The Future Awards Africa Tour Visits Chibok,Mubi,Yola,Others (PHOTOS)

As part of the 100-city tour for The Future Awards Africa’s (TFAA) 10th 

anniversary, the awards visited conflict zones across the North of 

Nigeria last week – to highlight challenges,spotlight inspiring stories 

and set up hubs to solve problems at scale.

The delegation was led by the co-founder of TFAA, Chude Jideonwo and 

visited Chibok, Mubi and Yola. The tour, led by project managers Bukonla 

Adebakin and Seun Oluyemi had previously visited Enugu, Banjul, Badagry, 

Ibadan, Akure, Port Harcourt and Kano.

The tour has a three-pronged focus: a) re-focus attention on the 

issuesyoung people are facing across the continent, b) the case studies 

of how TFAA’s global brain trust has solved these issues and then c) set 

up hubs in each city - made up of past winners, nominees, partners and 

volunteers at community-levels – to solve these problems.

“The stories and the people we have met on this trip have confirmed some 

of our worst fears, but more importantly also fired up our resolve,” 

said Jideonwo after the tour. “There is so much work we have to do, and 

we are building a network of problem solvers across the continent to 

engage, solve and sustain the solutions to these problems.

“We are celebrating 10 years of TFAA, but more importantly, we are fired 

up to begin 10 more years of building entrepreneurs, supporting change 

makers and transforming societies.”

The one-year tour, which kicked off in October 2015, has now visited 

Kano, Banjul, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Enugu, Abuja, Lagos, Yola, Mubi and 

Chibok.

“The challenges we saw on this tour are enough to make you worry,” said 

Mohamed Diaby, a member of the Central Working Committee, from Abidjan. 

“From young people feeling their own communities and countries to 

communicable diseases from recused individuals coming back into town, 

rebuilding of clinic/hospital, school, bridge and markets, education, 

employment, drug use, to cities that urgently demand government 

reconstruction, there is so much work left to be done. We are determined 

to lead an army of young people, through our hubs, to do this urgent 

work, to solve these problems.”

Hubs have now been set up in Mubi with the Initiative for Human Rights, 

Yola with Centre for Caring, Empowerment and Peace Initiative (CCEPI) 

and Chibok with the Red Cross. These hubs will work together with the 

Global TFAA Secretariat to pull resources and media attention to solve 

the identified problems in each community.

The next stop for the tour is Johannesburg, South Africa, after which 

phase one of the tour will conclude.

The Future Awards Africa 2015 is powered by RED and held in partnership 

with the Ford Foundation, Microsoft, the US Consulate, the Canadian High 

Commission Nigeria and The Tony Elumelu Foundation. The event will be 

hosted in Lagos on Sunday, 6 December, 2015.