First female talking drummer, a pioneer in Africa and Nigeria, and founder, ‘eko Inspire me’ , Aralola Olamuyiwa, popularly known as Ara, has upscaled the mentoring of Lagos street urchins with the training and empowerment of 10 mentees in Oshodi area of Lagos State.
The event which took place yesterday also included a talent hunt apart from the empowerment of 10 mentees.
Seven persons participated talent hunt session out of which five of them emerged winners and were rewarded for their outstanding performances.
While speaking about the programme, Ara said, “We want to give out 10 working tools to the mentees today. We have trained over 20 mentees. Some of them have received training in sewing, hairdressing, vulcanizing, tailoring, barbing, baking etcetera. We have some of them still in training and some of them have babies already and we are paying for daycare as well.
She added, “Some of the mentees are teenagers, so we ask them to drop their babies in the daycare. We give them money for transport and feeding every day. We still make it flexible for them, allowing them to go to the streets to huzzle if they so wish, but ensure that they come for training on the days of their training. They could sell their pure water and soft drinks as they choose but should ensure they are committed to the training because we have paid for each person.
On how they control them to ensure that they don’t drift from the mentoring session, she said, “We have one person who just put to bed, we got her an apartment. There is also another one that we got an apartment for, and like Baba Olusegun Obasanjo told me, “you can empower 20 persons and only five would come out well”. We are already seeing it. You can enroll them in training and they would not go back to complete the session. They don’t want anything to slow them down. There was one that we enrolled in a private bakery, and he was doing so well, and after one week he didn’t go back.
Speaking about the role of society she said, “We are all stakeholders, if we do not take care of them; we pray that the hunter doesn’t become the hunted. Whatever happens in society definitely comes from these guys, considering the number of drugs, crime, traffic armed robbery, and rape that they get involved in because they see themselves as victims, and victims will always fight back. If you are a stakeholder, then you would know that you are part of the people that would make society work.
Ara added, “All of us are stakeholders and we must join hands to make society a better place by helping these people. Some of them do not wish to be in this situation,” Ara said.
Ara who commended Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State as well as former President Olusegin Obasanjo for their assistance noted that he wrote to the previous administration but there was no response until Sanwo-Olu came on board and responded to her.
She said, “I kept sending text messages to him (Sanwo-Olu), and one Sunday he called me on phone and asked me to talk to him about the project. That was the happiest day of my life, and four months down the line, I got an endorsement letter from Lagos State with about nine Ministries and parastatals, that we would work with.
“When I went for the third meeting, the Governor noted that the project is Ara’s project and not Lagos State government project and that they should give me all the support, because according to him, Ara is very passionate about the project. People have been working with me for about eight years now but it was only Governor Sanwo-Olu who gave me a go-ahead. We started and one day, I went to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and Baba hosted us for two days with 25 of these people, that we are mentoring,’ Ara said.
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