Mrs Charity Babatunde is a woman of many parts. She runs different businesses, including a non-governmental organisation, which is focused on paying the medical bills of indigent patients in hospitals across Nigeria.
Mrs Babatunde is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources, with a Diploma in Insurance, BSC in Business Administration, and a Masters in Business Administration.
In this interview, she spoke about how she has been able to move from one career to another, her motivation in life, and determination to do more.
Please tell us about your NGO, Kindness Initiative and other businesses that you do
I run an NGO called Rave Kindness Initiative. Under the Rave Kindness Initiative, we have the Kindness Initiative, which is focused on paying the medical bills of indigent patients in hospitals across Nigeria. I also like to describe myself as somebody who helps people across three different sectors. One is the NGO space. The other one is the event space. I run an event access management company, totally different from event management. What we do there is that we help people manage access at the event. Nigeria is a very funny place. You want to have an event, a wedding, and you expect that 200 guests would show up, but every one of the 200 people bring in their daughter, son, uncle, etc. At the end of the day, your party is chaotic. What we do is that we come and help you solve the problem starting right from the beginning of your invitation. We design invitations to the event. We use technology heavily to create QR code that is personalised for each person. So what we do is that, when you get your invitation, once we check you in on behalf of the celebrant, you cannot send that invitation to another person. So it is only the people that the client wants to come that would come. It’s called E-Access Hub, an event management company.
I also do Human Resources Consulting, which is really my background. I had worked at the bank for 20 years plus. I left banking in 2003 when I was tired, and went into entrepreneurship, did different things, came back again to the corporate sector, did a bit of consulting. It was in the consulting space that my journey with Kindness Initiative actually started because the project that I had been engaged to work on was a hospital, a government hospital in Edo State. The consulting firm had just won the mandate to manage and operationalise a hospital. So it was a PPP where the hospital is 100 per cent owned by the government, but 100 per cent privately managed. My role was actually just supposed to be human resources- help them recruit, set up the human resources structure for the hospital and let it run efficiently. It was supposed to be for six months. Six months turned to five years because, from there, the consulting firm that I was working with must have liked what I was doing. So I got invited to become an Associate Partner in the firm, and eventually became the Managing Partner of the Consulting Firm. When I started in the hospital, we had zero staff, so I recruited the first 35 staff to the hospital. By the time I was leaving in 2023 we had over 500 staff.
We started doing multiple medical interventions such as IVF. We did brain surgery, neurosurgery from what started as outpatient services.
When I go to hospitals, usually I don’t see the doctor, just to visit somebody that is sick. But I was now in the position of an operator, where we had to make sure that the hospital was running sustainably.
By the time we started admitting, I knew when the first patient walked in. I knew when we had our first delivery in the hospital. It was on one of such occasions that I was informed that a couple had brought their son to the hospital. The boy had the sickle cell disease. He was SS and about seven years old. Unfortunately, he died. When he died, they had an outstanding medical bill of N14, 000 to pay. The couple didn’t have the money. They had spent money, I’m sure, on taking care of him and everything. So they came and told me that they couldn’t pay the bill and they couldn’t release the corpse to them until they paid the bill.
I said I would pay the N14,000, and I told them to release the corpse to them. Of course, they were very grateful. It then occurred to me that I’m the kind of person who believes, that wherever I’m working, it is not for salary. That doesn’t mean they don’t pay me, but salary is not the reason why I work in a place. There must be a purpose that I have been brought to a place to fulfil, and I’m very good in fulfilling purpose. It’s very important that wherever I find myself, beyond the pay cheque that I’m getting, I must be impacting lives in whatever way. I just found out that my greatest fulfilment comes from being able to make a difference. My greatest fulfilment comes from giving people who didn’t think that they would have a chance and can’t reach out. It comes from giving counsel to people that they are able to use and it can help them become better people.
So, it was only natural that I work in a hospital. But if I continue bringing out money from my pocket, I will be bankrupt. So I decided to reach out to my family – my daughter, sister, husband, friends – and told them that we need to help other people. I told them that I needed their help to give me whatever they can, N1,000, N2,000, N5,000, whatever they want to give to help me to pay medical bills for the people that can’t, and they agreed to help. The first month, I was able to gather more than N300,000.
You would find people who would show up at the gate of the hospital when they know that their wife is about to give birth. They would drop them at the gate and run. The hospital would be forced to carry them. By the time she gives birth, they can’t pay the bill. It becomes a problem. You find people who are shouting that they gave them a bill of N2000. They are shouting because they can’t afford the bill. You hear pathetic stories. I can’t be in that environment and can’t do something. It is not possible.
One of the things we do not do in the Kind Initiative which is focused on payment of medical bills of the indigent patients is that, we do not give any individual money. The money goes directly to the hospital. Of course there are many things calling for our attention in Nigeria- School fees, food, etc. So I want to make sure that it is used for what it is meant for. Beyond also helping the patients, we are also helping hospitals to remain sustainable by covering that gap.
Gradually, we started reaching out to other hospitals, to their social welfare departments to send us lists of patients that need help. So we pick the ones that we can do. What we do is to make sure that every money we collect for a month, we finish it that month. We don’t roll over. When I felt that this was the area that God would have me to help, I told God that I don’t want anything that will give me problem. I don’t want to be begging people for money. Any money that we get, that is what we are going to use.
As at March this year, we have worked with 45 hospitals across 22 states in Nigeria. Psychiatric hospital in Calabar, Cross River State has given us an award. Harvey Street in Lagos has given us award too. Government hospitals such as Akure, Ondo, Niger, Kano and very few private hospitals too have given us awards. We have about 850 people benefit from the Kindness Initiative since August 2020 when we started. Formally, up until March 2025, we have raised N42.08m from 48 people that donated. Some have donated multiple times, some just once. I also don’t want to stress anybody. You don’t have to commit to give money. Initially, I didn’t want people in the hospital to know I was the one behind it. But gradually, accounts, nurses would have to know.
Kindness Initiative has been a very credible cause. In August 2025, we will actually be five years. We are trusting God that by August, we would have significantly increased. There is a few adjustments here and there to see how we can create greater impact. We supported Edo State health insurance scheme at a time. We also did something with an organisation called CASAVA. They also do insurance for vulnerable people. We are hoping that once we have state governments with proper structure, we can partner with them.
What took you to the bank?
I think at the time I graduated, banking was probably the in-thing, but the interesting thing is that my career actually started in a government establishment – Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC). I was one of the pioneer staff. I am a very inquisitive, curious, innovative kind of human being. I can’t work in government. I was in bank examination section then and so we were coming from where we went to examine the books of different banks. Fortunately for me, I had served in a bank, and the bank had reached out for an interview. I got the job. Interestingly, I stayed in only one bank unlike the number of people that jump from one bank to the other. For me it was convenient. It was a good learning process.
How was it working with the bank?
It was interesting, maybe because I was coming from NDIC. Automatically, the first department I was put in was Internal Audit. I spent five years in the Audit and was moved to International Operations. I rose to the Acting Head of International Operations. Then I was moved to Human Resources as the Acting Head. Just before I left, I was moved to Electronic Banking. It was actually quite interesting. I spent 13 years in the same bank and grew. To be honest, I remember when I put in my resignation letter, the Chairman of the bank said to me that people were looking for work and I said I wanted to go and do business. But I was tired. My two children then were growing and banking work then was tedious. I honestly felt that when you work for somebody there is a level to which you can grow. And I am a very curious person. There were things that I wanted to do to express myself, but I am also very committed, so I can’t be doing side hustle and working with another person. Something would suffer. So I resigned honourably, and I am glad that I did.
At that time, event management was a new thing in Nigeria. This was in 2013. There were not many people doing it. While working in the bank I had been involved in different committees when they were planning end of the year parties. So I knew I had the skills for it. So I started my event planning business called Precious Moment. I ran it for many years, but I have gradually hands off. At that time it wasn’t an all comers affair, but now, everyone is an event planner. I thank God we did some great events, high profile events. We did enough of corporate and social events. But when I saw that it wasn’t tasking my brain enough, I decided to do my professional exams and start my HR and probably do some consulting. I started my consulting fame called RAVE et al. Rave is an acronym for Relationship, Attitude, Value and Empowerment. My focus was on re-enforcing values with people. I had an interest in the young people, and I was looking at the values and value system, and I knew that the parents were not getting it. The way parents were raising their children, if we were not careful, we would run into trouble. So I tried to work in schools to talk to children about values. Internet was just coming up and I realised that many parents don’t have a clue. They were confused and afraid of the internet. Children were stumbling on pornography and going to places where they shouldn’t go to. So I started talking about values in the digital world. That is one of the things that brought me to limelight a lot because people started calling me to speak in schools, churches, conferences. Going round the schools, I found out that because there was a major generational gap between the parents and the children, the parents didn’t know how to handle it. So their children who are digital natives would get online and just be blocking them and be doing different things. In the cause of going round and talking to children, I realised that there were many things they were not talking to their parents about, and there were many things that their parents were totally clueless about. So again, I started what is called, “What we wish our parents knew”. When I go to these schools where I am talking, I would tell them to write two things they wish they could tell their parents, and why they haven’t told them. I had thousands of responses. Some after writing it they ask me if they could speak to me. You would see things like, “Wish my parents knew that I smoke weed. I can’t tell them because they would drive me out.” “I wish my parents knew that I am addicted to sex. I can’t tell them because they would drive me away”.
So I opened a YouTube page where I address all their questions.
What motivates you to move from one thing to the other?
Life, for me, evolves. You find yourself in different positions at different traces of life. So I am not a conventional ‘I started as a banker and die as a banker’ person. I look at the environment and whatever the need is at the time, I plug it and God has been helping me. For me, impact is important. In the cause of doing that, I came across an organisation in Singapore called the DQ Institute. DQ stands for Digital Quotient. They were looking for ambassadors in different countries. I applied and became the first DQ Ambassador in Africa. Our work was to promote the values that were required to help the children to stay safe in the digital world. I did that for a couple of years and COVID-19 hits. With the advent of COVID-19, we couldn’t go round the schools to talk, so I thought that I still have Rave et al as a platform, values I want to amplify. Kindness is a value. That’s how Kindness Initiative started.
E-Accèss Hub started when my daughter wanted to wed. I experimented with that and that of my father in-law’s death and they came out perfectly. Since 2022 to date, we have up to 200,000 invitations. It is a very innovative planner.
Most of the clients are event planners. Because I was a planner, I understand the environment. The event planners speak to the clients to do digital invitation. We design the QR code for each guest if you want us to design the invitation, and each guest would have her own. We can help send out the invitation to the WhatsApp of each invited guest. Because it is about technology, we have managed events in UK, US, Canada without being there.
What are the key lessons you have learnt in life?
No experience is ever wasted. The foundation of my IT skills is what I learnt while I was in the bank. I also have learnt the skill of diligence and attention to details while working with NDIC. My curiosity has taught me how to search the internet to confirm whether a name they have given us is correct or not.
By the grace of God, we have done a lot of high profile events so most of the people are public figures.