Philanthropist and chief executive officer of Gocrest Global Dualcitizenship and Properties, Ms. Ishola Okikiayo has urged Nigerian youths to embrace the future and take responsibility for their lives.
Okikiayo who stated this at a press briefing held in Lagos said she wants to remove thousands of children from the streets and provide them with a better life.
She said Nigerian youths should be armed with necessary information that will help them to be productive in society and be relevant.
She added that they should not discountenance the place of education and should leverage on it and seek to be relevant in their chosen field.
On her plans to empower about 100 youths she said, “I believe every person should be his/her brother’s keeper, especially those that have been blessed with means. My journey to success today has not been an easy one, having gone through a lot including” driving Uber to put food on my table amid other life experiences. But I am grateful to her parents for a strict regime of hard work and education that has served her so well in life.
“I want to encourage youths like me to look at the positives and be ready to work with their hands and persist in the endeavors they find themselves in,” she said.
Okikiayo 28 year old, who owns non-governmental organisation, GO Foundation, said her foundation in three years, “has touched so many lives; uplifted the less privileged, paid school fees and also sponsored children abroad to further their studies.
“Every month, I visit villages to supply food, render alms and also pay school fees for indigent students. This month I will be visiting my village and have made up my mind, together with my team, to sponsor a hundred children to school. I also have a GO Foundation Abroad plan where the best three students are sponsored abroad for educational purposes, all expenses paid.”
Okikiayo noted that in the next five years, she would increase her benefactors to thousands of children from the streets and seek to improve their lives. The children we fail to train could end up being a menace to us in the future,” she explained.
