Dr Folasade (Sade) Lamikanra

Dr Folasade (Sade) Lamikanra is a Nigerian-born education researcher and writer. While completing her PhD on The Educational Legacy of Colonialism in South-western Nigeria, she he raised funds to build a school in Nigeria! Her mixed-sex, primary and middle school – the Shining Glory Model School is in a new community development in Ibadan, the third largest city in the country with a population of 3.6million. Parents are already enrolling their children at the school, with the first fifty pupils starting in January 2022, but numbers will rise to five hundred. The curriculum will focus on science education, English and maths. Indigenous languages will be taught, as well as French and Latin.

But it is the lack of equipment that holds back schools in Nigeria and the school is short of equipment for the physics, chemistry, biology and the computer labs. Sade hopes to get support and funding for equipment in the UK and she is currently crowdfunding to enable her to buy two busses to transport children to the school.

To explain her passion for education she tells a story: “When I was young my grandmother touched my arm and woke me up one night. She said ‘Sade, Sade, Sade, it’s all up to you. I am struggling, your mother is struggling. You are the third generation, and we cannot have a third generation living in poverty. Study hard, win all the prizes. Education is the only way out of poverty!’ That is my motivation for creating this school – to take children out of poverty!”

Sade is also the project co-ordinator for the Shining Glory Youth Network, a Christian charity that works with young people and their families in the UK and Nigeria. Previously, she was a talk show presenter on four Nigerian TV stations. Among her publications is a well-received book on Christian relationships Behind the Curtain.