Vice President Yemi Osinbajo presents award to Pastor Tunde Dada of Shining Light Kids Outreach for enrolling and feeding street children in schools

Pastor Tunde receiving his award from the Vice President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo. (Centre: Naresh Asnani of Make an Impact NGO) | Credits: SLKO

On the 29th of October 2018, the Vice President of Nigeria, H.E Professor Yemi Osinbajo presented an award to Pastor Tunde Dada of Shining Light Kids Outreach (SLKO). During an event themed ‘Building the Nigeria of our Dreams,’ organized by Apostles in the Market Place (AIMP), The Vice President described initiatives such as SLKO as selfless and truly commendable.

“I was truly impressed by awardees who are ordinary people like you and I, but just want to make an impact,” he remarked. “We need to keep teaching people that integrity pays. The righteous go about making an impact without expecting anything in return.”

About SLKO:

In 2010, while on an outreach to a community of displaced people mainly comprising of ex-soldiers and members of their families that had come to Abuja for their pensions but had gotten stranded, Pastor Tunde and his late wife discovered a promising 13-year-old boy called Segun Adeyemi who had not started primary school.

“We located his mother who explained that his ex-soldier father passed away and she could not afford to send him to school. We were moved enough to find a primary school close by. We found out that with just N15,000 we could enrol him in school, so we went ahead, paid and enrolled him,“ says Pastor Tunde.

“Soon after, we discovered that there were many others in the same situation. There are thousands of children who are of school age but were not in school because their parents cannot afford to send them to school. With the help of friends, we were able to put 40 children in school in 2010, and ever since then we have had over 200 children benefit from our scholarship program.”

 Some of our Saturday students | Credits: SLKO

What we do:

SLKO takes care of its children by paying for school fees, purchasing their textbooks, providing lunch, school uniforms, shoes and school bags. This has positively affected the children’s academic performance. Over 1000 children have been powerfully impacted from our feeding program and Saturday classes which is open to any child of any faith that shows up on any Saturday. We have volunteers that spend 2 hours with them every Saturday teaching them English, mathematics and bible study. Our volunteers from all walks of life and other churches, and all our programs are open to all people.

We try to involve as many people as possible in different aspects of the program.

Noteworthy to mention is that these underprivileged children are not mere statistics, they are precious human lives. Once they come on board we have to continue taking care of them.

Image: Some of the children we enrolled in school | Credits: SLKO

The Challenge:

Unfortunately, the majority of our beneficiaries come from extremely rough and underprivileged backgrounds - communities where most men are thieves or alcoholics and women are prostitutes.

Over the years, four of our senior secondary school students have gotten pregnant and had to drop out of school. Currently, one of our best performing kids who was once a head girl is pregnant and her grandmother has driven her out of the house. Her story is similar to hundreds of other young girls in such environments. Many are pregnant and homeless but they want to stay in school, we need to make that happen.

We would love to have a boarding house where we could board some of our children so we can see the transformation we desire. It is difficult for us to get the transformation we desire with them living in such horrendous environments. We have already seen a property in Mararaba, Abuja, with a set of 4 four bedroom bungalows for sale for N18million. Renovation required would be about N6million and the facility has the capacity to board at least 100 children. This we believe will really go a long way to impact a lot of lives of our beneficiaries.

As human beings, we should all desire to make an impact in the lives of others without expecting anything in return. We all have a part to play, no matter how small.

As the ever popular saying goes “children are our future,” let us do everything humanely possible to help our little children to become the stars they are destined to be.

If you would like to be a part of Shining Light Kids Outreach, please visit our website on:www.shininglightkingdombuilders.org for more information.

To Donate, send to:

Shining Light Kids Account

Call: +234(0)902-175-1665 for account details