Three secondary school teachers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja have received financial support from the 2022 global teacher prize finalist and English language teacher at Government Day Secondary School, Karu, Abuja, Mr Olasunkanmi Opeifa.
The financial support, provided under the auspices of the Phenomenon Edu Impact, a platform under Olasunkanmi Opeifa Educational Foundation and in collaboration with 1 Million Teachers, another non-governmental organisation, is on yearly basis for any top three teachers with community projects that address health and education related issues.
The three teachers received their money prize, which was a pool of N1 million at this year’s edition of the Phenomenon conference, held in Abuja, recently.
They were among 17 teachers, who submitted entries this year to win the grant.
Speaking to Nigerian Tribune about the support, Opeifa, who is also the 2018 Maltina Teacher of the Year award winner, said the initiative is to encourage teachers to think outside the box and contribute significantly to the growth and development of communities where they work.
According to him, the job of a teacher nowadays has gone beyond classroom activities and students they teach.
“Teachers must be able to impact and add value to communities and that is exactly what we are trying to encourage and achieve for instituting the impact challege among teachers for now within the FCT,” he noted.
Opeifa explained that all the 17 teachers, who advanced to the final stage of the competition made presentations of their innovative ideas to address target pressing challenges in their locality, and out of whom the trio with the best ideas selected by a panel of jurists constituted for the purpose, emerged as winners.
According to him, all their projects exemplified creativity, problem-solving skills, and dedication to making a difference beyond classrooms.
He gave their names as Ayah Charity Okwoli, who is a guidance counsellor at the FCT Secondary Education Board; Bilikis Otuyo, a maths teacher at Greater Heights Academy, Gwarinpa, and Aisha Jimoh, a teacher at Brains and Minds Academy Life Camp, Abuja.
He said while Okwoli won the star prize, which is half a million naira for her mental health project designed for students with childhood trauma and equips parents and teachers with right knowledge and skills to foster better communication and relationships with them, Otuyo and Jimoh won the second and third prizes, receiving N300, 000 and N200,000 respectively.
He noted that the second prize winner project was an engaging game module to teach mathematical concepts while the third prize recipient developed Farida Edu Boost to support education of vulnerable children in the underserved communities.
He emphasised that the Phenomenon Community Impact Challenge would remain a platform to drive positive change in education and health sectors in local communities.
He said even though participation in the annual challenge is open and free and restricted for now to teachers within the FCT, the competition would extend to cover teachers outside FCT in the nearest future.