Sunday Okobi
The Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation has unveiled 27 recipients of its 2022 Grant Scheme across multiple backgrounds, including health, environment, entrepreneurship, STEM, and leadership, who will receive a substantial grant to further their exceptional work.
The awarded projects were selected from a competitive pool of over 500 submissions from nonprofits and innovative organisations spread across Sub-Saharan Africa.
According to the Foundation, the grants will enhance and build upon these national and regional organisations’ critical works that align with ACT Foundation’s core mission to provide skills training, entrepreneurship, mentorship, and pipeline development for health, environment, and leadership.
The new grantees for 2022, the body said, are comprised of a diverse group of national and international organisations such as Dove-Haven Foundation, Cece Yara Foundation, Ashake Foundation, Somo Africa Trust, TonyMay Foundation, and The Bridge Foundation for Youth Leadership.
These recipients join the expanding network of individuals and institutions that the ACT Foundation has supported over the past five years in its role as one of the most significant grant-awarding institutions in Africa.
ACT Foundation 2022 grant cycle, which began in October 2021, saw over 40 percent of the applications this year emerging outside Nigeria. The due diligence exercise saw the recipients selected based on three criteria: Exceptional creativity, a track record of significant accomplishments, and potential for future creative work. Unfortunately, only the top 2 percent of the proposals scaled these final hurdles.
It noted that in 2022, it achieved a milestone of reaching over 2 million people through its funded projects across 8 African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, South Africa, Ghana, Cameroon and Guinea, and Cote d’Ivoire. ACT Funded interventions have also reached all 36 states in Nigeria.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Chief Executive Officer of ACT Foundation, Osayi Alile, said: “We are delighted to unveil our 27 grantees for our 6th Grant Cycle. These organisations are doing exceptional work in Health, Enterprise Development, Environment, and Leadership across different communities on the continent.
According to her, “We are excited to partner with them to create impact and provide innovative solutions across Africa. We strongly believe in collaboration as it is crucial to accelerating growth and sustaining impact locally, regionally, and globally.”
While congratulating the recipients, Alile expressed optimism that the work of the 2022 Grant recipients will be impactful.
She said: “We look forward to seeing our grantees use this funding to fulfill their missions. Through their efforts and collaboration, we hope that our continent will continue to be a place where all of us can live, work, play, and grow.”
The ACT Foundation goal is to improve socio-economic outcomes for African communities by building capacity in under-resourced fields and key focus areas- Health, Entrepreneurship, Environment, and leadership in Africa.
The Foundation, which is celebrating a milestone of five years of operations this year, has remained resolute as a grant-making nonprofit organisation. Established to support local, national and regional non–profit organisations, the foundation continues to address challenges and associated vulnerabilities across the African continent.
Thanking its sponsor and partner, Access Bank, for its support over the last five years, ACT Foundation revealed that it had awarded grants to 75 beneficiaries, impacted an estimated two hundred thousand persons, and extended philanthropic gestures to eighty-one communities in Africa and the thirty-six states of Nigeria.
The Foundation noted that impactful activities to commemorate its fifth anniversary would be rolled out in the coming days and weeks.
He said: “For one week now, there had been harassment, arrest and detention of community members over false allegation of inciting violence in the community and resisting arrest.”
Okpame said that those arrested included Mr. Francis Ozekhome and his two sons, the community chairman, whose legs were tied and handcuffed in viral video among other.
According to him, community members are being harassed and arrested for asking questions about the sale of the land and insisting that the tradition and laid down procedures should be followed in installing the community head after the death of the village head.
But Mike Ozekhome has described the allegations as baseless, and without element of truths.
He said: “The people are out to destroy my reputation despite everything I have done for them. The land they alleged to have been sold to Dangote is intact and owned by the same indigenes who are farming on the land. Edo GIS has also denied knowledge of the C of O belonging to Dangote.
“Nothing like that ever happened. Dangote only paid the villagers for the destroyed economic trees when they did preliminary excavation works on a part of Iviukwe lands on a proposed fertilizer project, before they suddenly abandoned it and packed their machines and left for Ondo where they commenced fresh works.
“When victims of the mayhem and destruction reported to the Agenebode Divisional Police and Area Command at Agenebode, they instigated some youths who went about and viciously attacked the police, damaging their vehicles.”
He, however, advised that the people should be called to order to prevent them from doing further damage to his good name and reputation of the innocent revered Okumagbe of Uhvano Kingdom, and the good name of the community.
Also on his part, the Okumagbe denied the allegations, saying he has nothing to do with those arrested.
He said the issue of the land sold to Dangote has nothing to do with the arrest as the negotiation was done during the tenure of former Governor Adams Oshiomole’s administration and that enumeration of economic crops was done while the people were duly paid compensation.
Okumagbe said that the crisis in the village resulted from the disagreement in the Ozekhome’s household who are fighting Mike Ozekhome, as they see anybody closed to him as enemy.
The Edo State Police Command Spokesperson, Mr. Kontongs Bello, said that those arrested were as a result of the attack that happened during the police on-the-spot assessment following a petition by a member of the community over destruction of property.
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