MEET THE FINALISTS FOR THE 2020 MOST OUTSTANDING YOUNG PEACEBUILDERS CATEGORY OF THE NIGERIA YOUTH 4 PEACE AWARDS
Building Blocks for Peace Foundation has announced four finalists for the 2020 Most Outstanding Young Peacebuilders Award. The announcement was made after careful review of over 20 applications by the award committee made up of youth activist, NGO leaders and peace practitioners.
Nigeria Youth4Peace Awards is an annual event designed to reward, celebrate and showcase young people who are making exceptional efforts to conflict prevention, peacebuilding and sustainable development across Nigeria in commemoration of the adoption of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250, the first UN resolution on Youth, Peace and Security. This historic global policy framework adopted in December 2015, explores how conflict impacts young people’s lives and what must be done to mitigate its effects. It specifically calls for the recognition of young people as critical stakeholders in peace processes.
The 2020 finalists are:
1. Obasanjo Fajemirokun
Obasanjo Fajemirokun is a social entrepreneur with over three years of experience providing access to inclusive and equitable quality education in low-income communities. He is an alumnus of Teach For Nigeria, where he focused on bridging the gap of educational inequality in underserved community schools. Obasanjo has successfully taught, led, equipped, and impacted over 150 pupils using a learner-centred teaching method that ensured pupils acquired literacy and numeracy skills. Also, he used game-based and connection-based learnings to develop skills. Due to his passion for youth development, he founded Brace-up The Young, a Youth-led organization focused on educating and mentoring young people to become innovative and accountable leaders in Nigeria.
Obasanjo holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Adekunle Ajasin University, Ondo State. He is also a TeachSDGs Ambassador, SozoNetworks Youth-In-Development fellow, Theirworld Global Youth Ambassador, and a 2019 Opengov Social Innovation Challenge winner.
2. Oluwatoyin Esther Agaja
Oluwatoyin Esther Agaja is a 27 years old youth who is working to become a transformational leader. She is a youth development advocate; founder of Eco Diversified International, an organization that is working to promote Climate and Environmental literacy among the young generation which supports the Sustainable Development Goals. As a founder, she is saddled with the day-to-day running of the organization, taking up roles by working with volunteers on different activities, motivating team leads to achieve a common goal.
Oluwatoyin is a graduate of Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University with Bachelors Degree in Pure/Applied Chemistry, her passion for more knowledge led her to take professional certification courses which include project management professional, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE 1–3), diploma in Environmental Management, Facility management among others.
3. Michael Afolami
Michael Afolami is a peacebuilder and development professional with over four years of experience in leveraging development for peace and conflict prevention. He is the founder and programme manager of Peace Actor Network (PAN), a peacebuilding organization using peace education, capacity building and community engagement to build peace and prevent violent conflict. At PAN, Michael leads the design, monitoring and evaluation of peacebuilding and development projects. Michael holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations. He is a global advocate with IMCS Pax Romana where he is engaged with the advocacy to curb youth violence through meaningful youth education, empowerment, employment, and engagement in political processes. Michael is a compassionate integrity advocate, Erasmus virtual dialogue facilitator, peace ambassador of the Institute for Economics and Peace, and an alumnus of the Young African Leaders Initiative network. His research interest is generally on the peace-conflict-development nexus.
4. ORUGBO ENDURANCE OVUODO
Ovuodo Endurance Orugbo is a feminist and a Peacebuilder. She rose to prominence as a voice for democracy, SGBV, Peacebuilding and shot to global fame as an activist during 2018/2019 where she raised her voice to speak on peace for the Niger Delta Women. She recently received an award to study at Young Political Leadership School, Africa. She is a graduate of the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria with Bachelor in Theatre Arts.
She is the Gender Officer/Secretary with the Center for Peace and Environmental Justice (CEPEJ), one of Delta Pan-African peacebuilding movement. She served on the Board of Directors of the Niger Delta Women in Dialogue as well as the youngest committee chair on Commission on Sexual Misconduct in her community.
She received trainings including 2016 Monitoring and Evaluation course by PIND FOUNDATION, 2017–2020 peacebuilding and safe environmental trainings by CEPEJ, 2019 Activisms training by ANEEJ, 2019 proposal trainings at both CEPEJ and NDWID and 2020 she was appointed as CLEEN FOUNDATION, Delta State Coordinator, Impact Youth Sustainability Delta State Coordinator, among others.
Ovuodo’s extensive experiences over the past decade made her a leading voice known for rebranding Africa and commitment to youth empowerment, Peacebuilding and Africa’s integration where she was severally appointed to represent her office at Search for Common Ground Programme, Peace Initiative of Niger Delta, ANEEJ, Niger Delta Women in Dialogue, Delta State OGP among others due to their confidence in her discharge of duties.
In commemoration of the 5th anniversary of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security, Building Blocks for Peace Foundation in collaboration with the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding- Nigeria, Sanctuary of Hope Foundation and other peacebuilding partners shall be recognizing and rewarding 2 Outstanding Young Peacebuilders/Organizations who are exceptional in the year 2020. Award winners will go home with a Seed grant of $150, Peacebuilding materials and access Technical guidance for 12 months.
POSTED BY BBFORPEACE ADMIN.
