ABOUT BTA FOUNDATION - POVERTY ERADICATION IN KWARA STATE

         BTA

BARRISTER TITILOPE
AKOGUN

FOUNDATION

POVERTY ERADICATION IN KWARA STATE,

 THE WORKING MAGIC!

                                    2017

HOW WOULD EMPOWERING PEOPLE HELP ACHIEVE POVERTY ERADICATION?

I bring courteous greetings to your Excellency from the Trustees and entire team of BTA Foundation.  BTA Foundation is a Non – Governmental Organization with sound vision of empowering people towards their financial freedom and economic stability.

The Foundation believes empowering people can help eradicate poverty or reduce it to the barest minimum, because those who are empowered will become self-reliance from their skills that they have learnt, they can have jobs which they will use to take good care of their families.

I had painstakingly gone through the pains of having brilliant ideas, with less or no access to funding, and in cases where available, with high burdened interests, which might pose a strong clog in the wheel of a new business.

I had also listened to the yearnings of many, who have existing businesses, but need little finances to boost and propel same towards financial stability.

I profoundly believe if there is no one in the family that could afford to take care of the children and other relatives, poverty will increase drastically. So, by empowering one person you have saved many lives and possibly generations.

I have resolved to engage my constituents by empowering them within my little available resources, through a Compound Support Scheme (CSS), Artisans’ Support Scheme (ASS), Commercial Transport Support Scheme (CTSS) and Outstanding Students’ Scheme (OSS).

To this end, I have decided together with my team to float, register and launch the coming into life of BTA Foundation with Kwara State the founding State.

In this bid to establish a remarkable launching, we have been scouting for a young, virile, energetic and inspirational individual, towards making people believe things can work again in Nigeria.

We have unanimously resolved to have you as the inspirational speaker at the launch of the foundation. A perusal of your giant strides in the empowerment of your people, which had made you a political office holder to reckon with, even after your dad, had totally lured us to tapping from your wealth of experience and innovativeness.

We are convinced that if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become much more, you are a leader. Like every other skills, leadership can be learnt and acquired.

Leadership can be described as a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task, hence leaders are made, they are not born.

The composition of our team is a collection of youthful team players who have innovation as their watchword and are so focused on building a virile and productive people oriented and impactful empowerment in the State.

This is one of our strongest selling points in our current dispensation and it is taken as a yardstick to measure everything we do. Though we cannot allude to have a perfect team in place but the team comprises a good number of youths, who either have been part of the social, societal, political and governmental processes at different levels, and are determined to build an effective and efficient platform towards a truly self reliant people in Kwara State.

However, we take our results-oriented passion as a confidence in our capability. These we do while we seek for technical assistance from professionals. We would build contacts, relationships and partnerships with appropriate and able designers, and other necessary service providers.

Every region chooses the family as a starting point to overcome poverty, specifically child poverty, that’s why we have created a useful tool like Family networks in order to recreate micro and mutual solidarity among families and create a network of supportive families. These networks have enabled the development of several projects of solidarity in the neighborhoods, support in the daily life, foster care and passion to care for the unemployed and financially handicapped and their families.

In addition, the eradication of child and family poverty is possible by avoiding the loss of job following maternity, with more flexible employment schemes.

Empowering people by giving them a good education that will prepare them to have a

Career and to hold a job that will make them more confident, give them the chance to learn from

Others, and allow them to earn a good living to help their children to live a better life.

We could have reduced or eradicated poverty long time back. We had the resources." What then was missing? The answer by them: the political will. What was to be this political will?

 It is supposed to be power-linked determination.

The crux of the problem: those who have (political) power do not have hunger and those who have hunger do not have power. Hence poverty gets a backseat as a problem to address urgently. If power comes to those who have hunger, poverty eradication will be on war footing basis. And what is power? We gave our own simple description: to have power is to have an effective say and to have a say we need effective forums.

BTA FOUNDATUION WOULD SURELY GIVE THIS!

Hence empowerment and poverty eradication will not happen unless adequate steps are taken to ensure that the required inclusive, small-sized, neighborhood based multi-tiered forums as mentioned above are in place.

We have discovered with time that helping marginalized groups such as women, youths, unemployed and unskilled young men and women, elderly people, etc. to develop income-generation activities is probably a starting point, but efforts should go beyond economic considerations to explore sound mechanisms for increased and inclusive participation, including monitoring accountability of decision-makers and beneficiaries of the empowerment.

Poverty reduction is a complex undertaking because of the multifaceted nature of poverty, one of them being the unequal access to wealth and basic services and commodities in several societies which point to some roots causes of inequalities.

Reducing poverty therefore also means addressing governance issues by challenging the adequacy of policy-making and accountability mechanisms existing institutions.

Using an example, four years ago, there was an NGO who was into empowering people. Fruit mango grows abundantly in its country. Mostly they fall off the tree and rot. In 2009, the NGO was challenged by its member’s lack of income and unemployment in the rural communities. With little resources, the NGO hosted the first mango festival encouraging the women to produce items made from mangoes. Since it was new and unique, all items were sold out by 2p.m despite the fact that it rained all day. This encouraged the NGO more, to arrange some training courses using mangoes, and aimed for a second one in 2010. The NGOs effort attracted the University of the West Indies who wrote the NGO asking to be involved, and rapidly accepted. In 2011, the NGO saw tremendous growth, more women participated and produced more innovative products.

In 2012 the government joined the NGO by giving much needed funding for a bigger and brighter festival, and the NGO added the first Mango Conference.

The rural women now have an income from mango and other fruits and they feel empowered.

This is our goal in Kwara State as a starting point. We believe at BTA Foundation, our people are innovative, hardworking and ready to engage in highly lucrative businesses, but are short of funding.

We promise to achieve the vision of this Foundation by providing the needed support, towards the self reliance of an appreciable thousand of women, unemployed youths and the aged within few years.

While trying our best, we seek for individual, Communal, Local, State and Federal Government support, towards the actualization of this dream.

We wish to contribute our quota in our own little way, so that the people will speak of us, that God used us in our own little way, and our VISION would have been achieved.

In conclusion Sir, we at BTA Foundation wishes you well as you return to your various destinations while begging for your prayers, support and contributions, towards actualizing the vision of BTA Foundation.

God bless you all,

I am Joseph Titilope Akogun.