How Niniola Williams beat other contestants to win digital skills award

By Vivian Onyebukwa

Niniola Williams, managing director of Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh Health Trust (DRASA), beat other contestants from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia to win the GEDA 2022 Cohort 4 Digital Skills Fellow Pitch competition.

Niniola emerged top out of the five finalists who pitched their ventures from a pool of 30 fellows shortlisted.

The winner was announced during the graduation of the fellows at an event in Lagos, organised by Donors for Africa, in partnership with Meta.

GEDA digital is a six-month intensive professional leadership development programme that offers a unique opportunity to learn how to transform the community by acquiring new skills, increasing brand visibility and accessing funds. It provides solutions to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by increasing the human capacity of leaders who desire to understand how to play in the development sector, and want to dive deep into how to build a thriving sustainable social impact organisation.

Speaking at the event, Chidi Koldsweat, founder/executive director of Donors For Africa, expressed joy at the completion of the programme, which had her organisation with the full funding of Meta train 80 fellows drawn from Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.

According to Chidi, the fellows were trained in digital skills in addition to core topics impacting their sustainability over three months, and were also connected to mentors to also continue to support their work.

“Today, we are extremely proud of our fellows. It’s been an intense journey filled with exceedingly difficult sessions, many of them sacrificing and investing their time and efforts to attend sessions and participate in the programme fully. From the pool of 80, 30 fellows were outstanding in their delivery and from this pool five finalists have emerged and pitched their ventures,” Chidi said.

On how the recipients of the grants are going to be monitored to ensure proper use, she explained that the fellows are expected to send in monthly reports so that the organisation can continue to monitor and evaluate their growth, and can get intervention when needed: “Occasionally, they are also brought together to listen to talks on how they can improve the quality of work.”

The winner, Niniola, received the prize money of N700,000, while other winners, De-Rabacon Plastics, owned by Yolo Bakumor Smith; Onyinye Omenugha, founder/team lead, Lawsanaid; Sarah Ugbana, founder Azar Initiative; and Ernestina Muulikaa, founder, and Tina Reports on YouTube, based in Ghana, also received some money.

In her testimonial, Esther Owusu-Buabeng of You Matter Impact Organisation, Ghana, said that agenda has been a strengthening and capacity-building programme for her.

She said: “All sessions were enlightening. Perspectives shared during programme by fellows from other countries were inspiring. Non-profit sector leaders can only gain more reach and make more impact, if they go through an insightful boot camp like this.

“It was a holistic experience for me. The periodic spot-checking through the survey from and highlighting of the impact and value of the programme on social media was apt. Operational excellence will be achieved as well as building a sustainable organisation because of this boot camp. The use of an all-inclusive approach to design and delivery, including engagement and support interventions, is highly commendable. In all, knowledge was impacted, and transformation took place. GEDA Cohort 4 participants are enabled to change the narrative and help the Africa that we want.”

Founder of C-Section Mum Initiative, Oluwajerimi Adele, said she learnt a lot, especially how to run adverts in the social media: “That particular section was very interesting. Also, having the right structure to go farther than you can go is another thing I learned. The programme has been impactful.”

For Stephanie Emebo, a legal practitioner and the operational lead and restorative justice facilitator at Restorative Justice for Africa Initiative (REJA), the session on personal branding was quite facinating.

“Structure, passion alone is not enough”, she said.

Also speaking at the event, Ireayomide Oladunjoye, head of startups (Lagos Innovates) at Lagos Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), who is a trained engineer and spoke on the theme “Repositioned for real impact,” tasked the fellows on the need for continuous practice of all that they learned during the training.

Donors for Africa Foundation, a non-profit organisation, works actively with social impact leaders, private sector companies and government. According to Chidi, the founder, since the launch of the organisation in 2018, it has served over 3,000 non-profits in 24 African countries, supporting them to raise over $30 million in funding.

“These funds have been used to launch local community projects that directly address sustainable development goals and while we are excited to witness this progress, we are aware of the huge leadership gap that exists with new partnerships like Meta, and we hope to do more,” she said.