My passion has shifted to infusing technology in fashion- Oge Ayodele 

Adding value to people has been one major thing I have always loved to do, says creative director, Oges Fashion, Ayodele Samuel Oge.

 He started Oges Fashion as an undergraduate at Obafemi Awolowo University(OAU), where he studied management and accounting.

  He uses African fabric to revamp, make bags, shoes, and hard cover notebooks.

For Oge, he fell in love with fashion at the early stage when Ankara bags was popular in Nigeria, but he could not afford this training but his dream rekindled when his friend whose parent could sponsor his training learnt the craft and decided to teach him in a day.

  Oge started buying materials and practice the craft. By the time he resumed back to 200 level, he started making bags for his classmates and colleagues, and at the end of every semester, he organised training for students on how to make bags, accessories and general craft.

  “This made him popular as a student who owns a fabric brand.

He added other things like Adire and he also sell them as a ready to wear, he started making tops for department, church choirs, and group of friends. It became a household name in the whole university as he organise trainings and exhibitions to sell my products, and add those of my students. He did all this till I graduated.”

  Before his National Youth Service Corps(NYSC), he started a Movement Project for the Young, an NGO part of his brand where he gave back to the society, majorly training young people on different skills, fashion designing, Adire making and others.

  He went Damico and other schools in Ife, Osun State.

   He was posted to Jos, Plateau State for his one year NYSC. He didn’t stop his empowerment programme, and he was able to organise different trainings for churches, NGOs and along the line trained over 3,000 Corps members while he was serving.

Oge joined the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development(SAED), a mandatory programme introduced in 2012 NYSC. He was nominated for state award and was given funding to start his fashion brand by Bank of Industry(BOI) in conjunction with NYSC.

  Oge returned to Ibadan, Oyo State and became one of the major SAED facilitators for the state, going to Iseyin camp to train NYSC members.

He created a group where he did not only train young people but also

 give back to the society, through Back to School project.

  He said: “I have been able to train over 10,000 young Nigerians to learn a skill. My passion has grown beyond just fashion but to infuse technology in fashion so as to stay relevant and important.

  Project for the Young is aim to not just train young Nigerians but to become a global brand that empowers other African countries to eradicate poverty and educate young people according to SDG.

  “He is looking for people, organisations and like-minded individuals who believe in this vision and would love to be part of the journey. We need more partnerships, funding and support to reach more young people and give them the opportunity to learn a skill and build something with it.

If you believe that empowering one young person can change a family, and empowering many can change a society, he would love to connect with you. Let’s partner, support and build something that can reach more young people together.”