15th January, 2022
A young entrepreneur, and founder of Aspiring Generation Foundation (AGF Foundation), Olatunbosun Bakare, popularly called BOSMAN, has distributed 5,000 bags and other learning materials to school children in public schools across three Local Governments and Local Council Development Area (LCDA) in the Epe area of Lagos state.
Bakare said the gesture is aimed at boosting learning and standard of education in Lagos State as well as to ensure that schoolchildren concentrate on their education and learn better, while relieving their parents of the burden of procuring bags and other learning materials.
Bakare He disclosed this while giving details of the activities carried out by his foundation, AGF Foundation in 2021.
“During our outreach last year in Lagos, Epe to be precise, we donated 45000 books and 5000 bags. Each beneficiary got six books and one bag. The beneficiaries were picked across the three Local Government Areas in Epe (Eredo, Epe, and Ikosi-Ejirin LGAs),” Bakare said.
The founder of the NGO, who had been the sole financier, in an interview with newsmen, said that pupils from over 28 schools across the three councils benefited from the foundation’s outreach, just as he promised that more would be done to boost pupils learning across the Epe division in the state.
He listed the schools to include St. Joseph Primary School Itokin, St. Agnes Primary Orugbo, RCM Primary School Keti, RCM Primary School Igbogun, RCM Primary School Agbowa, UPE Primary School Iganke, UPE Primary School Odoayadelu, LG Primary School Ikosi, RCM Primary School Ejinrin, and ZI Primary School 1 Epe.
Others were LG Primary School Erepoto Epe, Oriba Primary School, Community Primary School 1 Epe, LG Primary School Yeguda, Lupetoro Primary School Epe, Solomon Primary School Epe, St. Micheal Primary School Epe 2, Army Children Primary School Epe 1, and LG Primary School Igboye
Also on the list were UPE Primary School Ilara, UPE Primary School Igbonla, AUD Primary School Ibowon, UPE Primary School Odogbawojo, ST Peter Primary School Odoyangushi, LG Primary School Noforija, Pobo Primary School Poka, AUD Primary School Odo Egiri, and UPE Primary School Iraye Oke.
On his reason for venturing into the movement, Bakare noted that the outreach for pupils was to ensure children of school-age have necessary items that may hamper their concentration owing to the country’s economic situation when many were only struggling to survive and get by every day.
“We have been distributing books for a very long time. Aside from Lagos, Epe particularly, we have distributed books to students in Ibadan, Oyo State. So, what happened that year was that we went to Ibadan to check on one of the children in our care. So, upon getting there, we realized many students don’t have books and necessary school materials, and we have no option but to come in and donate books and other materials to them.
“During our outreach last year in Lagos, Epe to be precise, we donated 45000 books and 5000 bags. Each beneficiary got six books and one bag. The beneficiaries were picked across the three Local Government Areas in Epe (Eredo, Epe, and Ikosi-Ejirin LGAs),” Bakare said.
“So, I understand the poverty level in the country and how families are daily struggling but we have to also face the reality. Looking at the Nigerian situation now, there is no work anywhere and I am looking at how people can be self-sufficient through skill acquisition. We will be venturing into an empowerment programme by empowering our youths and teaching them different skills that would make them employers of labour rather than jobseeker.
“For 2022, we are going to focus on empowerment. We are going to re-orientate people, particularly the youth by resetting their minds on how to make a living from skills they would acquire from our programmes. We will be impacting our youths in 2022 through empowerment,” Bakare said.
On his advice for the younger generation, the entrepreneur said, “as a young man trying to grow, I realized that young people have a lot troubling our mind and a lot of questions we are seeking answers to but what I can advise is that we youth should keep our head straight, keep the focus and be determined.”
Aside from the educational outreach, the entrepreneur noted that his foundation was also managing orphans, taking up the responsiblity for their welfare and education.
He said the Foundation at the moment has 17 orphans it is taling care of in terms of feeding, upkeep, school fees, medicals among others.
“We have been giving back even before 2017. Since it normally takes time to get certified by the CAC, and 2017 happened to be the year we got fully certified by the CAC but we have been giving back to the community, my immediate constituency (Epe), Lagos in general, and other states across the federation since 2014/2015.
“Aside from the education part of our outreach, we also take care of orphans through enrolling them into school, paying their tuition fees, catering to the welfare by employing caregivers,s and providing shelter for them.
“Also, aside from the education and orphanage part of our programme, we’ve also extended our NGO tentacles to medical outreach because we discover many Nigerians don’t prioritize their health, they don’t do medical checkups to ascertain their health status.
“Keeping this in mind, we flag off our AGF medical outreach which we do every six months. So we rotate our areas for health outreach and we cater to all age groups from age 1 to adults, where we bring in experts to check their health status, give them necessary advice and some drugs. We have mostly done this in southwest states including Lagos, Oyo, and Ogun.”
Continuing, he said that he had approximately spent no fewer than N50 million to cover the outreach expenses from 2019-2021, adding that the foundation would also take it a notch higher this year by putting up an empowerment programme for the people, particularly youths.
“In 2019 that we audited our account, we realized we spent more than N20 million, and the following year, 2020, which is the COVID-19 year, we also gave back to the community through COVID relief materials, including foodstuffs among others.
“And for the last movement in 2021, which involves medical outreach, school tours (for materials donations, borehole drillings, among others), and the orphanage wing, we spent no fewer than N50 million as the 2021 movement was massive.”