Uniqueness and Individuality in giving back!

I got back to the office yesterday after a week at the yearly STEM Construction Summer Camp (SCSC) hosted by the Kaiser Foundation for Social Development (KFSD).

KFSD has hosted this program for 13-18 year old underprivileged children from very poor backgrounds every year for the past 4 years.

Over the week, we engaged the children in various construction-related activities and seminars and in the process got so fond of them, and vice versa. During the closing gala night on Friday, tears flowed freely as the children expressed gratitude to members of the Foundation. This had become a reoccurring show of emotion every year. I was almost moved to tears myself, but some other members of the Foundation couldn’t help themselves.

At KFSD, we recognize that every child is unique, not just a statistic, so we make a genuine effort to get to know them individually.

I recall when my daughters interviewed at a school and the Admissions officer said to my wife that they meet very nice families every year, interact with them and get so fond of them and then some of them never come back. Now, I understand how he felt.

As I left the venue of the Gala night on Friday, one question kept flashing through my mind…

How do we scale this up to impact more Nigerian Children who make up the 90m of the 200m Nigerian population?