Stanley Ihedigbo
Mrs. Folashade Afolabi
Mrs. Folashade Afolabi is the founder of Matilda
David Foundation (MDF), located at the Iyana-Odo, Igando Road, Egbeda area
of Lagos State.
Folashade’s passion is to lend helping hands to
vulnerable people, especially women and the youth. This, she said, is the
central ideal of MDF. The foundation, which she started a few years ago,
trains, teaches and mentors its target audience.
MDF recruits teachers, instructors and partners with
facilitators who match the intellect, leadership potential and drive, which the
organisation expected in its trainees.
To ensure the target audience receives the best and
quality knowledge, Folashade explained that their instructors and facilitators
come across the globe, and are a distinguished group of industry practitioners
and experienced educators. What these sets of people share in common is the belief
in the transformative education and the commitment to giving hope by empowering
the less privilege, thereby helping and shaping lives.
She said: “We’re into empowerment of the Nigeria
youth and women. Nigeria women are not supposed to be housewives. They are
hardworking and are meant to support their families. As a Christian, there is
no place the word of God told me; women should not support their families. However,
I do agree that women should be submissive to our husbands even as we are
supporting our families. We started this empowerment programme a few years ago,
unfortunately, we didn’t have our graduation ceremony in 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. In this 2021, we decided to combine 2020 and 2021 graduands.”
She further explained that running a foundation for
skill acquisition had not been smooth and was not a walk in the park.
She said: “When you’re trying to gather people with
different cultural and ethnics backgrounds, to help them, it’s not always that
easy. But we thank God it has always be
successful at the end. My husband, Barrister Taiwo Afolabi, has a foundation
that supports the less privileged in the society. I thought to myself that it was
better to the less privileged how to catch a fish than to give them a fish. I
started the skill acquisition centre to help the youth and women in the
society.”
Folashade revealed that one of the challenges of
trying to successfully run such a skill acquisition centre was the inability to
attract funds, especially from international donors.
“We made efforts in 2020; unfortunately, the COVID-19
pandemic didn’t allow us to attend an international conference in New York.
However, locally, we’ve been able to get partners that are supporting the
foundation,” Folashade
said.
Folashade advised that it was high time for
Nigerians to realise that the government couldn’t do everything for them.
She noted: “We’re helping government in the area of
employment and some jobless Nigerians have been taken off the streets through
our activities. For instance, we have a widow who acquired skill on shoemaking
from our foundation, and today, she makes shoes for bankers, schoolchildren and
others in the society. Another woman, who finished with us in the training of makeup,
relocated to Ogun State and now, she’s doing very well. The foundation has
being able to take people off the street and empowered them. Even, there was a time
we sent some of our trainees to organisations for industrial training, and they
were retained. What this means is that the foundation is giving people the best
empowerment to excel in life. We teach them many things, which include baking,
confectioneries, fashion designing, event planning, shoemaking and now, we’ve
decided to add photography. We are adding photography because some people are
coming to the foundation for photography training. Also, some learnt bead
making and we provided a platform for exhibition of their products, which makes
the trainees ecstatic that people are patronizing their handworks. We also
provide them with working tools and funds.”
According to Folashade, to make sure that the
trainees had a fuller experience of the skill acquisition programmes, during
graduation ceremonies, the foundation invited entrepreneurs as guest speakers.
She stated: “These entrepreneurs usually share their
experiences, which will be of a great benefits to the graduands. They have no
reason to look for jobs after their skill acquisition programmes. I usually
advise them to build themselves, because if they are doing well, they’ll be
able to employ other people and then these people will be able to support their
families. My prayer for them is to be great entrepreneurs and provide the
necessary goods and services to their communities. We have many testimonies on
our efforts at the foundation with respect to those doing very well, after
their training and empowerment by the foundation.”
Folashade stated that as the poverty in Nigeria was
increasing, it was now vital, than ever before, for everyone to cultivate the
habit of assisting those, who do not have much.
She added: “People should not fail to stand up to
help. Again, people that have the wherewithal should help by setting up
industries and employ the youth. If reasonable percentages of the youth are
employed, we will have less street urchins, be it male or female. Again, we
will have less issue of prostitution and crimes in the society. The rich
Nigerians should stop taking their wealth overseas. They should invest in the
country for the sake of employment of their people in order to help the nation.”
Folashade said that the foundation initially
romanced with the idea of extending the programmes to other cities in Nigeria
and had also started outreach programmes.
She also mentioned: “We’ve been visiting one local
government after another, to help people with their health. This is because of
the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be fatal following an underlining illness. If
there is no underlining illness with an individual, the person will not easily
die of COVID-19. COVID-19 doesn’t kill so easily. We go out there to test
people for High Blood Pressure (HBP), Diabetes and other ailments. After
testing them, we treat and provide free medicines. Thus in this year 2022, we
will start another arm of the foundation in Ogun State.”
Folashade, who fervently believed in the importance
of skill acquisition, opined that rather than for graduates to be wandering,
searching for employment, they should identify their passions and then keyed
into it through skill acquisition.
“They should make a living from their passions, rather
than resorting to cyber or other crimes,” she stated.
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