Chipping away illiteracy through football

The day began with the Chipper Team visiting various public and private schools within the Tarkwa Bay community where scholarships were awarded to best performing students of the community. Then the football tournament kicked-off not long after the Scholarship Presentation. 

We chose the Tarkwa Bay Community, which is a shanty waterfront community in Lagos State to kick off this initiative. In 2020, thousands of the community’s residents were displaced with no alternatives for support. In a community where people lack the basic amenities such as electricity and potable water supply. With such a huge gap in life’s basic necessities, it would be unimaginable the effects of the eviction on the children born out of and raised by this community. 

As such, Chipper Cash believes education was the most salient driver for the initiative, as most of the children in the community had dropped out of school to play football and surf on the beach during the mass eviction. Football is now acclaimed to be the world’s biggest sport with the capacity to unite all people irrespective of race, status or creed. This unique unifier gave a significant push towards the classroom where the children’s love for the sport was encouraged and their passion and excitement for learning became apparent when the possibilities of scholarships were presented. As they all saw it as an opportunity to grow beyond their circumstances. 

This initiative targeted the organization of a beach football tournament in which over 150 primary and secondary school children won ‘back to school’ essentials and scholarships. 

As the adage says “the children are the future of tomorrow” and it is becoming increasingly imperative that companies within the FinTech ecosystem must now become sensitive to the growing need for a workforce; that only a good education can provide, as many multinational companies now see the value in recruiting young talent from Nigeria causing workforce attrition in the job market. 

The Tarkwa Bay Community Impact project was a 1-day Community Development Project to combat illiteracy in the country and to build upon Nigeria’s future workforce, to which Abi Animashaun Chipper’s Country Director for Nigeria stated that this “initiative demonstrates Chipper’s commitment to foster collaborative partnerships which aid in advancing social development and lifelong skills in indigent children across the continent.” 

This was the reason Chipper Cash chose to partner with Executives Initiative, who from its inception in 2013 have been dedicated to creating a Nigeria where there exists Zero-Hunger, No Poverty, Community Development, Prison Reforms, Good Health, Wellbeing, and now with the “Chipping Away Illiteracy through Football” initiative with Chipper Cash they aim to target the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 1, 2, 3, 4 & 16.

Dare Asobele, Founder, Executives Initiative commented ‘We’re excited to partner with Chipper Cash to put a smile on the faces of these young stars and we hope to create a chain reaction of love that will promote collaboration and philanthropy. 

Goldie Iyamu,Marketing Campaign Manager, Chipper Cash also emphatically noted in the closing remarks that “Education is important to create a world where irrespective of your station or status, any child with a dream and the requisite determination can be a future leader of industry or government.” 

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