A Non-governmental organisation Children Academic,Vocational Support Initiatives (CAVSI) celebrated its 20th anniversary of making great impacts in the lives of underserved children in Ogun state.
According to CAVSI’s Founder Humanitarian Hakeem Babatunde Ariori said the intervention was borne out of genuine love to help less privileged in his community.
In an interview with our correspondence, Ariori shared how the intervention which gave birth to CAVSI’s intervention started.
In his words, he said; “It started as a family project, we moved into Sango exactly 20 years ago. We noticed some students were going to school without footwears and without bags, so we said we have excess, why not share it among these children.
“Since we can’t just be calling students randomly to come and take, we started by organising songs and play to get them involved, at the end they get school materials that is how it started.
“Over the years, people saw what we are doing and they are also supporting us with different materials.
“What we are celebrating today is joy and a lot of achievements. We live in a local environment, and the little we do has transformed the lives of these different children into who they are today.
“We call some of them our ambassadors, we are training them to takeover from us in the future. We are training them as volunteers that there is need for them to give back, there is need to identify who don’t have and share from what you have with them.
“We are celebrating selflessness today that is, is not enough if we have and others don’t have, we are telling the world to identify the needy and share from what they have with them”.
“We are grateful for the students that had been consistent with us since the last ten years. If they are not gaining anything, they won’t be coming. We are grateful that over the years, the number of students participating are increasing, we are also changing our strategies by being practical with what we do.
“We are very informal with what we do and that has open a lot of students to learn different things about life. It is not just about the school life.
“One of the things we are emphasizing is that let not the classroom be your world, let the world be your classroom. We are encouraging them to learn wherever they found themselves.
“Whether they are playing games, wherever they found themselves, there is something to learn. We are grateful today that we have turned out a lot of students from over fifty schools.
“Some of them are here today, some of them are being rewarded today and we hope to continue because it is a call to serve.
“We are very grateful for those who have stood by us over the years especially my immediate family, my wife and my children, if not for their support, there will be no way this might have been done.
“We are doing everything in my house, lots of noise and so many things but they never complained.
“We hope to reach out to more underserved communities. We hope to reach out through schools. Since not all students can come to our programs but through schools, we can get more students”. Ariori said.
A lecturer at a private University in Ago-Iwoye Oluwafemi Adeniyi Ogunsiji who has been a contributor to all the programs of CAVSI gave kudos to the founder Ariori for not relinquishing his dream despite the fact that there is no much financial gains rendering such gesture.
He said; “If you don’t have passion for a selfless intervention that has little or no financial gains, the idea wont fly.
“Kudos to Hakeem Ariori for doing this and not relinquishing his dream as a result of challenges and obstacles. Life is a continuum, Hakeem should build people that would survive him, so that his intervention can be lifelong activities”.
He urged the participants to go home and think about what they saw, so they can also affect lives in their own little way. He said participants should identify an area where they can contribute to the society.
He said with that we can make the society better than we have it now.
“We should not just be complaining and expecting something good, we should learn from Mr Ariori, in a little form, try and make an impact”. Ogunsiji asserts.
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