Outstanding mentees to receive US grants

By Damilola Kushimo

One of the facilitators of the ongoing six weeks mentorship programme for students of Ansar-Ud-Deen Comprehensive Senior High School, Okota, Taiwo Adewole, has revealed that grants from the United States government and other organisations await outstanding mentees after the programme.

Adewole made this known during an entrepreneurial and waste-to-wealth programme held for the students.

It was one of the lined-up sessions for the six weeks intensive mentorship programme for the students facilitated by the councillor representing Apena Ward, Hon. Remy Shittu, who is also the team leader of the programme in Isolo.

Adewole hinted that after the six-week mentorship programme, various research grants from the United States and some other organisations would be given to innovative mentees.

He explained: “We were trying to expose the students to how they can make wealth from wastes because what we call wastes are wealth. The nylon, plastics are raw materials and we have companies that need them every day. So, the students too can start making money from them instead of throwing the materials away.

“With this programme in place, the environment will be cleaner in return. I’ve challenged and advised them to go home and see if they want to go into a collection or set up a collection recycling centre or if they want to venture into transformation. Either of these will generate revenue and draw more attention to them.

“To those that can maximise the knowledge and be productive with it, the US is set to give them supports to do more, because the US government needs to see what they’ve been able to do or what they are doing after the programme.

“Organisations that produce these items have research grants to support this as long as it has to do with the collection of plastics. To produce something useful they get more supports at this early stage.”

Adewole, who is an Environmental Consultant and consultant to LAWMA, predicted that if all households key into the Lagos Recycle innovation which was just launched, it would be for their benefits.

“A time will come when the PSPs will come to your house and you’ll tell them that you don’t have waste, that what you have are raw materials such as plastics and nylons. So, at the end of the day, we are going to have the raw materials. Instead of the state generating 10,000 tons of waste per day, it might reduce to 5,000 because right from home, people have separated them and industries are ready to buy them off.”

Also speaking, the programme team, Remy advised the mentees to maximise the practical knowledge they have acquired in order to attract support to themselves.

One of the mentees, Shuaib Aishat, a commercial student and others who spoke to ECHONEWS promised to put the knowledge to practice and work harder to receive the grants.