After learning the tools she needed in America, a Nigerian woman returns to her home country to establish a free-tuition arts academy for young girls.
Seyi Oluyole of Lagos, Nigeria, has experienced scarcity. She has experienced the loss of her home, lack of stability, hunger, and the pain of having to give up on her education. But she also knows about abundance: the abundance of a powerful dream. In 2014, after studying in America and armed with useful knowledge, she founded the first free arts academy with a formal curriculum in all of Africa, the Dream Catchers Academy, in order to transform the lives of young girls.
Thirty percent of all school-age girls in Nigeria are out of school, according to research by the Malala Fund. Girls growing up in poverty and homelessness are at higher risk of violence. Even where education is possible, arts education is discouraged for girls and is, moreover, usually only available to the rich. Thirty-two-year-old Ms. Oluyole decided to change all this.
Childhood Beginnings
Ms. Oluyole is the youngest of five siblings born in Lagos, to parents who sacrificed everything to put their children through school. Until about 8 years old, Ms. Oluyole remembers that her family owned a two-bedroom flat and had enough food, and the children attended school. However, amid high inflation and unemployment in Nigeria in 2001, all of this changed. When her parents sold their home in order to have enough money to pay for her siblings’ college fees, the whole family was abruptly thrust into homelessness and poverty. Ms. Oluyole couldn’t attend school regularly. Nevertheless, she was always very aware of the importance of education. “No matter where my family was,” she said, “my mother would always tell me, ‘You’re going to carry your book and read it.’”
