential to increased likelihood of a student experiencing academic risk factors.

*Project Details

INCOME
S/N Date Description Amount
1 11/10/21 Sales from agricultural products $850.00
2 03/01/22 individual Contributions from stakeholders for students’ school fees $1500
3 12/02/22 In-kind contributions $550
total $2900

Working capital= $2900

EXPENSES
S/N DATE DESCRITION NO OF STUDENT AMOUNT
1 15/11/21 STUDENTS SCHOOL FEES 11 $2247.52
2 12/12/21 Registration OF WAEC EXAM for SSS 3 students 5 $661.05
04/10/21 Stationaries/writing materials 23 $65.55
13/11/21 Education sensitization in rural communities 1 $100
07/07/21 Computer training during holidays 10 $500
09/02/22 ICT handler 1 $75
28/01/22 Appreciation to volunteers 12 $360
10/02/22 Telephone calls and data $68.05

Grand Total 4074.17

Grand Total of Expenditures= $4074.17

Deficit= $-1,174.17

N/B. The foundation ran out of funds to carry out her responsibilities in training children under her care. Five of her students from poor families, orphans will be taken their West African Examination Council (WAEC) exams this year, we did everything possible to see that they were all registered for their exams. Thanks to our Benefactors/benefactresses, who, on their own magnanimous heart are paying directly to some students in their respective schools.

Sustainability of the Project
The ability of our organization as a whole to survive and to meet our mission goal, we embark on an entrepreneurial venture, as a way of raising money for community, financial and organizational sustainability. The foundation runs a food production, processing and packaging factory. We have been partnering with a company in processing our food items for sales. We are working hard to build our own factory for our organizational sustainability, and to help youth that have vocational skill to acquaint themselves with entrepreneurial skills to be resourceful and useful to themselves and society at large. The procurement of the necessary equipment for production, processing and packaging of organic raw materials(food) and construction of a multi-purpose hall that will accommodate our factory and other activities is our priority, we can achieve this through external sources like grants and long-term funding or through internal sources like income-generating activities or membership fees. And to actualize our mission and goal, we have these points as our guiding principles: Collaborative leadership, member-driven decisions, effective communication, change-ready and adaptive workforce continuous improvement, on-going evaluation and measurement, sound financial infrastructure.

Difficulties and Challenges
The fight against child education has seen some progress over the past three years. Globally, the proportion of school drop-out has declined from 15 per cent to 11 per cent in few communities we have visited with little resources at hand. However, more than 45% people still lack regular access to proper education. The major challenges we encountered within the period of our community outreach in rural schools is related to persistent poverty among rural families, many families in the rural community are poor. They do not have enough money for children to receive an education. minimum parental involvement and shortage of resources at rural schools, lack of Basic Infrastructure in both public and private sector, lack of Library, scientific and computer laboratory, lack of teacher commitment. If current trends continue, the zero out of school drop-out target will be largely missed by 2030.

Annexes
Annexed below is a sample of this section that has been drawn from the project report of ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ – a non-profit organization that works with young adolescents, youths and adult in rural Communities.

*Overview of the Program:
We at ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ very much value exposure, interaction and peer learning processes. Our recent interactions with more than 20 Communities have reinforced this belief. We are now looking out for support to create 2 youth resource and Empowerment centers in southeast, Nigeria where young, adult etc. can come together, co-create learning experiences and contribute positively to the community development. We plan to utilize these resource Empowerment centers as spaces for involving the youth and adult in “self-development” and ‘social action’ projects of various kind. 'Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has the required experience and expertise to design and run social action campaigns. We feel campaigns are great opportunities to demonstrate leadership skills, highlight social issues, develop deeper understanding about issues and mobilize young people. Campaigns give energy and take care of youth and adult needs such as fun, interaction, novelty etc. We want to organize a campaign each year highlighting youth action.

What we have achieved so far?
‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ is now an accepted name in more than 35 Communities. Our volunteers are personally known to tens of thousands of families in southeast. As a part of self-development initiative, we have conducted workshops in more than 25 Communities in the last 3 years with a direct outreach of approximately 4000 people in the last 3 years. We have so far organized one major campaign in nearby villages where they went and identified families who were not buoyant enough to Carter for their family’s needs.
Since the beginning ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has been running out several programs in Communities promoting spirit of volunteerism and celebrating youth led social action. We have organized a major social action project titled ‘Change for life’ in 10 large Communities with an approximate outreach of around 23000 peoples. This project involved collecting and donating used and unused clothes blankets, shoes, food items to the needy.

What we propose?
In this project we propose to undertake the following activities under the aegis of the Resource and Empowerment Center for youth and adult. Youth Resource and Empowerment Center: We wish to build 2 new Youth Resource and Empowerment Centers (YREC) in Southeast over a period of next two years – one for the first-generation school goers and the second for adult in rural Communities. At the end of the two years we would have been running two (2) Youth and adult Resource and Empowerment Centers and the third year would be dedicated to further strengthen and better the functioning of these two resource and Empowerment centers.

Awareness Campaign:
We will design and run campaigns involving adolescents young people and adult from rural and urban areas every year starting with the end of year 1. The theme of the campaign will be designed by the adolescents. This will help them to consolidate their learnings and create awareness about social issues.

Conclusion
It is becoming evident to many that the education of children, particularly young children, now faces a daunting challenge. The increasing social and economic divergence in the modern world is staggering and potentially a major threat to our stability and security. But can the key stakeholders in education recognize the challenge and embrace a commitment to adapt policies and practices to address a fundamental re-alignment in the mind-set of children in terms of their social attitudes and social justice? First, it requires an awareness that education is deeply implicated in efforts to bring about greater fairness, more opportunities for young people and respect for others. Teachers have a very considerable responsibility in their day-to-day engagements with children so they need to be persuaded not only that reform in a post-modernist context can be achieved but also that many current social attitudes and injustices must be challenged. Reform is possible, but it needs the understanding, the commitment and the vision in those empowered to instigate it. Second, it needs parents to become more aware about the power they exert over their children and to use that power in a more democratic way to promote social justice. Such is the challenge for the education of children in modern times.