How We Donated School Supplies to 130 Kids in Impoverished Communities in Nigeria Through The Power of Steem

_{Recipient pupil at Annang People's School, Obio Ndot}

A Bit of An Appreciation

First I want to personally say a big Thank You to the founder of @YouAreHope, @sircork, and everyone that supports its humanitarian aid initiative to reach far away places with Help, Opportunity, Purpose and Empowerment. And to the Steem network too, for making it possible to decentralize charity. Aided by the transparency offered on the Steem blockchain, we are now attaining optimum impact with our donations.

How It Started

Just last week I pledged to donate 26 STEEM to buy school supplies to 13 kids in a local community near me. I invited the support of the other members of this community, through a Steemit post. And the response was overwhelming. I had a personal goal to reach 50 kids and by calculations I needed 74 STEEM more.

Things Escalated Real Quick... For The Better

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_{Sircork's comment on announcement post}

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Ding! It happened almost as fast as I posted. @Sircork commented he was going to, on behalf of the charity he founded, partner in the outreach by meeting our fund-raising goal. That easy.

Just why @tt-dogg flagged that comment is beyond my comprehension. I assume there is a time and circumstance in life where we drop our primordial complications and just be humans. I thought everyone should be really really happy about such an announcement.

It didn't stop there. The good sir messaged me on Discord and asked if I had the logistic abilities and enough kids in need to double that outreach. Wow! I underestimated the power of this community. Cork sent the donation almost immediately through his organizations's account.

Add to that the donations of @vachemorte, @jassennessaj, @givonwayne, @my451r, @underground, @jonknight and @snooway we were already at 231.6 STEEM. The announcement post that was largely resteemed by the many people who supported us raised a total ~25 STEEM (100% of both liquid and SP reward). That put us at 256.6 STEEM. I didn't dare to dream that we could do that much, but the community believed in me and my timid vision. For that I am grateful.

The Task We Undertook

Another thing I underestimated was the effort required to pull this off. I want to send a big thank you to my mum for helping with the purchase of those items. It was tedious. With her help and my brother's we sorted the statoneries into each of the bags, according to the categories of pupils we were going to reach out to (pre-primary, early/middle primary and those at the periphery of graduation.)

_{My mum's not-too-spacious kitchen served as the sorting center}

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_{sorting of books and stationeries into bags}

At this time we had contacted three schools in Oruk Anam and Ukanafun Local Government Areas, asking the heads of the schools to provide us with the names of children with the most need of school supplies. Sixty, Forty and Thirty pupils from these schools. We got to know these kids were mostly orphans, and the teachers even had to prioritize kids without both parents, before those with one parent, and then those who had parents who were really really poor. The day for the outreach was set to Monday 22/01/2018.

22/01/18

We loaded up the car.

_{All set to move}

_{We sorted them in three groups to make distribution easy as we had just 3 hours to visit 3 schools}

_{Some dash cam selfie... Quiz: which is me? Ox-blood or checkered?}

With that we hit the road to the first of the three schools. The administrators were expecting us. I would just share pictures and let them tell the tale of a day that would go down as the most fulfilling day of my recent years.

_{At the Headmaster's office as we put finishing touches on the arrangement for the exercise}

_{Look at those beautiful souls}

_{The Teachers were helpful in the organization}

_{Just look at them :)}

_{I can't remember exactly but I think someone was saying a prayer here}

_{Myself and @Ewuoso (who happened to be in my city and decided to join us) with some of the kids. Is he taller than me? Nah! Bloody perspective :laughing:}

_{Just look closely and you would see what these kids carry as "bags" :(}

_{The Carlpro takes in everyone}

_{@Awesomeabasiono (it was coincidentally his birthday too) with some of the kids}

_{That moment Ewuoso has to reflect and admit he has been so privileged all his life. See those cuties?}

All in all we distributed sixty-six supplies in this school. Sixty was alocated but believe me it is hard to totally stick to a plan when you stare desperation in the face. So we had to short stock for the other schools.

And off we headed to the second school...

We successfully distributted 40 supplies to 40 kids in the first of the two schools we visited in Ukanafun.

And with that we left for the next one...

By this time we were already exhausted from the exercise. But we had to run to the next school before the bell at 1:30 PM.

This was by far the most exciting, maybe because we were stoked ny the success of the preceeding ones. And the school was happy too. Now look at this:

That wrapped the day for us. It was intense, stressful, really emotional, but it was worth all of it. I saw happiness take on despair and hopelessness.

Some of the teachers thought we were campaigning for elections that are around the corner. I mean that is the only time politicians visit them with any kind of kindness. And, since we mentioned politicians, I figure I should get this off my chest and done with: All of this effort cost us just a little over 400,000 Nigerian Naira. A day before our outreach, the governor of my state had gathered the highest echelon of clergymen around the country to commission the buiding of a "worship center" and the cost for that is put at 10,000,000,000 Naira. Billion with a B! And I dare say that EVERY kid in the schools we visited (and all the public schools in the state) were living in abject poverty and so underfunded to have any hope of competing with their peers around the world. You see the state of African leadership? That's a story for another day though.

Some Challenges

All of this wasn't without its challenge. The price of Steem took a deep to about $4.71 at the time we were about to cash out. But thanks to the excess donations we could still reach out to 130 pupils. Far more than we anticipated.

The bigger threat to the execution of this project was a mistake I own every right to: I mistakenly sent 191 STEEM to Bittrex with my SBD memo. I have filed a support ticket and hope to be refunded in the future. Even if that'll take six months, as long as they refund. If you have any experience or advice regards that, please feel free to share. That meant I had to get funds from elsewhere and carry on with the project I owed this community accountability on. And I am proud to say I pulled it off.

End Notes

It's a rather long report but I couldn't have made it any more concise. I mean with all that awesomeness? :wink:

Once again I want to thank everyone who supported this in one way or another. You made life better for someone else and you offered hope to someone who didn't have any. I bet that comes with its reward.

I am convinced everyday that the power to change the world is in our hands. With decentralization and lightening speed transactions in our arsenal, we are all the more closer to that world we only dreamt of. Thank you, Steem community, for making this possible.

I am glad at the opporunity to represent you.

Love,
Ubokobong Akpan,
Nigeria

Special thanks to @abass-jason, @awesomeabasiono, @ewuoso for being the foot soldiers on ground to make this happen. And to my friend Edidiong "Billy" Sampson too who gave that much that day. I look forward to having you join Steem too. I love you guys.