CORE Development Initiative

The Elevate Prize will highlight our work and make our true capabilities known globally and send the right signals to prospective donors. The financial benefits will be used to provide a computer lab and 55 computer systems for 2 primary schools that are in need in my community. These students are from poor homes and internally displaced persons {IDP} camps in Abuja. These schools presently do not have a single computer system in their school.

The 2-year Leadership Development, Organizational Operations, and Marketing & Visibility support program will enable me lead my team and organization to navigate any social challenges encountered in the process of doing my work. Furthermore, the coaching opportunities will provide insights on the best way to implement new initiatives/solutions in my community.  

 The opportunity to engage with previous winners to share ideas and solutions will be priceless to our different communities and our learning and development process. We hope to be the leading voice and exemplary model to other organizations in providing quality education to school students especially the marginalized. 

Winning this award will ensure that the plight of the members of these communities are brought to light for appropriate intervention.

My passion for mentoring young people and that every young person allows themselves to maximize purpose and potential in fulfilling their destinies, supporting community development and initiating change at all levels. I co-founded and initiated CORE Development Initiative which is a platform that focuses on Youth Coaching, Mentoring and Development, Employability and Entrepreneurship.

The vision of CORE is to see that every individual has identified its potential towards making an impact in their spheres of influence through entrepreneurship and employability. Our core values are excellence, responsibility, inclusion, integrity/accountability, trust and hard/Innovative work.

We have a number of programs geared towards the following areas:

• •Advocacy
• •Gender inclusion/empowerment
• •Personal Development 
• •Career Planning, Job Readiness and Employability
• •Youth Entrepreneurship
• •Leadership Development/Mentoring

Our goal for the future is to see that every young generation has identified its potential towards making an impact in their spheres of influence. 

World Bank in 2019 reveal that an estimated 53% of children in low- and middle-income countries cannot read proficiently by age 10. According to UNICEF, 27 million children in school are performing very poorly. Millions of Nigerians are half-educated, and over 60 million – or 30% – are illiterate

Too many internally displaced children grow up deprived of an education and the long-term opportunities it affords. Internal displacement often places huge strains on already inadequate educational infrastructure. A lack of capacity, resources and persistent insecurity, social tensions and discrimination are all significant barriers to education in many displacement situations.

Our approach in addressing the problem is by providing quality mentoring programs, thereby giving them a competitive advantage to strive in the global market. This approach will reduce the huge strains on already inadequate educational infrastructure in the state and the country at large. This in turn leads to access to quality inclusive education bringing significant economic, social and health benefits to displaced and host communities alike. 

In the course of our mentoring program, we have noticed that most of the students have difficulty in learning (pronunciation, reading and writing). We have decided to add some activities to our mentoring program, such as spelling bee, class presentations and reading sessions to ensure that these students have good quality education irrespective of their backgrounds.

What makes our work unique is the focus of the program, knowing that the need for high-quality early childhood education has never been greater among marginalized communities, the experiences and interactions children have in early years significantly affects brain development and helps to establish the foundation for future learning.

This program ensures school students develop good habits, increase in literacy level, development of emotional resilience amongst other outcomes. We are currently in 7 primary schools within our community, each with a mentoring date and timetable.

The response of students during these mentoring days shows that they look forward to our sessions. This feedback led us to develop an ‘LEA (Local Education Agency) life skills Manual’ for the children enabling them learn at their space and answer thought provoking questions as it relates to each topic.

Through the LEA School Mentoring Program, we have been able to increase the social and academic confidence of the students in addition to their learning proficiency. Their passive participation in mentoring sessions have turned active, as seen in the level of interaction during mentoring sessions.

We employ creative and critical thinking techniques in classes, so they will be able to develop solutions to their personal and academic issues, this has been effective because questions are answered using real-life situations.