Emmanuel Osemota Foundation Inc.

It is a privilege to apply for the Elevate Prize because it allows us the opportunity to increase funding for our Foundation's AGHORE REWARDS: Empowering Women and Girls to achieve sustainable development.

If we win, the victory will lead to an expansion of our vocational training programs and workshops which will enable more local women and girls to learn a trade and gain lifelong skills that uplift them with self-worth.

The Elevate Prize will also support our fight against human trafficking in the local community, Benin City-Edo State, notorious for an influx of prostitution in Nigeria and internationally recognized as a sex trafficking hub. The grant will help us promote educational awareness, advocacy, and rehabilitation through our human trafficking programs in the area.

Such funding will cause an increase in our sanitary pad distribution, exercise resources for underprivileged girls, and resistance against female absenteeism in schools. This impact would transform the current culture of the community and promote school attendance, completed education, and improved menstrual hygiene for young women. Ultimately, these girls will have an abundant supply of educational tools like books, pencils, and backpacks in addition to their feminine necessities.

Emmanuel Osemota, a man with a dream to change the world. While growing up in a needy Nigerian community, he experienced first-hand the difficulties of living in a third-world country. With his challenging encounters, he developed compassion and a willingness to give back to his local community and founded Emmanuel Osemota Foundation Inc (EOF). 

EOF's primary division is the AGHORE REWARDS, where the focus is on the empowerment of women and girls.

Our positive vision consists of a world in which all people can achieve a life free from disease and poverty. Our purpose is to support our local communities to be self-sustainable through education and high-quality healthcare. 

We draw on the resources of our supporters and the life experiences of the disadvantaged locals to help those in need achieve self-sustainability. Our team will help these Nigerian communities overcome the challenges they face, regardless of the opposition. 

Our five-year future goals for the AGHORE REWARDS are to ensure all local schools in endangered communities are educated on human trafficking, build a 10-bed safe house facility dedicated exclusively to sex-trafficking survivors, and ensure the most vulnerable to be trafficked (approx 100,000) in Edo State, Nigeria are rendered trafficked-proof by 2026.

We are working towards a permanent end to human trafficking in Nigeria. 

Human trafficking is an illegal trade of people for ill-treatment. It is a $150 billion global industry, with two-thirds ($99 billion) generated from commercial sexual exploitation.

In Nigeria, the average age of trafficked children is 15 and according to UNESCO, it is the third most common crime in Nigeria. Benin City-Edo State is globally known for exponential sex trafficking activity. Astoundingly, 94% of all Nigerian women trafficked to Europe for prostitution hail from our local community; Edo State (UNDOC, 2016).

The root cause of this problem is the lack of education and empowerment for women and girls. Our mission is to make a positive impact in our local community of Edo by promoting the protection and prosperity of local women and girls with vocational training, advocacy, and awareness.

We host symposiums and outreaches for local schools, including community roadshows in areas where local community girls are susceptible to human trafficking. We do not only advocate against human trafficking by writing government officials but provide paid vocational training for female human trafficking survivors and local women and girls to stand for their wellbeing and rehabilitation. 

Our work is innovative because of our empirical approach to locating and solving the problem of human trafficking. We have researched and identified the root cause of the problem while empowering and advocating for human trafficking victims. We intentionally focus our efforts on the grassroots movement of targeting the at-risk populations (young girls) of this crisis. 

We are directing our mission toward this demographic since our research study shows predators target young girls because of their ignorance of the perils associated with human trafficking. 

Educating girls is also disruptive to the sex trafficking system, especially in the patriarchal local community where girls are typically known to be subservient without boldness. Because of this reality, we dedicate our energy toward hosting public conferences within the local schools and community.

Our approach is innovative because we do not provide simple handouts but empower the community. We prevent at-risk women and girls from being trafficked and assist those who have already been trafficked to leave captivity and rebuild their lives with our vocational skills training and provision of free medical services and housing.

Our Foundation's AGHORE REWARDS: Empowering Women and Girls operates to achieve sustainable development and positively impact humanity by preventing sex-trafficking, liberating trapped women and girls, and providing a new path forward for imperiled females. 

We provide alternative paths to livelihood, awareness of the dangers and risks of human trafficking, and core resources needed to reduce the risk of exposure.

Our programming has two arms: Education and Empowerment. We are helping unprotected women and girls from being trafficked and assisting those who have already been trafficked to leave confinement and restore their lives.

A Day for the Girl Child is our education enterprise that utilizes our grassroots movement to educate endangered local communities through public engagements at local schools and roadshows for those who are not attending school. 

The Entrepreneurship Project is our social enterprise, which employs a practical approach model by empowering survivors with free funds for vocational training, and interest-free microloans for start-ups. 

Our work reclaims the concepts of community, family, and trust among survivors. From there, we create the lateral bonds that facilitate a supportive economic network of women on their transformative journey from victim to survivor for human trafficking advocacy.