#KindnessMatters: Advancing social and health development of children and women battling poverty in Nigeria
Through HELPkids Foundation, Olubukola Olayemi has provided over 700 free school uniforms, 450 school shoes, equipped 1200 children with textbooks/writing materials, linked 52 youths with volunteers for training, empowered 115 women to start their business.
HELPkids Foundation was started in January 2015 in Oba-Ile town which is located in Ondo State, Nigeria with the objective to help unschooled children, especially orphans go back to school. We provide free school uniforms, shoes, schoolbag, textbooks and other writing materials to children in public schools in the local communities in Ondo State.
Last year, we organized a women empowerment program, where we trained a session for stay-at-home mothers on soap-making, baking and decoration and we gave out grinding machines to some to start petty trading. We assist and raise funds for children with health challenges and we have a monthly workshop program with students in public secondary schools where we 'break silence' on child abuse and molestation. We enlighten students on what to look out for in order to avoid molestation. The last one we had was the Youth Entrepreneurship program where we linked 52 youth to interested and trustworthy entrepreneurs in the city who are currently training them in the trade of their choice, free of charge. Initially, we thought they will be trained and given certificates free to go and source for their own startup capital but then Johnkollyns Global Resources and Walbuk Integrated Services assured us that they will empower dedicated and outstanding ones to start their own business from scratch. That is when we started pondering on what to do to make this a better venture.
HELPkids Entrepreneurship School for Women and Girls kick-starts in September 2019. This school will not eradicate our initial vision to help the unschooled and orphans, but will majorly be for women who stay at home doing nothing and school drop-outs who aren’t doing much. Students will be trained for 6-8 months free of charge in soap making, barbing, hairdressing, wig making, tailoring, baking and decoration, cooking of both local and international dishes.