We opened Community Learning Centre – CLC at Imota Ikorodu on the 20th of May and it has been a thrilling experience meeting the kids. We have a total of 150 students at our center, all of them exceptional in their own way with big dreams even though they live in a small town. We want to give them hope, all 150 children and even more. They have more stories than we know about, they yearn to learn to become better.
None of these children were born with a spoon, not even a wooden spoon. They don’t have luxuries afforded to them but they have the resilience and are ready to grow if we let them.
At different times, I found myself having a conversation with these children. Here are four interesting ones.

                                                                   Fathia Abass

Every afternoon she sits at the steps of the learning center, waiting for the doors to be opened. The moment she sights me, her 12 year old face lights up with an excellent smile. She rushes to collect my purse and all my ‘don’t worry’ means nothing to her innocent heart.

‘I want to carry your bag aunty’ she responds to my protest. Then she says “Let’s go carry the book”
we walk together to the office, I steal a glance at her and she just smiles.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask, she thinks for a moment then says

“Accountant “

“That’s nice. What does an accountant do?” I ask

She looks at me, smiles again then says
“I don’t know. I just like the name.’

                                                                  Olakolu Emmanuel

A brave young man of outstanding intellect. 10 minutes after the CLC begun, I see this 10 year old running in the sand as he makes way to enter his class.

‘You are late Olakolu’ I tell him with a smile.

‘I’m sorry ma. My mother asked me to help’

‘What does she do? “ She sells Palm oil but one day I’ll take care of her and buy her a big house.” He replies then walks away.

I watch him enter the class, eager to learn.
I stand before the blackboard in Olakolu’s class. We are about to play a ‘Word Game’ so I ask
“can someone give us an example of a word?”

“Aunty I” Olakolu says, wagging his hands in the air.

‘ Yes Olakolu”

“Pneumonia” he says pronouncing the word with the ‘P’

‘ The p is silent’ I tell him. “Do you know what that word means?” I ask him.

“No ma, I just like the word.”

“You should get a dictionary so you can learn the meaning of words”

“I don’t have the money ma”

                                                                  Adetoun Babington

Always at the steps in her school uniform every day. She is 12 and has very neat handwriting. Once I stopped and asked her to read what she was writing. She looked up at me, twisted her face then said

“Excuse me ma, I can’t read it.”

“You want to learn to read?” I ask her.

“I don’t know” she replies

“What do you want to become when you grow up?”

“Nurse” she says

“What do nurses do?”

“They treat.”

“But if you can’t read, how will you treat and give people medicine?” I ask

She twists her face again “I don’t know ma. I try but I can’t read”

“You’ll learn to read here at CLC” I promise her. She goes on her knees and says “Thank you ma”

The day Toun was able to read a sentence in Queen Primer, she ran to me with a huge smile
‘Ma look, I got it. I’m knowing it”

                                                               Sultan Adepegba

Strong young man always in a basketball jersey; I remember the first time I met this 12 year old boy. A week after CLC begun and the centre was full. He walked up to me, looking sullen but saying nothing.

“What is it?” I asked him. He clutched his two books and Biro to his chest then said slowly

“I want to enter” he waited for me to say that we already had too many students in classes. Instead I asked him
“What’s your name?”

“Sultan” he replied

“That’s a cute name.” he smiled.

“Thank you ma. I want to be a pilot when I grow up.” He told me

“That’s great. So what do pilots do?”

“They drive the thing that flies.”

“An aeroplane”

“Yes I want to fly aeroplane” he says. A beat then he asks “Can I enter ma”

“Yes sultan” I tell him as I see a big smile form on his face.

All of the stories up there are true. We at Nurture My Future are trying very hard to educate these children and help them stay in school. However, Nurture My Future is a non-profit organisation and there is little we can do without support.
Please we appeal that you donate to this cause and help many of these children. Help Fathia read and learn about other professions.

With your donation, we can buy a dictionary for Olakolu and others in his class so they can learn new words.

Adetoun can get a chance to own her own Queen Primer and get the chance to practice at home. And Sultan can work towards becoming a Pilot.

Your 200, 500, 1000, 10,000, 20,000 naira will be shaping a future. Your donations will go a long way.
None of these children have chosen this path and you can choose to change things. To give them hope and a future.

Please donate here:
Account Number: 0062011205
Nurture My Future Organization
Diamond Bank
Paypal: nurturemyfuture@gmail.com

We need people to pledge to monthly donations and donations in kind are also welcome. You can take a look at the list of needed materials here:

https://nurturemyfuture.wordpress.com/2015/02/04/community-learning-center-clc-opens-in-imota-ikorodu/

To contact us: Please send an email to nurturemyfuture@gmail.com or call 08185251889. You can also visit our website http://www.nurturemyfuture.org
Please help a child through school as we celebrate the African Child!!!

Culled from nurturemyfuture.wordpress.com