Call to Love Initiative, a Foundation focused on social development, has again demonstrated its commitment towards capacity building and empowerment of young ones by organising the second edition of its free Summer Camp for children, which took place in Lagos from August 6 to 11, 2018. The highly engaging, impactful and exciting week-long training session was tagged ‘’Making A Difference With Education’’.
It provided a platformfor pupils from low cost primary schools in Makoko, a suburb in Lagos, to learn various life impacting activities. The 112 beneficiaries underwent practical trainings in coding and robotics, vocational skills (such as sewing, bead-making, painting), entrepreneurship, leadership skills, etiquette, public speaking, team orientation and organisation skills facilitated by experts. This is aimed at effectively engaging and nurturing the young ones with requisite skills to enable them grow successfully through education.
Speaking on this year’s Summer Camp, the Founder and Chief Executive of Call To Love Initiative, Mrs. Wunmi Benson-Ajia, explained that it provided a veritable platform and unique opportunity for stakeholders, such as mentors, teachers, technical and vocational education specialists to come together and create a learning environment which reforms the beneficiaries, and ensures a more wholesome education.
According to her, ‘’the ultimate goal of the Skills Summer Camp is to cultivate a pipeline of high-performing beneficiaries who will be provided with various mentorship and scholarship opportunities through the course of their education. It is worthy of note that prior to this year’s Summer Camp over 70% of the children have never used a computer nor learned any vocational skills’’.
She assured that the Foundation would continue to champion and execute programmes that would promote the well-being of young ones by equipping them with the necessary skills they need to make great successes out of their lives. Upon conclusion of the Summer Camp, exceptional participants were granted scholarships and mentorship opportunities which would last for a three-month period at the minimum. The participants were also granted the opportunity to sell the products they created during the Summer Camp.
Call to Love Initiative was founded in 2010 with a mission to enrich lives through social development. It supports under-privileged children by enhancing their access to impactful growth and balanced development and employing a targeted approach of interaction and delivery of projects that drive lasting solutions and contribute positively to transforming the development of beneficiaries.
Over the past eight years of operation through various projects, the Foundation has positively impacted the educational, social and intellectual development of over 650 beneficiaries in various locations in South-West Nigeria through financial contributions, academic support, mentorship, capacity development programmes, and social change projects.
This year, the Summer Camp was made possible through the support of corporate partners like Oracle Academy which sponsored the Coding and Robotics classes by providing computers and training to the Camp facilitator; Nigerian Red Cross Society which provided the venue; Cadbury Nigeria which provided refreshments for the children; Biobak Kitchen which supported with provision of breakfast and lunch for all beneficiaries, Chutes and Ladders Limited which supported with renovation of the Camp Venue.
