The project aims to provide counseling, education, training and support to empower remanded, abandoned, disabled and homeless youth. The team has impacted over 700 youth through their vocational training center and work in Abeokuta Remand Home. They have engaged 2 volunteers working 7 hours per day, 5 days per week. Feedback from impacted youth has been positive, praising the project's multi-pronged approach to promoting human rights. While similar projects exist, this one works within existing remand homes to incorporate social enterprises, curriculum and long-term mentoring into the education system. There is potential to expand the innovative project to more regions and globally with additional funding, staff, and partnerships.

1. PROJECT STATUS: FINAL SUBMISSION
PROJECT TITLE: REMAND CHILDREN
RESTORATION PROJECT
TEAM LEADER: MS.TESSY SHOSOWEN
IMPACTED UNDERPRIVILEGED GROUP
OF YOUTH:
I.
REMANDED, ABANDONED, DISABLED, A
NDHOMELESS
NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN THE TEAM: 2
VOLUNTEERING HOURS SPENT: 7 HOURS/DAY, 5DAYS/WEEK
NUMBER OF YOUTH/PEOPLE IMPACTED: 700

2. PHOTO FROM OUR WORK
OUR MENTORS AND COUNSELLORS IN ACTION DURING THE PHASE 1
OF THE PROJECT EXECUTION IN THE CITY OF ABEOKUTA,NIGERIA 2011

3. PHOTOS FROM OUR WORK
PICTURES FROM OUR COUNSELLING AND TRAINING SECTION WITH
SOME OF THE CHILDREN.

4. •What is your project/action?
 Remand homes were established by the Nigerian government, in the main cities of the country, to care
for abandoned children, aged from three months to eight years old, as well as ”beyond parental
control” children.
 Presently (2011), the remand homes are sometimes used as a dumping ground for children that do not
fit anywhere else. The poor living conditions at the remand homes constitute a violation of the
children s right to health, nutrition, education, and recreation.
 Lack of appropriate medical treatment can be seen in the children s skin rashes and sores. In some
cases, the older children do not go to school nor do receive any education at the remand home.
 Supervision at these homes is minimal, there is no privacy and the children are often exposed to
abuse, often kept under lock and key, forced to sleep in beds without mattresses, or with very old and
dirty mattresses and pillows. Malnutrition manifests itself in the smaller children, showing in their
inability to walk or sit, motor retardation, muscle atrophy, lack of teeth and problems with hair and
skin.
 They wash their clothes, carry water, light fires of wood when kerosene is not available; they can
spend years doing these and other tasks without having the opportunity of performing activities
suitable for their age group.
 However, our project aim is to give unaccompanied children (mainly children from the streets, first-
time offenders, and children who are orphaned, abandoned or have been affected by armed conflict)
counseling, education, training and support to empower them to become self-reliant. Since 2010 we
have been running vocational training centre and Abeokuta Remand Home and it is expected to benefit
over 50,000 youth through psychosocial support, technical education and business skills training
followed by apprenticeship and industrial placements, which will include
housing, training, feeding, medication and post-vocational support. In the long run, we hope to
guarantee employment and mitigate the youth’s susceptibility to risks related to
poverty, marginalization and deviant behavior.

5. •What is the target group you are helping and why?
 Our target group are remanded, isolated, abandoned, and
disable youths, and children,. These groups lack the
advantages and opportunities that are enjoyed by us and others
in our world. They are often deprived of rights and opportunities
in life so many of them feel frustrated and end up committing
suicide. So we see this program as an opportunity to bring
sanity into their lives.

6. •What did you want to achieve and what are the actual results regarding people engaged in the
action, volunteering hours invested by the team for project development
and implementation, and how many people have been impacted?
 The campaign is working to build a better bottom line for youths, and children in the remand home
across Nigeria to transform their lives via skill building, counseling, education, training and support
to empower them to become self-reliant. We are about:
• Building community demand for results, by mobilizing residents and stakeholders around an equity
agenda, creating opportunity for youths and children and transforming neighborhoods. The
campaign is about higher aspirations, and about providing both the expectation of a better future
and the connections and collective power to pursue it.
• Creating new connections to systems and organizations by creating new avenues and approaches
for interacting with systems that otherwise pose barrier.
• Transforming the environment to sustain the change, creating family-centered, equitable, results-
focused systems that work for all young people.
 IMPACT
 The project began in 2010 as a Nigerian youth-led project under Rainbow Gate Foundation Nigeria
that provides counseling, education, training and support to empower youth and children in remand
homes to become self-reliant Since our inception, we have successfully trained and impacted over
700 youths and children. Over 100 of our students have started numerous social enterprises in
Nigeria. Our Students have directly impacted over 2,000 depressed communities and created tens of
thousands of naira in value for their community, and have already started to replicate their innovative
solutions in Nigeria.
 Results
 Over 700 youths and children, led by 27 Mentors, at 24 diverse partner homes in six geographic
clusters across Nigeria are currently participating under this project. Even though the curriculum
only launched on March 4 of 2010, already Scholars at 12 of the 24 partner homes have started to
create social enterprises in their communities ranging from a vegetable selling business to increase
nutrition among the student body to a social enterprise that trains widows in the community to make
jewelry as a source of income. Furthermore, over 300 children are now gradually been transform and
engaged in educational activities across the partner homes

7. •How was your action relevant and effective? What has been the feedback
from youth impacted by your action?
 This project is relevant and effective because of its multi-pronged
approach to human rights through legal support to youth and children at
risk and in conflict with the law, skills training and follow up for youth
from difficult socio-economic backgrounds. We seek to promote the
fundamental human rights of the beneficiaries through legal
assistance, provision of education and training, physiological and
psychosocial support. The feed backs has been wonderful has we are
presently been invited to other at risk sector to carry out the same
project. This as also lead to our collaboration and partnership with
Almonsour Women Organization.

8. •Was your action/project innovative? Are there any similar projects/actions already
on local or global level? Please describe.
 Rather than building a single highly powerful Remand home or developing a
leadership or social entrepreneurship program outside of the formal education
system we works within existing Remand homes. we take the most effective
components (namely the curriculum, mentoring, and empowerment) of top social
organization and programs around the world and brings them to existing Remand
homes across Nigeria. Within these homes we are able to accomplish a similar
mission to a leadership academy or social entrepreneurship program; however, we
incorporate the creation of a social enterprise, social change curriculum, and long-
term mentoring into the education system itself. Our approach allows us to:
 1. Reach a much larger number of abandoned children and youths; and
 2. build the capacity of the home system from within.
 Unlike other organizations, our program introduces a practical component of
student-run social enterprises. The experience Scholars gain with social
entrepreneurship equips the next generation to identify opportunities to address
community challenges in effective, innovative, and sustainable ways.
 In the region were we serve, we are presently the only one operating such project.
Globally there are other organizations doing the same. However, our methodology
has been found effective in this region.

9. •Is there potential to go with this project/action further? Could you bring this
idea on regional or even global level?
 There is a great opportunity to take this project globally. However, In order to
grow , we need funds and staff to work with the project ,partners to support
expanded training, technical assistance and program support for effective
sustainability efforts implemented through this program. We need to strengthen
value for Network volunteers, and create conditions for broad based financial
support.

10. TEAM MEMBERS
 MR MICHAEL IYANRO
 MS TESSY SHOSOWEN