Boatnaija Foundation has explained that its charity work in the Makoko community is in line with its commitment to impacting rural communities.
This was coming on the heel of its recent project carried out in partnership with Harvesters Empower Foundation whereby 150 life jackets and 5 Paddle Boats were given out to the riverine community.
Boatnaija Foundation was launched on May 1, 2022, three years after the duo of Chiazor Daniel and Onuorah Alex founded the company Boatnaija LTD a boat rental and luxury service company in Lagos with over 100,000 customers.
“Boatnaija Foundation was launched to make an impact on the lives of rural communities because a lot of projects and foundations do not focus on rural communities. So, our Foundation was launched to reach the unreached, help the unhelped and just to save the lives of women and children while Educating young people,” Chiazor Daniel explained in a recent interview with journalists.
Continuing, he affirmed that the impact Boatnaija is trying to achieve is to educate the children and community at large about the importance of safety on the waterways. “You have to be safe every time. We have heard cases of people getting drowned and 90 per cent of the time, it’s because their life jacket was not on,” he stated.
Speaking on the foundation’s Solution School project in Makoko, he said: “On the day we visited the Makoko community, Solution School was the only school open at the time. Although Solution isn’t the only school in the Makoko community, we want to start with Solution School first so that after we touched one, we will go on to other schools.”
According to him, the Boatnaija foundations will still be going back to Makoko to do a lot of charity, but it will have to be “one school at a time.”
Providing more facts on Boatnaija Foundation’s partnership with Harvesters Foundation, he disclosed: “Pastor Bolaji Idowu (the founder) saw a post on my WhatsApp and he reached out to me to say “I like what you are doing.” He further asked about the persons involved and when I told him it was just my team, he said “I think it is something we would like to be part of because it rhymes with our vision as a Foundation.” he asked us to send him more information and the partnership was subsequently sealed and they gave us almost 80 per cent of the funding for the project.”
Aside from giving lifejackets and enlightening the pupils about safety, Boatnaija Foundation, he further avowed, has plans to go back to Makoko and provide scholarships to indigent pupils.
“We intend to also help in paying their fees as well as the teachers because that’s one of the trying demands that the students cannot afford to pay fees and they have to ask themselves to make sure they help out,” he disclosed.
Speaking generally on the Boatnaija Foundation, he pointed out that it is an arm of the Boatnaija company that gives back to society.
“The first humanitarian project we did was feeding the children in the Muslim communities on the day of our launch which happens to be Sallah day. We fed over 200 people on the streets in Lekki
Also, we are calling for partners and volunteers to help us reach our goal of touching lives not just in Lagos but all over Nigeria,” he said.
According to him, the foundation will soon embark on a ‘Clean Lagos Water Ways’ campaign.
“We intend to go clean every dirty waterway in Lagos and we are looking forward to having people join us to keep the Lagos waters clean,” he affirmed.