Each day is a new day to showcase what you have. Don’t sit idle and expect your needs to be satisfied. Wake up, work hard, get the money and pick someone else up. As humans, we exist to help eachother, regardless. Today on Exclusives with SammytheAuthor, an Inspiring Ghanaian Entrepreneur and founder of Spreadaid International shares with us, his upcoming projects. Check the Interview below.
1: Hello, Mr. Adabah, kindly take us through your journey as an Entrepreneur.
Thank you Brother Samuel for the opportunity and I am grateful to all and sundry especially to all members of SpreadAid International out there who have been supportive throughout these years.
I will describe my activities as a social entrepreneur and a self-employed person. Social entrepreneur in the sense that I am committed to finding approaches that seek to develop, fund, and implement solutions to social, cultural and environmental issues especially in the area of education and youth development.
As you are already aware through our previous interviews, this drive of providing solutions led to the establishment of SpreadAid International.
As a self-employed person, I create avenues of business opportunities that could translate monetarily to take care of what I do on daily basis and also to help achieve set short, medium and long term goals.
The journey as a social entrepreneur and a self-employed person was all motivated by the strong desire to help people and to be part of solution providers.
Circumstances of life have presented a situation that each day, every individual is forced to think or focus on him/herself without extending help to others. These same situations have also made it possible for people to move from just thinking about themselves to start thinking about what they could do to help others, build them up and also send them out to be helpers of others. In that case, gradually creating helpers all over the world. With time, this whole unwritten agendum has found its way grounded and documented in SpreadAid International’s Eagle’s Eye ( a document which continues the vision, mission statements, achievements and future outlined plans of the organization). The categorization has been specified as
•Philathropy
•Businesss
• Systems and Administration
These are the pillars we have build so far to grow and bring into fruition our passion of building helpers all over the world.
2: What is Spreadaid International all about?
SpreadAid International (SAI) is a registered service-oriented Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) dedicated to supporting and improving the plight of the less privileged in the society and helping the youth to hone their talents and skills for their own and national development. SAI primarily focuses on and embarks on projects aimed at promoting education and youth development with the goal of “Putting Back Smiles on Faces”. The idea behind the inception of the organization was birthed back in March 2011 when a group of high school students from different schools under unexpected circumstances came together to share past examination questions among themselves to facilitate transfer of knowledge. SpreadAid International as it is known today metamorphosed from the original name, GreenAid (Fresh Help) and from simply being a study group to a registered NGO today committed to advocating for and supporting the cause of the less privileged in society.
3: What was the mission from the onset?
Since the inception of this organization, the mission of SAI has been about championing the cause of deprived persons, unearthing the talents of the youth and helping groom them for better life prospects and basically, helping others grow. All in all, SAI seeks to:
•Advocate for and support the less privileged in society.
•Unearth and build talents in the youth.
•Promote excellence in education.
•Undertake volunteer programs.
4: Kindly throw more light on the Adopt-a-School project.
The second phase of SAI in her mandate to help alleviate the suffering of the less privileged in society and build up the youth for self and national development materializes from February 1, 2020 to November 30, 2025. During this five-year period which marks a renewed beginning and similarly, continuation of the phase one of the organizations, key and impactful projects would come to fruition. This is in line with the core vision and mission of all Spreaders to contribute to human and community development and to impact as many lives as possible.
FOCUS OF PHASE TWO
The focus of this second chapter of the organization will be directed towards the promotion and support of education particularly, at the basic level (lower and upper primary) and Junior High School. There are many a school especially in rural communities all the country over who are deprived supportive mechanisms ranging from utilities, teaching and learning materials, and uniforms among others needed to ameliorate educational challenges and make the school an attractive place to be. SAI is committed to alleviating such constraints.
The provisions in this second phase like previous projects are further aimed at helping achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 which is about quality education. The goal is to ensure all-encompassing and equitable quality education as well as advance lasting learning prospects or opportunities for all. SAI, since its inception has touched several lives and contributed to this goal and its phase two would continue to do same and more.
LOCATION
The Nyitawuta D/A Primary School situated in the Akatsi North District in the Volta region will be the center of SpreadAid’s intervention within the five-year span. This school, located in a typically rural area, to an unsurprisingly great magnitude is constrained financially, geographically and socially. This is problematic as their persisting conditions become disincentives for the students to cultivate the passion for school and education.
Children run the risk of being truant or at worst, dropping out of school to for instance, help their parents on the farm all in the absence of needed support, facilities and effective learning environments.
AGENDA
The plan here is to mitigate the challenges that impede the education of the students and help them imbibe the reading culture, that is, encourage them and ensure that they adopt self-reading and self-learning for their development.
The foundation of children is a determining factor in how and what they grow up to be. Promoting the reading culture especially at the primary level through the provision of the needed resources, facilities and conducive atmosphere would accordingly create well rounded students who read not just because they have to but because they want to. SpreadAid International will be focused on making reading, learning, the school and education in general attractive to the students in order to ensure this.
PROJECT TO EMBARK ON – “ADOPT-A-SCHOOL” PROJECT
The project to be executed dubbed, “Adopt-a-School” project, as the name implies would involve SpreadAid International taking on or adopting a community school, herein, Nyitawuta D/A Primary School and bettering their conditions to a considerable degree.
This project is an upgrade of the flagship outreach scheme of SpreadAid International’s first phase, “Project 5000” where the lives of thousands of students from some schools in rural communities across the country were impacted through the organization’s provision of stationery, educational materials and basic aid to support teaching, learning and the general wellbeing of the students.
The “Adopt-a-School” project branching out, further houses two major projects, one to be realized in a space of one year and the other in the subsequent years. These two projects are:
1. “CLOTHE-ME-FOR-SCHOOL” PROJECT
Students in less privileged schools are disadvantaged in several ways including the lack of uniforms to attend school with. Most often the best they possess are old, worn-out or tattered clothes with little hope of acquiring new ones owning to the abysmally low incomes and high poverty rates bedeviling parents or guardians in such communities. This is a great disincentive for children and goes a long way to demotivate them from going to school or learning, hence threatening their bright future and impeding an expedited achievement of SDG 4.
AIM OF PROJECT
The aim of the “Clothe-Me- for-School” projectis to encourage and incentivize the young ones to be in the classroom and this will be achieved through the provision of tailored uniforms, school bags and stationery to meet that peculiar need.
It is common place for children in deprived communities to be relegated to farming activities at the expense of securing an education and the lack of uniforms is one such contributory factor to this phenomenon as aforementioned. Under the “Clothe- Me-for-School” project, great efforts will be channeled into bringing as many children as there are from the farm and into the classroom through this provision of appropriate or right uniforms to attend school with.
TIMELINE OF PROJECT
The project will be executed within the second year of the second phase of SAI, specifically, from February 2021 to November 2021.
Also, the project, within this period will serve as a preparatory ground to usher all and sundry into the next undertaking of SAI under the “Adopt-a-School” project.
BUDGET
The projected budget of the “Clothe-Me-for-School” project is pegged at fourteen thousand, four hundred Ghana cedis (GH¢ 14,400.00).
2. THE LIBRARY PROJECT – “READ-TO-LEAD” PROJECT
This is the other major project under the “Adopt-a-School” projectwhich as underscored is aimed at helping the school children inculcate the reading culture and nurture the desire to be in school.
Functional and properly furnished libraries in basic schools especially in rural areas are very rare if not completely nonexistent. SAI intends to change that narrative one school at a time, starting with the Nyitawuta D/A Primary School in order to afford the students similar opportunities enjoyed by their peers in other urbanized communities.
AIM OF PROJECT
The aim, as captured in the name of the project is to put up a functional and well-resourced library, stocked with essential books and library services to accommodate the reading needs of students. The whole idea is to make the students want to read by and for themselves and to do this, the best has to be provided to motivate them. Through this, there will be renewed hope for a future generation of well-read and educated leaders who as children had the appropriate foundation regardless of their geographical location or circumstances.
TIMELINE OF PROJECT
The “Read-to-Lead” projectwill be rolled out from February 2022 to November 2025, marking the pinnacle of the SAI’s second phase.
BUDGET
The estimated budget of the project sits at one hundred and ten thousand Ghana cedis (GH¢ 110, 000).
FUNDING OF BOTH PROJECTS
Both “Clothe-Me-for-School” project and “Read-to-Lead” project will be funded by sponsorships solicited from different sources including from members of SpreadAid International, individuals in the society, families and friends, companies, some government bodies and potential external sources. SAI will also be open to collaborations with other NGOs for the realization of this goal.
5: Has it been difficult getting sponsors on board for these great projects so far?
Actually, we are still in the preparatory stage of embarking on the first project- “Clothe-me-for-school”.
We have received some funds from individuals who would want to see to it that by their contribution, these young ones are able to smile in their new uniforms to boost them up psychologically for studies. We are grateful to each and everyone of them. We have however not yet hit even half of the projected amount of Gh 14,400 for this project. We would like to use this platform to reach out to our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers and all well wishers out there to help us bring this project to its fruition. Each uniform costs Gh 50.00 and we have targeted 200 uniforms.
You can send your contributions through our bank account or conveniently through mtn mobile money. Details are on the flier. A single uniform can go a long way to encourage a child who hasn’t been in any until now, to get motivated to go after his/her dreams.
6: Do you have plans on partnering with other NGOs locally and internationally?
For this particular project, we have so far had feedback from abams_foundation. They would like to support with footwear for these children. We would definitely want to have more of such kind-hearted NGOs on board for us to do this together. This is going to be a major victory to all of us who would join hands to make it happen. Both locally and internationally, our arms are opened to embrace individuals and set-ups who would want to clothe a child for school and also get on board out next major project of putting up a Library facility for Nyitawuta D/A School.
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