Meet Multiple Award Winning Youth Transforming Agribusiness In Nigeria

Posted on September 6, 2017September 6, 2017 by Adediwura Aderibigbe

Sipasi Olalekan Ayodele

Before the discovery of Crude Oil at Oloibiri, Bayelsa State (South-South Nigeria) in 1956, Nigeria was known for her agriculture prowess exporting farm produces to developed nations thereby boosting its economy. The most populous black nation on earth is blessed with expanse of arable land but has suffered a major setback in agriculture since attention shifted to oil exploration.

Irked by the dangers inherent in focusing on one source of income, there have been recent calls by government on the need to diversify the country’s economy and embrace its first love — agriculture — some youths especially graduates have tapped into this opportunity and one of those who are playing their roles in this instance is Sipasi Olalekan Ayodele, an Active Citizen campaigning against poverty and hunger and the Country Coordinator of African Youth Employment Initiatives, Nigeria.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Technology, University of Akure; Master’s Degree, University of Ibadan in Animal Production & Health and Animal Science simultaneously. Sipasi is certified in Capacity Building, Business Administration from African Management Institute, Nairobi, Computer Science from Lagos City Computer College, Lagos, Nigeria and attended the Rural Future Lab in Germany.

Before setting up ProtectOzone, he had “volunteered and still volunteering with several local and international NGOs among which are ONE in Africa, Voluntary Service Overseas Nigeria, Education Concern for Hunger Organization (East and West Africa), Food4All Ghana etc.”

Mr Ayodele has natural love for agriculture since his childhood. He started farming at 9 years old with just a cock and a hen – given to him by his grandparents who made available the crucial start-ups. With careful management, he in no time multiplied his flock into hundreds.

Sipasi would later move to Lagos – the Nigeria’s economic capital (South West). As expected, his relocation adversely affected his somewhat successful livestock management but he never lost his love for animals.

As fate would have it, one of the punishments at his new school was to work with the pigs and poultry, in order to spend more time with the animals. Consequently, Sipasi would get into trouble on purpose. This activity didn’t lead to academic excellence until his final years at university when he finally got to do some practical, hands-on training and began to amaze his professors. Sipasi now holds a Master’s Degree in Animal Science from the University of Ibadan, South West Nigeria.

“Being a farmer is exciting, it allows me to show my creativity – I think Agriculture is the Master of Arts, it’s full of indigenous creativity”, said Sipasi.

Sipasi Olalekan Ayodele is the most recent recipient of the Africa Youth Award for Agriculture. The Founder of L’Afrika Integrated Farms and ProtectOzone in Nigeria was nominated for the award based on his implementation of the FFF methods, and for innovations at his poultry farm, using locally available herbal alternatives he is demonstrating to avoid the synthetic micro-nutrients in commercial poultry feed.

“Contamination in these feed products are linked to nearly a half-million deaths each year”, said Sipasi.

“L’Afrika Integrated Farms, and those they have trained, are seeing decreased livestock mortality and improvements in the health and well-being of their consumers. It is sardonic, that a land blessed with arable land and water still feeds her citizenry poison, at L’Afrika Integrated Farms, we have demonstrated production of clean poultry product from a limited land space (backyard) in order to improve the health and well-being of the society using InnoNATIVE approach.

“Currently, we are running a training with the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative of the US Consulate, Lagos to train indigent youths in sustainable best agricultural practice and Smart City Farming on the ProtectOzone Demonstration Farm which L’Afrika Integrated Farms is a key facility.”

Speaking on what the project aims to achieve, Sipasi revealed that “ProtectOzone Sustainable Livelihood Initiative is aimed at curbing ozone layer depletion through awareness raising, tree planting, establishment inclusive farms demonstration farms which is currently proving successful with our partnership with the NYSC SDGs Community Development Service due to their reach and widespread in the country.”

“On my way to Arusha, Tanzania through Addis Abba, Ethiopia in February 2015 for ECHO East Africa Symposium, the airline I traveled with echoed their appreciation to passengers on board for choosing their flight and to reward their customers, they promised to plant trees in the origin of the flight country to help combat climate change.

“During my return journey to Nigeria, I met Dr Hussien I. M. Shagar, a United Nations volunteer from South Sudan who told me for the first time in my life about voluntary service. This sparked my interest of what I could to do to help my country as obviously, the trees were not going to be planted in Nigeria but Ethiopia according to the announcer. The thought of saving our environment to curb climate change through planting of trees stirred me up as an Agriculturalist.

“As soon as I returned to my country, Nigeria, I started massive advocacy, trainings and distribution of tree seeds to combat erosion and climate change systematically using Local Content Initiative in order to penetrate the rural communities. This singular act got me Young African Leaders Initiative of President Barack Obama, Social Innovators Fellowship of LEAP Africa, 2015 Hidden Eco-Hero Award, 2016 Africa Youth Award for Agriculture to mention but a few.

Mr Ayodele has won several awards through his initiative including:

– Champion 4 Change FEEDtheFUTURE Project of USAID

– Gender in Agribusiness Innovation for Africa GAIA, Ghana, ProtectOzone

– L’Afrika integrated farms were recognized at the Rural future Lab in Germany.

– 2015’s Hidden Eco-Hero Award Winner, Samsung Engineering’s Tunza Ecogeneration, Seoul, South Korea.

– Lion’s Awards, The Most Influential Participant of Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), West Africa Cohort 3, West Africa Centre for Cooperate Social Responsibility.

– Social Innovators Program & Award SIPA. LEAP Africa.

– Young African Leaders Initiative, West Africa

– Carrington Fellow of the US Consulate, Lagos

– ONE Champion, ONE in Africa

– LEAP Africa SIP Fellow

– Africa Youth Award for Agriculture

– Civil Society Award for Sustainable Environment, 2017

When asked what inspires Ayodele, he said he is “driven by the inherent potential of my country Nigeria and Continent at large.

“We should have no business with hunger in Africa, it is scandalous if we say we cannot feed ourselves and the world by 2050”, he protested.

“Imagine, a continent blessed with arable land and water, holding over 65% of the remaining world arable land. We need to put all hands on deck in resilient and climate smart agricultural practice and planting of more trees to combat hunger by 2030 in Africa, else this dream won’t be achieved until the year 2130”, he advised.

CELBMD Africa On The Move To Promote Economic Empowerment Across Africa

Posted on January 7, 2017January 7, 2017 by Olubukonla Aloba

The Center for Entrepreneurship, Leadership and Business Management Development (CEL-BMD) Africa- The Pan African Professional Center is an international center of choice for skills and competency based professional executive training, development and consultancy which cut across all levels of industry from senior executives to high school graduates. Currently, CELBMD offers the following services: professional executive training/development, entrepreneurship and leadership training program, capacity building seminars and conference, graduate assistance program, corporate training and consultancy, small business management free consulting. Its programs are designed to incite problem solving skills, innovative thinking and exchange of ideas. The professional executive training and development programs have been designed to address some of the immediate issues facing many organizations and business executives today. Through its professional executive training and development programs, CELBMD Africa has trained and certified 8500 executives, leaders, job-seekers and entrepreneurs in 26 African countries. The organization has also empowered 16000+ people through its conferences and capacity building seminars.

Javnyuy Joybert- CEO, CELBMD Africa

Javnyuy Joybert is the founder and CEO of CELBMD Africa. He is a young African from The Republic of Cameroon. Javnyuy is a man who wears many hats. He is a preacher of the gospel by divine orchestration, empowerment coach, social entrepreneur, motivational speaker and also doubles as the senior trainer/consultant at CELBMD. According to Javnyuy, the idea to start CELBMD was triggered by his experience after graduating high school in 2009.

After high school my single mum could not afford my university tuition and I was so eager to further my education and become the banker I have always wanted to be. So I could not go to school and at the same time I did not have the employability skills that employers needed from job seekers. I now started asking questions why is there no organization that can train me with the skills I need to make me employable at a very cheap fee that I could carry out odd jobs, pay and earn these skills within a very short period of time, maximum 3 months courses.

According to Javnyuy, he started doing odd jobs in Bamenda City. He washed cars, worked in building construction sites, cleaned and served as commercial motorbike rider, until he was able to earn his Bachelors of Science degree in Financial Management in 2012. “After acquiring my degree I got my first job as a finance clerk in a microfinance institution and at the same time started working on developing an organization that will put the thoughts I had in 2009 into action to affect young people like me across Africa. And CELBMD Africa was born.”

Since its inception, CELBMD has been recording tremendous success across Africa. It has ambassadors from various African countries. Outstanding young Africans who have continued to carry on the vision of CELBMD Africa through the great work they are doing in their respective countries. CELBMD also boasts of registered training centers in 18 African countries (Malawi, Uganda, Botswana, Tanzania, Somalia, Zambia, Djibouti, Nigeria, Ghana, DRC, Rwanda, Angola, Mozambique, South Africa, Burkina Faso, Swaziland, Kenya and Cameroon) Through these programs the organization has been transforming Africa by transforming the minds of Africans.

The organization has been nominated for so many awards and have won a couple of awards too. Winner of Princess Kuja Recognition Awards 2016 for Community Development organized by a New York (USA) Base Marie-Claire Kuja Foundation, UK Base Kinnaka’s Blog Gola Project Awards 2016. Javnyuy was also nominated for the 2015 Africa Youth Award – Category: Grassroots Transformation and 2016 Africa Youth Award – Category Male African Youth of the Year.

On his goals and aspirations, Javnyuy says,

The African Continent is at a point in time where they need competencies such as creativity, problem solving, initiative, and transformational leadership capabilities. To promote sustainable development and economic empowerment in Africa, African leaders as a matter of now must implement new educational models unlike the one that has been existing with little or no transformation effect. Therefore CELBMD Africa aim at accelerating Youth Empowerment/Development in areas of creativity, problem solving, entrepreneurship, leadership, effective business management practices across Africa for sustainable growth in Africa. CELBMD Africa projects are designed to point young people in the right direction to enable them play constructive quota in continent/nation building. Currently we are working on our 2025 vision where we envision seeing CELBMD Africa operating in all 54 African countries and training/empowering 100 000 Africans through our Professional Executive Training/Development and Capacity Building Seminars and Conferences.

Talking on what drives him, Javnyuy says, “I have a mandate to contribute my best to make sure that I leave a better Africa to the future generation better than the one I inherited from my single mum. This drives me daily.” Javnyuy understands the benefits of a mentor-mentee relationship. Because of this, he says he is open to being a mentor to anyone. Anyone who is interested can reach him via his Facebook page @Javnyuy Joybert.

To learn about CELBMD Africa and its programs, you can visit their website CELBMD Africa

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Redefining Education for Young Nigerians

Posted on December 16, 2016December 21, 2016 by Olubukonla Aloba

While serving as a Youth Corps member in a remote village in Edo state, Nigeria, Ajayi Oluwafunminiyi birthed the idea of Read and Think Initiative. On discovering that most students in the rural community lacked purpose and a sense of direction, Ajayi thought of a way to promote literacy and career awareness among the young students. According to him, “Some saw no reason for schooling, some others perceived it as punishment and this made teaching and learning difficult and ultimately the purpose of schooling was defeated.”

Ajayi, a graduate of Transport Management from Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso and a member of Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport whose core area of skills are research and data analysis put his research skills to use in figuring out the challenges facing these students and the best way to reach them.

Ajayi Oluwafunminiyi

Ajayi discovered that many people find themselves on the wrong job and live below their true potentials because of the choices they made earlier on without the right information. He conducted a survey to sample the opinions of students concerning their reasons for being in school and the factors influencing their choice of career. With the understanding he now has, he is driven to help others especially students who still have the chance to get it right early. He has been able to reach out to about 1000 students through the initiative’s monthly outreaches to schools. The aim of the initiative is to “promote literacy and career awareness by sensitizing, enlightening, re-orientating and motivating students in order to prepare them for purposeful scholarship and resourceful citizenry.”

The initiative held its first campaign across three villages. Ajayi says, “Apart from the sensitization, there was an essay competition where the winner won a scholarship. An indigent but talented J.S.S 1 student was also awarded a scholarship. This was a huge success and the experience motivated me to do more when I left the village.”

The initiative projects to reach out to at least 100,000 Nigerian students on a yearly basis in both rural and urban centers. The initiative plans to organize a yearly essay and debate competitions on topical issues bothering on career choices and self-awareness among schools where winners will be rewarded. In addition to that the initiative also aims to reach out to the less privileged by sponsoring the education of truly indigent students who exhibit a great deal of talent and potential such that such talents do not just go to waste and intends to do this on a yearly basis.

Ajayi added that he has an understanding of the talent mix and personality traits. Using the analysis of John Holland’s theory of personality types, he realizes he is a social type. He falls into the category of people who like to teach and address people. He enjoys doing this a lot and according to him it is his area of strength. With a positive outlook on the future and a determination to create a positive change in his society, Ajayi says, “Our next plan is to reach out to physically impaired students. We realize they face tremendous challenges in learning, so we intend to contribute the little we can in making resources available to them.”

To volunteer or donate to this initiative, contact @Ajayi Julius Oluwafunminiyi on Facebook.

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Adeike Ogunsade Becomes The First Recipient Of The Uphold Africa Fund

Posted on November 30, 2016December 21, 2016 by Olubukonla Aloba

After much deliberations on the applications received from various candidates, Adeike Ogunsade a graduate of Industrial Chemistry from Bowen University Osun state, Nigeria, emerges the winner of the Uphold Africa Fund. This sets Ogunsade as the first recipient of the fund, a sum of N100,000. The fund is set up as a way to assist young African entrepreneurs in their business and social entrepreneurship start-up. Ogunsade is the founder of Crowncare Couture, a fashion company located in Abeokuta, Ogun state Nigeria.

Ogunsade’s passion for fashion design goes way back from her childhood days. She says, “My primary school teacher identified my exceptional flare and gift for sewing and design at the early age of seven, while she taught me Needlework as one of the school subjects.” After some years, she spends her holidays at a local tailor’s workshop in order to gain more skills. She continues to self-train herself with books on fashion design and a sewing machine.

By 2010, Ogunsade decides to enroll in a fashion school and completed a 3-month intensive course on Womenswear Fashion Design. She got an award from the school as the best student of the year. She produces bespoke dresses, wedding dresses, casuals and ready-made female dresses (including corporate and native attires) with carefully selected fabrics and quality finishing.

After graduating from the university, Ogunsade decides to launch her own business. Currently, Ogunsade also runs a fashion school which she started in March 2016. Presently, the school boasts of an enrollment of 12 students. On being selected as the winner, Ogunsade says “Thank you so much, I’m so happy.” She intends to use the fund to, “Expand the capacity of the business arm to sewing and selling of quality Nigerian ready-made wears.This will be done by stocking/purchasing fabrics and sewing materials of both local and foreign standards to produce quality dresses.”

She also intends to use the fund in creating a website that will showcase quality dresses made from her workshop. This will in turn expand her contacts. Ogunsade also says, “I intend to train more youth that can take up fashion designing as a career. This will reduce unemployment.”

Finally, she plans to “re-invest the profit that will be made through the sales of dresses, sewing materials and sewing equipment in procuring new industrial machines and expansion for more quality dresses.”

Below are some of her designs.

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Meet the Face Behind SpYzE Fashions

Posted on May 30, 2016December 21, 2016 by Olubukonla Aloba | 8 Comments

With a deep craving of wanting to be different and successful at what she does, this young Nigerian entrepreneur set out to make her dreams come true. Despite the economic crunch going on in her country she wasn’t to be deterred. She is closer to her dream than she thought and is ready to give it her all and let the world know she is here to make a name for herself.

Tomiwa Yomi-Alliyu (Spyze Fashion) Tomiwa Yomi-Alliyu (CEO, SpYzE Fashions)

Tomiwa Yomi-Alliyu is a 23-year-old, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Nigeria undergraduate, the face behind all the nice form-fitting attires that graces my Facebook timeline every time. She sews all kinds of ladies wears. She is very comfortable with any style and does as directed by her customers. She is out to prove to the world that she is definitely a millennial. She knows where the world converge today and she is out to meet them there. She gracefully uses social media to her advantage. After successfully launching her fashion business, SpYzE Fashions, via social media about two months ago on March 8, Yomi-Alliyu said, “It has been positive vibes all the way from old schoolmates, friends and acquaintances online. They all admire my handwork and give me reasons to keep trying.” Most times, the bulk of her patronage come from her close friends. She hopes to get more from all and sundry.

spyze fashions 4

Yomi-Alliyu whose passion for fashion started out as a love for combining colors and putting things in shape is really optimistic about what the future has in store for her and her business. She said, ” I hope to have my own brand, set up a fashion channel and to be recognized globally in the fashion world.” She believes in starting up a business certain factors needs to be in place. She said, “One has to be determined, dedicated and disciplined. Diligence is the mother of good luck.” She looks up to a lot of top fashion icons and hopes to meet with some of them someday. To anyone who is planning to launch a business she has this to say,” You can do anything they do, only you must try to do it better.”

Below are some of her works. To patronize her, she can be reached via BBM 559692FF.

spyze fashions 5 SpYzE Fashions.jpg 2 Spyze fashions 6

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