Author: Mayowa Adewuyi

On Tuesday 15th of November 2022, the Lekan Bakare Foundation team visited St George’s School Ikoyi, where we participated in the interschool prize giving ceremony and sensitized students from various schools across the local council development area about SDG 14-Life Below Water.

It was a fun, interactive session and the students participated by identifying aquatic animals and they gave suggestions on ways to protect and conserve our oceans and marine ecosystems. We charged the students to be champions of the environment and stewards of the blue planet.

 

On Monday 14th of November 2022, the Lekan Bakare Foundation team was in the Apapa axis of Lagos State, where we visited two schools. First we visited Ladi Lak primary school, we joined the students on the assembly ground to educate them on the SDG 14 – Life Below Water and the impacts of pollution on the ocean and marine life.

Next stop for the LBF team, was Nanti Primary school, which can only be accessed via a boat ride on the Lagos Lagoon. Most of the students that attend this school come from fishing communities along the Lagos Lagoon and actually use boats to commute to and from school. Again, we sensitized the students on the SDG 14 and charged them to blue warriors and stewards of the environment.

The Lekan Bakare Foundation has adopted the Nanti Primary School and will kick of a recycling and waste to wealth initiative to help with proper waste collection and disposal while supporting the school with essentials like stationery, sports kits, books etc. We will be providing recycling bins and organizing collection of all plastic waste gathered at the school, which will have to be transported with boats.

Last year, The Lekan Bakare Foundation in partnership with MEDIC visited some schools across Lagos for a sensitization and tree planting program, where we educated the children about the Sustainable Development Goals and specifically SDG 14- Life Below Water-

At LBF, we believe that children are the future and it is important to educate them on the sustainable use of our ocean resources.

In Phase 2 of our Blue Schools Project, which kicked off on the 1^st of November 2022, we started with a visit to Gbara Community School in the Lekki Axis of Lagos State, where we had the opportunity to speak with both junior and senior secondary school students about the work we do at Lekan Bakare Foundation.

Our style is interactive and informative, using the 3A approach as recommended by UNICEF, Awareness, Action and Accountability, ‘we believe that with the right tools and information, children and young people can play a critical role in the implementation and monitoring of the SDGs, sparking action in their communities and holding leaders to account’.

Our goal is to explore the challenges faced by coastal communities, and help the students understand the threats of human activities, like pollution, overfishing, climate change and a host of other issues affecting our oceans and coastlines.

In our first school visit for November, we had in attendance, Marine Scientist, Mr David Fere of Fabe Foundation to help amplify the message of sustainable use of our ocean resources and to encourage the students to be ‘Blue Warriors’ fighting against pollution and promoting conservation and protection of our ocean and marine life in Nigeria.

For the rest of the month of November 2022, we shall be visiting schools across different local governments in Lagos State, most especially schools in coastal communities in these local governments. We intend to visit schools in Eti Osa, Apapa and the Ikoyi-Obalende axis of Lagos State.

The vision is to spread this sensitization project across the various coastal states in Nigeria, from Ondo State, to the oil rich Niger Delta and beyond.

At LBF we believe that the youth have a pivotal role to play in the fight against climate change, global warming, and sensitizing them helps students  understand the issues facing ocean and marine life, and how these issues  negatively impacts our oceans, coastlines and coastal communities.

It is no longer news, that communities that contribute the least to climate change and global warming, are often times, the communities that face the worst effects of climate change and global warming. Children that live in coastal communities’ experience, first-hand, some of the worst effects of adverse weather conditions like flooding, sea level rise, sea/ocean surges etc. and this obviously has a direct impact on their quality of life.

We encourage the students to be recycling champions, while we generate and explore ideas on how to better control discarded trash from entering our oceans, and to understand the potential of the ‘Blue Economy’.

Our mission is to help the students understand that  a collective attitudinal change is needed  in the way we use and interact with the ocean to ensure sustainability and preservation of our ocean resources for future generations.