Oluwatosin Folarin has won the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) National Youth Volunteer Award for 2016 and is the first Nigerian to win this award.  The 23-year-old graduate was posted to Ilesa in Osun state with fifteen other volunteers for three months. VSO, an International Development Charity works to address poverty under which their volunteers were sent to work in rural communities in order to secure Livelihoods.

At the ceremony which took place in the United Kingdom, Julia Lalla-Mahharagh, Chief Executive of the Orchid project, and judge for the award outlined that while assessing nominees, they had been impressed by her (Folarin) “Ability to go above and beyond.”  She said, “What wowed us as judges was the fact that Tosin went beyond her brief which was extensively to look at livelihoods. But so much more that what she seemed to do was meet the community exactly where they were at. Everything she did, she did with such passion.”

Folarin, who received her award by video was elated and described the experience as a “challenge which has made me become a better person, focused on achieving greater success.”  According to her, “Our project was themed ‘Securing Livelihood’ and we effected coherently with some of the United Nation’s seventeen developmental goals.  With respect to the first, second and eight goals which are end poverty, end hunger and decent work for all we carried out various projects  like farming in the model farm, training  farmers and enlightening them on various approaches to cocoa and cocoa value chain as well as encouraging them to explore on farming.  We also taught them couples of skills in order for them secure a living.

“Additionally, the third goal which is “wellbeing” we organized different programmes on health in which free medical check was conducted and trained practitioners were invited to speak to the community members.”

She described that, “Volunteering is a good way of making impact in your society and country at large. A little act of service goes a long way to make a positive change. This is why for the fourth goal which is “quality education”, volunteers had series of mentoring with pupils, and taught them some of their academic work.”

On Gender equality, she detailed that the fifth SDG goal was meritoriously looked into where women in the communities were able to understand that “they are not the weaker vessels.” “They understood that they also have equal rights and strength as their male counterparts,” She added.

Credit:

http://leadership.ng/style/562366/nigerian-becomes-first-female-to-win-vso-award-in-uk