On the 21st of November, 2016, we made our yearly donation to St. Jude’s Primary School in Ebute Metta, Lagos. It is our mission to use the proceeds from the sales of our products to support the education system in Lagos.
We arrived at St. Jude’s Primary School in the morning, and the SUBEB (State Universal Basic Education Board) and school staff were at the entrance waiting to receive us.
After briefing the staff about our donation, we brought all our donations into the school’s reception hall.
This is where we made our presentation to the school – the principal, teachers and students. During the presentation, there were students representing each class from nursery to primary six. We handed out a bit of the stationery here.
We also awarded both the Head-boy and Head-girl of the school, each with one of our Lagoshats T-shirts.
After some words of encouragement to the students about the importance of education. We headed to each class to personally hand out stationery to each student.
At Lagoshats, we care so much about accountability that we wanted to make sure that all we donated got into the right hands – the hands of the students. However, there were some stationery left over and we trust that the principal and teachers will hand it over to students as they need them.
Challenges
We also used this as an opportunity to ask the teachers and the principal what were their major challenges at the school.
Here is a quick list of what they said would be very helpful for their students:
- Uniforms & Sandals: Some students can’t afford uniforms and some times get teased by their classmates for the lack of uniform.
- Plasticine: The teachers want the students, especially the younger ones, to have things to play with so they can learn how to mold.
- Food: Some of the students come to school on an empty stomach and their parents don’t give them money for food. So it is hard for these students to focus on their education without having a proper meal.
These are the things that we learned and hope to include in our next donation so that we provide what is needed by the school.
“Appreciation…
Not only the Learners Life you have touched positively.
You have touched my life as a teacher with the teaching aids…
May God be with your crew…
Thanks…” ~ Jide (Primary 5 Teacher)
The entire donation process was extremely gratifying. The children and their teachers were so delighted and happy about our donation. It was such a fulfilling experience, and it reminds us that what we might consider to be small can make a huge difference in a child’s life.
To top it off, as we were about to conclude our donation, the primary five teacher wrote us such a touching note that really encapsulated the gratitude of the entire school.
Such experiences reinforce our mission to support the education system in Lagos/Nigeria in a sustainable way with our products.
We look forward to next year and will strive to do more to support more schools.
