Pan-African Social Enterprise Announces Applications For Ajegunle Legacy Scholarship

Posted by Eric Ojo Latest Headlines, News Across Nigeria Wednesday, August 2nd, 2023

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Paradigm Initiative (PIN) has announced a Call for Applications for its Ajegunle Legacy Scholarship programme, which was inaugurated recently.

PIN is a social enterprise that builds an ICT-enabled support system and advocates digital rights in order to improve livelihoods for underserved youth.

PIN’s vision is for improved livelihoods for underserved youth aged 12 to 28. The organization advocates for the recognition and respect of digital rights and inclusion to ensure that the environment is enabling for the enjoyment of these fundamental rights.

The scholarship is set to benefit bright students from less privileged backgrounds in Ajegunle, Nigeria, a community that hosted PIN in its early days.

In a statement made available to the media on Tuesday, the call will close on September 30th.

The scholarship was launched in April as a way of giving back to the community and recognising notable individuals who have been instrumental in the affairs of PIN.

Named after the area in Lagos, it will support resident youth/students in securing university education in technology courses such as Information Technology (IT), Software Development and Computer Engineering, among others.

The Project has two arms-the prize and the scholarship. The prize arm will support two young persons (one male and one female) from low-income families resident in Ajegunle to acquire university education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) or Law annually.

This prize is named after the late Taiwo Bankole Ogunyemi, one of the foremost volunteers at PIN’s Life Programme (now known as LIFE Legacy Programme). LIFE is an acronym that stands for Life Skills, ICTs, Financial Readiness, and Entrepreneurship.

The programme targets youth who do not have the financial capacity to acquire relevant Information Communication Technology (ICT), Entrepreneurial and Life skills that can make them compete in the workplace.

The award is aimed at immortalising the late Ogunyemi’s name for his role in improving the lives of young people across Nigeria, especially in Ajegunle.

Through the organization’s flagship LIFE Legacy Programme alone, PIN has impacted the lives of more than 6,700 under-served African youth with improved livelihoods through digital opportunities and protection of their online rights.

Notably, the programme is a capacity-building initiative designed to improve the lives of under-served youth in host communities.

The scholarship arm on the other hand will also support two young persons (one male and one female) from low-income families residing in Ajegunle to get advanced software development training annually.

The organization, which has for 16 years been connecting young under-served Africans with digital opportunities and ensuring the protection of their rights online, started operations in the area in 2007 in a tiny cybercafé known as Stadnet before expanding its footprints across Africa.

PIN advocates for digital rights and inclusion on the continent, has a presence in Nigeria, Senegal, Cameroon, Zambia, Zimbabwe, The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Kenya, from where it coordinates its operations across Central, East, Southern and West Africa and beyond.

In addition, it builds ICT-enabled support systems and advocates for digital rights to improve the livelihoods of under-served young Africans.

The organization has worked in communities in Nigeria since 2007 and across Africa since 2017, building experience, community trust, and an organizational culture that positions it as a leading social enterprise in ICT for Development and Digital Rights on the continent.