Active Citizenship in Education (ACE) Award is a periodic public recognition and award for young Nigerians living in Nigeria who go above and beyond their civic duties to contribute to removing barriers and improving access to quality education for children and young people in Nigeria. Click here to learn more about the award. We are happy to showcase below the 12 finalists out of the 376 nominations we received. 

Kemasuode Ebiasuode Bright

Bright is a 21st-century problem solver, a teens coach, an educator and a creative thinker. He is passionate about working with a team of individuals to bring about social change and transforming the lives of those around him positively. Currently, Bright is a Fellow at Teach for Nigeria, where he focuses on building the academic and Non-academic outcomes of pupils in Nigeria’s underserved schools in low-income communities. As a Teach For Nigeria Fellow, six of his pupils were given a full scholarship for their primary education at Saint Marys Roman Catholic Mission School Ayetoro, Ogun state by Shima TY Foundation a non for profit in Calabar, Nigeria. He was recently selected as an award recipient and the only African in the 2019 Empatico Teachers appreciation week. Bright is ISTE certified as a master teacher at WAAW Foundation and Level up Village (an online global class platform), where he practically prepares the next generation of global citizens through Global STEAM enrichment courses. He is the founder of Edusort, an organization aimed at bridging the illiteracy gap and building individuals with set skills for the 21st-century work environment thus leading the movement towards educational equity and excellence, and equipping the next generation leaders through his educational services. 

Cajethan Goodluck Chineke

As an undergraduate student, Cajethan founded an NGO in 2013 called United Organization for Education. Through this forum, he mentors children and young people, and organize long vacation holiday lessons for them along with his team covering up to 15 subjects yearly. He mobilizes resources to help fund the fees of the less privileged, orphans and the disadvantaged children, renovating of dilapidated buildings in some rural communities, covering adult literacy in the whole of Enugu state. He hosts essay, debate, science and spelling competitions for primary and secondary school students yearly. And 15 children who previously dropped out of school have gained a scholarship to continue their studies through these competitions. Cajethan programs have impacted more than 5000 children and young people since inception. 

Damilola Fasoranti

Damilola is a professional educator and the CEO of Prikkle Academy through which he creates innovation hubs to help rural children and youths to focus on their gifts to drive development while collaborating to solve community problems with others through virtual and peer-to-peer learning. In 2017, he launched Nigeria’s first solar-powered rural makers pace to unleash the ingenuity, talent and passion in under-served communities. He has reached many students in Nigeria, engaging communities to create home-grown solutions. Some of the solutions that have been achieved in this makers pace include virtual jobs with each participant earning above the minimum wage, creating cooking fuel (charcoal) from human faeces, design of bamboo solar lamps, turning plastic bottles into light bulbs, creating organic composts out of kitchen food waste, creating a mobile cash-dispensing toy machine and making executive chairs out of tyres. He is a 2015 Kanthari fellow, 2017 Dalai Lama Fellow and 2017 Fellow at the Social Innovators Programme of LEAP Africa. He is also a 2018 African Changemaker Fellow and a 2-time Tedx Speaker. And an award recipient of the 2018 Talent of the Future Award (Ideation Hub, Lagos), and one of the World Top 100 Social Entrepreneurs (Social Enablers, India). 

Nature Bassey Edet

Edet is the founder of SMART (Selfless Mavericks Arousing Radical Transformation) Gang, a 22 year old undergraduate of Health Education in the University of Uyo, an SDGs Ambassador and a social entrepreneur. Through SMART-Gang, she has been working to ensure that every child has access to quality, affordable and all inclusive education, especially in rural communities in Africa. Through her #BackToSchoolProject, over 50 out-of-school children have been reintegrated back to school. Her #ProjectEducate initiative has witnessed the distribution of free school uniforms, bags, sandals and writing materials to underprivileged children in Akwa Ibom State. So far, over 500 underprivileged children have benefitted from this initiative. She also donates learning facilities to lacking schools, one of which is St John’s Catholic Primary School, Eniong Offot, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State where she donated school desks to aid teaching and learning and alleviate the plight of the pupils who initially sat on the floor to learn. She is currently embarking on a school building project in Edonwik Community, Eastern Obolo LGA, Akwa Ibom. A community that has existed for over 100 years without a school facility. She is a strong activist in the students’ community about Quality Education, a service that earned her THE STUDENTS’ ADVOCATE OF THE YEAR, 2019 by the Students’ Union Government, Federal University of Uyo, THE NOBLE CITIZEN AWARD BY PROJECT 100, NEW DELHI, INDIA and 30 Under 30 Changemakers Award by Opportunity Desk. 

Emmanuel Agunze

Emmanuel is the founder of the Makoko Dream, an initiative set up to curb child labour problems in slum communities in Africa via the alternative of Tuition-free schools set up by the Makoko Dream team. So far, 640 children who were out of school in Makoko are now realizing their dream of being educated for free via the intervention of his non-profit. He is a 2018 Mandela Washington Fellow and Ashoka Xchangemaker Fellow and has been an international Ignite speaker at the Regional Convening of the Mandela Washington Summit in Accra, 2019. He currently exposes his students to technology to bridge the gap on technological advancement in slum communities. 

Itodo Samuel Anthony

Itodo teaches Chemistry and Physics at Gateway Excel College Otukpa where he constantly introduces innovative approaches to moulding his students into critical thinkers, problem solvers and great leaders. In May 2018 he initiated the Adopt a Kid Programme which is supporting over 60 disadvantaged children through primary school and in September 2017 he initiated The Agada ThankGod Health Intervention Fund, which has provided over 50 students medical support, including 6 surgeries. In August 2018, he initiated the Free Basic Literacy Programme where over 150 children in the community who registered were being taught how to read and write. In September 2017, Itodo set up a skill centre which has empowered over 100 young people with skills in catering and soap making. In September 2018 he set up the first public library in Otukpa, with over 1500 books. He also instituted a scholarship programme which has benefited over 100 indigent secondary school students and his women empowerment initiative has provided nine women 20,000 naira each in support of their small businesses, so they can support their children in school. In March 2019, Itodo initiated the New Frontiers Annual Quiz Competition. In March 2020, he organized the New Frontiers Essay Competition which covered two LGAs. Also between March 6-7, 2020, Itodo convened a students leadership summit which brought together over 200 students across two LGAs together to learn problem-solving strategies as well as the fundamentals of genuine leadership to prepare them as change agents in their communities. In 2018, Itodo was a Top 50 finalist of the Global Teacher Prize; and in the same year, he won the Future Awards Africa Prize in Education. 

Ayoola John Oluwafemi

Ayoola is the founder of Build New Nigeria Initiative and serving Ambassador for International Astronomy and Astrophysics Challenge and Thought For Food. He was honoured by International Youth Math Challenge Award of EXCELLENCE in 2019 for the great work he has done in exposing Nigerian students to international community and for great talents Nigerian students showed. Ayoola has trained 5000 students in public schools across Nigeria on Information and Communication Technology and mentored some set of students to produce torch light using waste bottle so as to reduce pollution and light up their homes. Currently, he is volunteering for Skool Media to provide virtual teaching to secondary school because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Oluwakemi Mary Ogunsanya

Oluwakemi is a core Literacy Educator with 7 years of teaching experience. She has taught across both public and private schools at primary and secondary levels during this period. In the course of her Master’s degree research work on Educational Wastage and Internal Efficiency, she discovered that teenage pregnancy and the inability to cope with menstrual hygiene and its related issues serve as contributing factors to the number of out-of-school girls in Nigeria and Sub-Saharan Africa. This led her to convene The Pristine Project, a budding initiative aimed towards the advocacy of menstrual health and hygiene among females in rural communities as well as reinforcing the mental and physical wholeness of the Girl-Child. She volunteers to facilitate at various physical and virtual teacher forums where she has taught extensively on quality education strategies. She is passionate about rebranding the teaching profession in Nigeria. 

Khalifa Usman Mustapha

Khalifa is a development worker and subject matter expert on business development with a keen interest in human capacity building. He is an alumnus of the U.S State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), the State Department’s pioneer professional exchange program. Societal problems that abandonment of the Almajiris is causing have grown increasingly & the results are Boko haram insurgency, Shia militia, incessant kidnapping, banditry and other bedevilling atrocities; because the Almajiris are so many & so vulnerable that they become the easiest recruitment target for these extremist and terrorist groups. Through my NGO, KDC Foundation, he works with other stakeholders on reforming the Tsangaya (Qur’anic) schools by integrating literacy, numeracy, personal hygiene, civic education and soft skills; instead of only learning how to memorize the holy book, which makes them end up unskilled, uneducated and unproductive. That is why most of them end up as street beggars. Because of his project, over 1000 Almajiris in Kano State are off the street and have learned to read and write in English. The project also curbs the influx of Almajiris from rural communities and other core northern states through the institutionalization of rural learning and soft skills development centres that train and empower rural children who would have otherwise been sent to the already congested Tsangaya schools in the city, and also regional stakeholder engagement programs across the core northern states to address interstate Almajiri Migration. 

Michael Showunmi

Michael is a graduate of Chemical Engineering but fell in love with Education when he was posted to serve in a school (NYSC) in 2015. Though physically challenged, Michael has learnt to make lemonade from the lemons that life throws at him and he derives joy from helping every child to become great in life. Despite earning a low income, he supports schools and students with whatever is lacking. So far, he has donated a total of 5 white-marker boards to different schools, 48 sandals and 15 school uniforms to children. Additionally, he helps the girl child by donating sanitary pads to girls in some schools and also go to different schools within the low-income communities to teach for free.

Oluwaseun Kayode

Oluwaseun leads a very energetic team at Schoolinka where they design exciting professional development opportunities for teachers. They combine the power of online learning and physical classes to curate very engaging learning experiences for educators, and by doing so, they are putting the power to access continuous professional development in the hands of the educators. The community has grown to over a thousand teachers at https://schoolinka.com. Low-income schools access training programs for free or at a very affordable fee. When Oluwaseun is not working at Schoolinka, he is busy with the team at Rebook Africa – a nonprofit he founded to expand digital learning opportunities for young people marginalized by socioeconomic factors. Through digital skills boot camps, over 500 young people in Agege and Ota communities in Lagos and Ogun states respectively have been equipped with digital skills such as basic computer usage, Microsoft proficiency, graphic designing and web designing for free. Rebook Africa has also set up an innovation centre where young people living in the community can walk in and acquire digital skills that will enable them to become active and responsible citizens.