Roll Up Your Sleeves and Lead! Hammed

Born a Leader!

Hammed Kayode Alabi

“Leadership isn’t about living for yourself only, its about serving others and serving humanity!” Hammed Kayode Alabi

It is with great honor to have Hammed Co-Host and write about his passion my site. Here is a smidgen of his inspiring and compelling life story!

Hammed is a man who emulates the footsteps of many great leaders of our past: Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, JFK. Hammed embodies these caricatures to Lead!

Those whom bring great change to our world!

Passion ~ Dignity ~ Strength & Limitation ~ Commitment

In Hammed’s words:

At a very tender age, I had the flair of impact and helping other people.

I grew up in the slum where young people live a miserable life.

Why?

Because they lack quality education!

My parents value education, so I was able to attend one of the best schools in the area and further to high school.

After high school, life became miserable.

My dad could not sponsor my education any longer. I did some odd jobs and then I even took a teaching role in a primary school. I did this for a while and later I was adopted by my dad’s Aunty. She and her husband sponsored my university education.

My Journey to real humanitarian work started when I was in 100 level at the university, I noticed that many of my colleagues find it difficult to study, and even some find it hard to comprehend what is being taught in class.

Many needed extra coaching.

Being aware of their problems, I started taking them tutorials and helped them to improve their grade points. I did this throughout my four years at the university.

More so, I joined also Red Cross at the University, where I engaged in several different selfless services.

I trained members on emergency response service, and worked with the emergency department to officiate university sports games, I conduct first aid camping programs. I engaged in the visitation to motherless baby homes, Juveline homes, University hospital and many more. I also coordinate the affairs at the school park and serve as emergency responder. I also took part in several sporting events and university politics. I was a member of the electoral committee and Departmental event organizing committee.

My activities at the University prepared me for leadership in the practical world.

After graduation, I engaged in several rural development reach out.

I constructed a volleyball court to enable young people in the village have access to sporting facilities. I trained over 200 on First Aid to increase the awareness of first aid in the village and reduce accidents in schools. I donated mobile and fixed hand-washers to schools to increase access to clean drinkable water and reduce spread of germs in schools and lots more.

However, in the position of working with young people and connecting with my background, I noticed that young people find it difficult to connect what they do in the classroom with the practical world.

They find it difficult to forge trajectory for their lives and discover purpose. This has led to increase cultism, unemployment rate, poverty rate and low HDI (Human Development Index) in my country and region.

Countries in Africa especially Sub-Saharan Africa are currently ranked low in the poverty and human development index. Over 100 million Nigerians are currently below the poverty line; 89 million of young people are currently out of school in Sub-Saharan Africa (World Bank).

World bank also projected that 40 million of young people will drop out from school in the next decade. According to UNESCO 10.5 million kids are out of school in Nigeria. This prompted me to facilitating several leadership, career and personal development sessions. I also took to my social media handles to share articles that inspires people soul and liberate as many people as possible.

With this, I improved and build capacity that enabled me to establish Kayfactor Leadership and Career Academy (KLCA), a non profit organization. The Academy through career symposia, one on one mentoring and coaching, have engaged over 700 high school students.

Then, 130 youths selected across Sub- Saharan Africa countries are currently enrolled in our one year career and Leadership sessions. My aim is to help this young people have a goal in mind and liberate them so they can create what they want. Make decisions that affect their lives and the lives of others.

The journey so far has been filled with up and downs and as a young social entrepreneur and humanist, it has been very difficult breaking grounds. But my positive attitude towards things has always helped me to come through. I have often leveraged on resources from the environment and I have often worked with volunteers. We organize our talks by partnering with schools and all they need to do is to provide us with their students and we train them free without charge. We also receive donations from team members and we call for volunteers whom love what we do.

And, together we counsel and mentor the students.

We also leverage on WhatsApp for our online career courses and platforms such as Young Africans Leaders Network, to access participant across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Leverage is key to scaling as a startup and minimizing expenses as well as making impacts. So far, we have been able to reach over 700 high school students between the age of 8 – 19 and 130 participants between the ages of 15-35 are currently enrolled in our online course.

Another key thing to scale as an enterprise apart from the will to make impact is to create a Sustainability model that help you go continue with your program. We are currently working on an enterprise that will help to equip high school students and youths with tool kits to excel. These tool kits will be given at a very low and affordable price. This will enable us to meet a need and also make impact. Kindly watch out for it.

Ultimately, my advice for growing entrepreneurs is that we should find a “”why”” for what we do. We could find that by connecting with our environment and personal story.

I growing up in a slum and seeing a lot of people living a meaningful life motivated me to start my non-profit. It’s also very important to use statistics to back up your points. Then, use data to constantly measure impact and performance.

Leverage! Leverage! Leverage!

It’s always great to leverage on resources.

Start small and grow big. Then, never be rushed to hire personnel, monitor volunteers and you will surely notice the loyal ones.

Simon Sinek said: “If you hire people just because they can do a job, they will work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they will work for you with blood, sweat and tears.”