The slums are a beautiful place to live in.
Not so beautiful when you look at the living conditions, yes, but you find the beauty in community; how the people love each other, how no one is a stranger and how kids play football on the streets, for example.
Growing up in this community gave us as kids a chance to be creative. I remember back then, me and my friends would go to the dumpsite behind my house, we called it àbète (a place where street boys meet and convene).
We’d search for cartons around the dumpsite and make different things, like cars, to play with. The slum brings out the creativity in you.
When I look back, that was the first time I realized that every child is intuitive and can be great if they are given the opportunity.
If all the kids in the slums today are given a chance at education, imagine the solutions they would be able to create!
My name is Hammed Kayode Alabi, and I have lived my life dedicated to serving the people in my environment, helping to provide them a chance at a better life and changing their circumstances through education, and community development.
As one of my friends will say, I have never seen anyone serve humanity in vain.
That statement remains ever true even as I get older and continue in my service to humanity.
I believe that change happens when one empowered individual is inspired to empower other people.
The people, like you and I, who will change the continent of Africa are the people that live in it, and it will happen through our own resources.
This story is about how my life’s circumstances have led me to care about my community and why that matters.
I have never seen anyone serve humanity in vain
How I started to care about my community
I was born and raised in Makoko, a rural community in Lagos state, a slum.
Though I lived in that community, I was privileged to have parents that were doing well enough to send me to a Montessori school, just outside Makoko.
It was the best my father could afford. I would leave for school every morning, and after school, I am back to playing with my friends, going to àbète, and doing all the things that slum kids do.
When I turned 7, my life began to change. Up until this time, I just enjoyed living life and being a child.
First, I lost my mother and then when I got into secondary school, my dad lost his job the same time his business crashed. He had to hawk CDs on the street to ensure I stayed in school, and we ended up moving from Makoko to another slum area in Bariga.
The night we moved to Bariga, I could tell from my father’s silence; everything has changed, we can’t afford anything again. And even when he finally uttered the words, I said to him, I understand.
I never needed to hawk on the streets while I was in Makoko, but after settling in Bariga, I took to hawking spaghetti and sweets after school just to support the family. Hawking made me start to care about my community. I saw it as an opportunity to learn more about my environment.
Affording three square meals had become a luxury for my family, but I saw people who did not have access to food and children who did not have access to schools.
I knew I didn’t want to be like the people I saw, I didn’t want to end up on the streets but I never stopped caring.
When I was 14, I attended a program organized for vulnerable children in my community, where I learned about self-esteem and leadership.
Learning that self-esteem is the way you see yourself and the world, and the way you handle yourself and handle the world, changed my perspective about myself and about the world.
I began to teach basic education to children in this rural community. I was only 15 years-old and had just completed secondary school education myself.
Education was important to me because it allowed me to see the problems in my community, and what I could do about it.
Education saved me.
I would go on to later create an initiative called the Kayode Alabi Leadership and Career Initiative to help solve some of the challenges I identified, and help people change the circumstances they have inherited.
My time in the University was also one where I was interested in helping other students do well academically by taking tutorials as much as I could, and also getting them to take education seriously.
I also was involved with the Red Cross and active in electoral committees for faculty elections.
It has always been about me looking for ways to serve people and serve my immediate community.
During my youth service, I found myself posted to a village in Edo State. During that time, I saw the challenges the community was facing, and I tasked myself with doing something to help.
I was able to complete 6 community development projects which included constructing a volleyball court for the community, introducing debate, drama and chess clubs for the community, completing a risk assessment for the community of over 100 people, providing mobile hand washers for 6 schools and running a career guidance program for students in the school I worked at.
It became clear to me that I was going to do community development work for the rest of my life.
Everything that has happened in my life up till this point and beyond tells this story.
self-esteem is the way you see yourself and the world, and the way you handle yourself and handle the world
Why all of these matters
When I began to see a career in the social change and development space, I knew I needed to gain more knowledge about the work and why it all matters.
Working in the development and space gives you access to opportunities: for professional and career development.
I knew this was what I wanted to spend my life doing, and as such, I wanted to get the training and exposure required.
I applied for everything I saw that related to this kind of work; my rejection was rather extreme.
At this time in 2017, I had moved back to Lagos after graduation and I was working in a palm kernel factory that paid twenty thousand naira a month.
I was a graduate, doing this kind of job, for a pay which in hindsight is meager, just for survival.
While still surviving, one of the opportunities I applied for, came through.
It was the African Youth SDGs summit in Ghana.
I was offered a partial scholarship, but with my savings from working at the palm kernel factory, it still wasn’t going to be enough to cover what was left to be paid. My dad’s aunt who has always been supportive came to my rescue.
I paid the fees for the summit, but how was I even going to get there? The fees only covered my hotel and for breakfast and lunch, no dinner, and no transportation.
I was lucky that Nigeria to Ghana was possible by road (there was no money to fly). At that time, I saw no obstacles and was so interested in the experience in Ghana.
I could afford to transport myself to Ghana and that was what mattered. I forgot that I had no money to transport myself back home.
I got to Ghana at night, and I had to sleep hungry because there was no provision for dinner. The next morning, I got two slices of bread and a sausage for breakfast. I was too weak from being hungry to complain as much as I would have loved to, so I ate it, and headed for the summit.
I was physically hungry, but I was also hungry for the adventure ahead.
At the event, I was answering questions, attending every side event I could access, building relationships with individuals from different countries, and saying to my hungry self, “you are already here, you have nothing to lose”.
During this summit, I networked with someone who would later connect me to another opportunity to attend a fully funded summit in South Africa to learn about Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
This event led me to engage the office of the senate president of Nigeria and the National assembly, advocating for development.
After the euphoria of the summit in Ghana, where I was again selected as an SDG youth champion because one person saw the potential I exhibited during the event and spoke for me behind closed doors, had tailed off, the reality hit me that I had no money to go back home.
I needed to go back home the next day, I could not remain in another man’s land with no money or shelter.
I started calling everyone I knew in Nigeria, hoping someone would help. Someone eventually did, my aunt, again; she sent me some money, and so I booked a bus with my phone in the hotel and was relieved that I was going home.
I got to the park the next morning and I just missed the bus.
The next available bus was for the next day and I was out of money. I had to leave here today, I thought.
The only thing available was a bus that was meant to go to Lagos empty. The only choice was to be smuggled in the bus with other people.
What this meant was that at every border we got to, the bus which was already smuggling shoes to Lagos, would have to stop and we would trek distances to cross each border; The Ghana-Togo border, and the Owode border in Badagry.
This was happening at 1am and all that was going through my mind was “what if someone throws me into the water?”.
Anyways, I got home safely, and shared the details and pictures of the event on social media.
The congratulations came in their numbers but nobody knew this part of the story.
In 2018, I was back at the Africa SDG Youth Summit in Ghana, but this time as a speaker and panelist, speaking to over one thousand, three hundred delegates from different countries.
And yes, I didn’t forget to tell them this story.
My experiences have helped see the problems in whatever community I am in and what I can do about it.
I started a non-profit which was based on my story; an initiative called Kayode Alabi Leadership and Career Initiative to help the communities acquire the skills and education to give them opportunities to change the circumstances that they have inherited.
We run a bootcamp where children come together, propose solutions to the problems that they have identified in their own communities, bring mentors to inspire them, and when they are having problems with their education, we provide scholarship opportunities for them to get into school.
I started the nonprofit to tell a story; education changed things for me, and there is probably another Hammed in a slum somewhere who needs to hear this story and be given a chance.
I know what having a scholarship means to me. I was only able to afford University education through a school scholarship for being the best student in my set and, with help from my dad’s aunt and her husband.
I know what having access to education did for me, how it changed my circumstances.
Someday in the future, I look forward to seeing those children share their own story about how “because somebody trusted me, I am here today, and I am also doing the same for another person.”
That is my philosophy, if I empower one person, they will go ahead to empower another person. This is why all of these matters.
I recently helped raise 1.1 million naira for a young person to travel to school in India and I did that in 72hours.
It’s that consciousness of my “why”; why I do what I do; to help one person change the circumstances they have inherited, that keeps me going.
If I empower one person, they will go ahead to empower another person. This is why all of these matters.
What can we all do to make our community better today?
My story is part of the larger African and Nigerian story. The people I owe all of these to, are the people who trusted me along this journey, who said “I believe in you and in your capacity”.
These are the people that helped me cross, from slum boy to global champion, we also should be vessels for other people too, to help them change their circumstances.
The continent of Africa will be changed by the people who live in it, and it can only happen through our own resources and empowering our people with the right education and mindset to create this change.
We all owe it to ourselves and to humanity.
One of the lessons I have learnt on this journey is that life is an infinite game.
There are no winners or losers in an infinite game, an infinite game doesn’t end. You only need the will and the resources to keep playing.
Think of Nelson Mandela, think of Martin Luther King, and all the greats, they all played in this infinite game, and lived for something bigger than themselves.
The game doesn’t end, we only get better at playing it.
My mentor Segun Fatudimu once said:
“In a world where people are used to receiving, a giver will always stand out”.
It is good to give, but when you give with the intention that you want the people you give to remain the same so that you can continue to give them, then you’re not giving.
You need to give with the intention that they can change their circumstance and then they can then become givers themselves, they can empower their communities.
It is the same with leadership, you need to lead with the intention that your followers too will become leaders themselves.
In a world where people are used to receiving, a giver will always stand out
