Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State – February 2017 – Israel Olaore, 25-year old founder of The StopGo Movement and former student of Babcock University is returning to his Alma-mater to facilitate round two of his “Home Project” initiative.  The second installment of the project begins on on Sunday, February 19th, with campus-wide awareness and registration that will last the whole week, ending the next Sunday (26th) with a multifaceted community service initiative, fully run by local university students.    

“The students at the university are my secret weapon.” says Olaore. “Being that I’m based in the States, I’ve had no choice but to plan the project in a way that they pretty much run the whole operation.”

Last year, The Home Project joined the fight to eradicate malaria by empowering students, investing in local artisans, and impacting local communities through strategic collaborative partnerships, starting with Olaore’s home village, Ilishan-Remo, where Babcock University is located. This year, he raised over 1 million Naira through private donors to expand the project, and plans to net more houses and provide more public health services with this fully student-run volunteer effort. The project now provides internship opportunities to public health and social work students for academic research & reporting/publishing, and has established a service credit system to improve student’s citizenship grades through their participation.

“Nigeria is our world’s most malaria endemic country, and the mission of StopGo MVT is simple,” says Olaore,  “Step 1: Find those who want to give what they have to the world; step 2: give them a chance to. That’s what we’re doing with the Home Project, on every level and in every aspect possible.”

Olaore plans to continue the project until the 1000+ needing houses in that village are properly covered with nets and rid of mosquitoes, and then, as he puts it, “ find more, and do more!” His goal is to spread the Home Project to universities across Nigeria, and ultimately across the world, thereby eradicating malaria with power of local students. The motto for the project is, “One net, one home, one community at a time.”

Mazi Emeka