May 2018

The Spark | Ignite/Connect/Achieve www.thesparkng.com www.thesparkng.com The Spark | Ignite/Connect/Achieve
Wired In
Social Entrepreneurship 101
People address social problems in different ways and Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin chose to
use Technology, a male-dominated space, as one of her empowerment vehicles for helping
young girls. In this interview, she uses her foundation and early years as a roadmap to help
others get started.
- By Lanre Solarin
Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin is the founder and Managing Director of Pearls Africa Youth
Foundation (PAYF), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) that promotes the cause and
advancement of vulnerable young girls and women in underserved and underprivileged
communities in Nigeria for the purpose of economic independence, through different long term
projects with lasting impact.
As a social entrepreneur herself, Abisoye refers to aspiring social entrepreneurs as change agents;
folks not comfortable when they come across social problems. “Often times they move to action to
create a system that can resolve this issue or empower people to resolve the issues themselves. By
living in the environment in which that problem is predominant, they usually have a higher sensitivity
towards identifying social problems.”
According to her, a social problem is any situation, condition or behaviour that has negative
consequences on a large population or number of people; this is often generally recognized as a
condition that needs to be addressed.
the US Embassy in Nigeria and we got $8600 in 2016.
It hasn’t been easy getting bigger grants despite quite a number of
applications, but we are not relenting. We have learned to keep our
overhead cost low, and have dedicated volunteers who help out despite
not being paid enough, knowing that most of the girls don’t pay to acquire
these skills. I work at the NGO full time and this allows me to give in my
100% to ensuring the continuous growth of Pearls Africa and also to
constantly interact with our girls to see how well the trainings are helping
them develop too.
As a form of financial support, we offer our computer coding classes to the
privileged children at a premium to help offset the cost we bear for
equipping girls from marginalized society for free. Our ultimate goal of
providing young girls and women with an opportunity for a greater future
through I.T training, skill acquisition, internships and mentorships is our
constant motivation.
Solving Social Problems
Pearls Africa was created as an intervention to equip girls within the ages
of 10 and 17 with a marketable and functional skill to enable them have
a voice in the society and thereby adding value to themselves and the
GDP of the Country in the long run. We have sought and found vulnerable
female children and adolescents in public schools, slums, orphanages and
IDP Camps and we bring them into our Technology school for free to learn
a 21st century digital skill from which they can earn a living. Also, we have
been able to provide a bridge between girls at the lower classes of our
society and the middle class professional women who support and mentor
them.
At Pearls Africa, we run a number of projects to address the issue of gender
inequality especially with regards to employment opportunities. Our
projects include;
• Girls Coding (ICT/computer programing for girls)
• Empowered Hands (vocational skills for girls)
• EducateHer (scholarship to send girls to school)
• GC Mentors (professional ladies serving as mentors to our girls)
• Girls in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics for
undergrads) and
• A cultural exchange program where we connect the haves and the
have nots together for both parties to learn empathy and aspire to
be better.
Our programs extend further into the provision of a Safe Space for girls,
where mentors address questions from girls on personal health care,
career choices, child abuse and many other aspects of their lives. After
their training, we get Internship opportunities for trainees who meet
certain criteria.
Opportunities for Social Entrepreneurs
The Nigerian society today needs more social entrepreneurs because a lot
still needs to be done in almost every sector in Nigeria from health to
education, wealth creation, technology, agriculture (this is very crucial as
it’s mostly not considered to be a thing), banking, and many more.
“
I have learned that
when you are just
starting out, you
are first your own
PR manager.
“
Common social problems include: poverty, inequality, corruption, illiteracy, unemployment,
domestic violence, teenage pregnancy/early and forced marriages and many more.
The Pearls Africa Case Study
Pearls Africa started in 2012 with little or no growth at all.
We had loads of impactful events for 2 years without media coverage because we did not have the
means to. Most especially the network and relationship were lacking. Also being that I did not know
it as a major sector that deserves to be recognized as such, I just felt it was part of life and not to be
showcased.
When we started GirlsCoding late 2015, it was challenging getting brand new laptops for the girls
but then with contributions from family and friends we were able to get used laptops and eventually
we spent more money servicing the PC’s. My friends also played a major role by volunteering to
lecture students.
I have learned that when you are just starting out, you are first your own PR manager. We started
reporting our stories and journey on social media before major print media and bloggers came
calling. I feel we owe it to the Nigeria media house, both print and online, for the international
recognitions we have gotten.
We also had partnerships with well-known organizations that were able to give us technical
assistance. Sometimes, when looking to collaborate for growth, money isn’t the first thing to look
for; there are other forms of support like recommendations, office space usage on weekends,
mentors or instructors from their companies, etc.
Initially, most of our funds came from family and friends. Later on, we applied for a small grant from
Those who want to empower through skill acquisition will need to secure
partnerships with other tech related companies to help provide some
basic needs for tech training which can be very costly to maintain. Basic
needs include data services, a computer laboratory and skilled manpower,
to teach these technology skills in a very impactful and sound way.
Pearls Africa Youth Foundation is looking to scale and expand to other
states, as we presently support girls in Plateau state and Oyo state for
instance.
We will continue to organize many impactful trainings for our girls, we will
also be having mentorship sessions by professional ladies for our girls to
give them all the support they need. We plan to get #GirlsCoding to other
states in Nigeria and to other African countries in future.
On the long run we will be setting up a centre for girls, which would be
able to support a thousand girls per session. This will also serve as a home/
shelter for the homeless and a capacity development centre.
6 7
@thesparkng
@thesparkng