Summary
Tawakalit Kareem is a communications professional and advocate for Gender Equality who founded The Butterfly Project – a ‘Not-for-Profit” initiative which provides free digital skills training to young women, free sanitary pads to girls and direct funding to about 200 families with women breadwinners across underserved communities in Nigeria.
When the Lagos State Government announced a two weeks lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic in the state, she wanted to do something for vulnerable people who were going to be the hardest hit.
She launched a fundraising campaign via WhatsApp and Instagram and raised sufficient funds to assist 194 families.
Tips and lessons learned
In Tawakalit's own words:
"This project has made me realise that there are still good people who want to give financially to support others, but they do not know whom to trust. I am inspired by how receptive people have been towards this initiative, many of them are strangers that I may never get to interact with if not for this project.
Also, partnering with a friend helped to improve the scope of this project and I am so proud about how we went about supporting people together at this dire time. We leveraged on our individual strengths and networks to be able to serve others."
Review by Wilde Ganzen Foundation
This innovative campaign was designed to encourage support from one individual/family to another, but in a modern way, by promoting the idea through WhatsApp and Instagram. 'If you can spare 5000 naira, it can make a world of difference to a family that has no income because of corona' proved to be a very powerful message.
Another good idea was to involve a friend in the campaign, with her own contacts and networks. That largely contributed to the success of this fundraising activity.
Details
Short description of the organisation the funds were raised for
The Butterfly Project is a ‘Not-for-Profit” initiative which provides free digital skills training to young women, free sanitary pads to girls and direct funding to about 200 families with women breadwinners across underserved communities in Nigeria.
The founder, Tawakalit Kareem, works in communications across non-governmental organisations which focus on women and gender-based violence. Her works on gender equality and peace, particularly in the African context, have been published on reputable platforms in Nigeria and Ghana.
Her work with The Butterfly Project has been featured by the United Nations Children’s Fund’s “Voices of Youth”, The Nigerian Youth Sustainable Development Goals Network, and the Nigerian Tribune.
Short description of the project or programme the funds were raised for
The project is a standalone project created as a response to the lockdown owing to the situation of coronavirus in Nigeria.
Summary of fundraising action
Tawakalit tells us:
"Before the Lagos State Government announced the two weeks lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic in the state, I knew I had to do something for vulnerable people who will be the hardest hit. I felt an urgency to be a part of the solution.
On the 24th of March, I launched a campaign on Instagram and WhatsApp tagged; “1for1with5k”. The aim of the campaign is to encourage individuals who could afford five thousand naira (14 USD) to an individual/family who couldn’t. The idea was to create a thread of goodness. Soon after, some of my friends who don’t live in Nigeria asked if they could send money to support the initiative. After sharing to people who I knew were in need, there was still funds left and even more coming in. So, I reached out to a friend via Twitter DM who was doing something alike to collaborate and expand the initiative reach."
Objectives
The aim of the campaign was to assist vulnerable families that, due to the lockdown, did not have an income.
Targeted donors
Followers on WhatsApp and Instagram
Results
| Cost/benefit |
National currency (Naira |
Euro |
| Total amount raised |
1,500,000 |
3,500 |
| (-) Total amount invested |
0 |
0 |
| Net amount raised |
1,500,000 |
3,500 |
Result comments
In 10 days, we raised 1 million naira (2,778 USD) for 144 families. It was very important to us that the funds raised go into the hands of people who were most in need of it. We focused on four impoverished communities in Makoko – Ori oke, Oko agbon waterside, Adogbo, Apollo; Mushin, and another community called Oke-Ira.
One of the beneficiaries is a single mother with five children who works as a cleaner in a local primary school with a monthly salary of five thousand naira (14 USD). Another is a woman with a three-year-old child, her husband has no job because of the economic crisis and her mom and her sister live with them. One other beneficiary is a roadside seller with a business capital of two thousand naira (6 USD). Every one of the 144 families has stories of lack and the lockdown would have made living unbearable for them.
But it did not end there. In the weeks that followed Tawakalit and her friend received another 500.000 naira, which mainly went to 50 families living with HIV/AIDS.
