SKILLS OUTSIDE SCHOOL FOUNDATION

I founded Skills Outside School Foundation, a Not-for-profit in June 2014. Since inception, we have reached over 2,000 Beneficiaries through our interventions; SOSF Bridge, SOSF Headstart and SOS Careers. We drive these interventions through carefully sourced and analyzed data, and we advocate for policy reforms. 

In the next 4 years, the strategic plan is to:

SOSF BRIDGE

-    Raise 20 Million Naira in funding.

-    Expand SOS Bridge Club to 12 States.

-    Set up 144 Clubs.

-    Train 1000 Teachers, Guardians and Counselors.

-    Reach 60,000 Students directly, and 5000 indirectly.

-    Deploy NGN[2] million in relief funds primarily applied to further education and training.

-    Reach 1000 students through the SOS Bridge Ambassadors Virtual Challenge.

SOSF HEADSTART 

-    Raise 20 Million Naira in funding. 

-    Reach 5,000 indirect beneficiaries and 15000 directly.

-    Mobilise 1000 business mentors.

-    Digitize and deploy digital curriculum to 2000 entrepreneurs. 

-    Kickstart 2,000 businesses, create 1,000 jobs.

-    NGN50 million GDP contribution.

SOS CAREERS 

-    Digitize and deploy digital curriculum to 1,000 professionals .

-    Deploy SOS Connect for SOS Careers Ambassadors  to reach 3,000 professionals.

-    Reach 500 professionals through the SOS Careers Ambassadors Virtual Challenge.

My name is Halima Ibrahim Abba. I’m from Borno State in North-East Nigeria. I’m 28-years-old. 

 I run the Skills Outside School Foundation. We deploy education, employability and entrepreneurship interventions that help prepare youth and young adults for the future & the global economy.

My journey has always been deliberate, I have always been so inquisitive and versatile.  In all of these, I have come to embrace development which is very close to my heart, hence my involvement with volunteerism with development-based NGOs.

I am interested in Education development in Nigeria, my dear mother who was an Educator for over thirty years made me pick up this interest. 

I have been privileged to get access to quality education, relevant resources and opportunities both within and outside of my country, and my goal is to open up as many young people as I can to opportunities in Education, Employability and Entrepreneurship via Skills, Training And Mentorship. 

Skills Outside School was born on this conviction in June 2014. From inception till date, we have reached over 2000 beneficiaries directly.

However, the journey is still far, and my Foundation needs all the Financial Aid that it can get to reach more young people. 

EDUCATION 

There is a mismatch between the education received in school and the demands of industry. 

 To address this, we developed employability and educational programs to build and prepare Nigeria youth for the labour market from secondary to tertiary level. The focus is on disadvantaged youth because they lack access to opportunities and information to attain their potential.

EMPLOYABILITY 

With just under half of Nigeria’s 195.9 million population (64 million) representing the youth, Nigeria faces a significant youth bulge. Of this figure, 11.1 million are unemployed. Although, youth unemployment is manifest more in rural areas, youth unemployment is as much a rural as it is an urban issue. 30% of the youth fall within the 15-19 age bracket, and 22% within 20-24. The foundation focuses on age brackets 15-24.

We provide youth at tertiary level and adults in employment with access to digital and non-digital work-readiness, career resources, and information, positioning them for Employment readiness for income-generation.

ENTREPRENEUSHIP

  Young people need to develop an entrepreneurial mindset to enable them apply their knowledge to solve problems peculiar to Nigeria.

We deliver quality entrepreneurship and agrotechnical support to youths and adults through training, access to funds, mentoring and  advisory services.

Our model is built on 3 pillars:

A. Data:

o    To design, monitor and evaluate interventions: We collect data and assess beneficiaries to determine needs to contextualize interventions. We analyze data from interventions for advocacy, awareness and continuous learning & development. 

o    To inform and enable: We research trends across a variety of sectors and share thought leadership articles and webinars to inform and spark discussion amongst beneficiaries, interested parties and stakeholders. We issue monthly research reports on various themes to support activities of third-party users. We publish our baseline data on our interventions across states in Nigeria and globally to inform the work of third parties.

B. Interventions:  

We design and deliver data-driven, holistic interventions to meet the needs in line with our mandate. Our interventions include programs, initiatives and challenges delivered directly or indirectly through individuals, public, private and non-profit partners. Our interventions are:

o    Direct through our designed programs

o    Indirect through supporting our partners implement and scale their interventions in line with our common objectives through funding, resources, training and people.

C. Advocacy: We utilize data and intervention outcomes to raise awareness, mobilize partnerships, inform policies, drive the culture and enabling environment for sustainable development impact.

We have mobilized and invested over N32 million in our interventions including  1.7 Million Naira in scholarships, $10,000  in investments in entrepreneurs to scale their businesses in agriculture, fashion etc.

We have mobilized 1195 volunteers including over 300 Career mentors from Nigeria, US, UK, Japan and UAE representing 100+ careers, 11 Business mentors representing 7 industries and 37 Trainers.

We have deployed career, academic, life and entrepreneurial skills to 381 students through the bridge after-school club, and leadership capacity building to 230 school prefects. 

We have deployed character development to 346 girls through the UNICEF girl’s empowerment program, and 790 skills training hours and 2000 mentoring hours in over 32 career sectors. 

Our beneficiaries have established meaningful businesses and social projects including an Online platform with Q&A for senior secondary students on difficult subjects, Silent Stars that supports youths with hearing disabilities with sign language training, Public speaking skills training for youth church members.

We have trained 539 beneficiaries on Business skills to improve their Entrepreneurial capacity.

We have reached over 120 Cassava  farmers training them on business and technical skills to help them improve their crop yield.