A youth empowerment foundation, YTOP Global, has donated items worth over ₦1 million to the Modakeke School of Special Needs in Osun State.
The official handover of the items which included beds, learning materials, food items,and cash took place on Saturday at the school in Modakeke.
Speaking at the event, YTOP Global Adviser, Professor Bukola Oyebanji, expressed satisfaction at being part of the initiative and noted that the support would improve the comfort, learning experience, and overall wellbeing of the pupils.
She stated that the intervention would also ease the burden on teachers, who often spend personal resources to support the children.
She explained that the school still had several needs, including a functional generator, agricultural inputs such as seeds, herbicides, animal feed, fingerlings for its fish pond, and vocational equipment.
She encouraged members of the public and organisations to support the school by donating needed items rather than cash, noting that the school had already outlined specific materials it required.
Addressing journalists, the Founder of YTOP Global, Oluwadamilare Ekundayo, said the donation was part of the foundation’s annual project titled Contribution to Children with Special Needs. He explained that the foundation first visited the school to assess its needs before providing support.
According to him, the foundation donated beds, learning aids, digital tools including laptops for pupils with learning impairments, educational and intellectual games, sound-learning tools, food Items and vocational equipment such as barbing tools.
He added that the foundation also supported the school’s soap-making initiative with ₦100,000 in seed funding to help sustain its entrepreneurship programme and generate income for the school.
Ekundayo stated that the total value of the items donated exceeded ₦1 million. He appealed to other organisations, institutions, and corporate bodies to support children with special needs, stressing that empowering such children would help secure their future and enable them to contribute meaningfully to society.
He said, “My message to other organisations and foundations is that we should look at these children. They are created by God. They have a destiny; they have a future. And if all of us can come together and remember them in whatever we are doing, I think it will play a more significant role. Because if we empower a child, we empower a generation. And each of them will make a significant difference or make significant progress in their lives. Because when they become great, they will remember someone who encouraged them. So I encourage every organisation, institution and body to remember children with special needs, involve them, and provide them with support in every capacity that we can.”
Also speaking, a teacher at the school, Edoro Timothy Stephen, who facilitated the donation, expressed appreciation to YTOP Global for the intervention, describing it as timely and impactful.
He said the donation, especially the mattresses, had addressed a major challenge faced by the pupils, who previously lacked comfortable sleeping facilities.
He further noted that the school still needed laptops and projectors for teaching hearing-impaired pupils, explaining that such devices were essential for displaying sign language and running specialised software and dictionaries used in instruction.