CIVREE’s Founder Partners with Funmike Empowerment Foundation to Fund Dreams, Not Just Degrees

It started with a conversation a question that wouldn’t let go of him.

Toluwanimi Adegbite, founder of a small but growing tech school in Ibadan, had always believed in the power of education. He’d seen firsthand how access or the lack of it could shape a life. But belief alone wasn’t enough anymore. He wanted to do something real. Something that mattered.

So when the opportunity came to partner with the Funmike Empowerment Foundation, a nonprofit working to send students to school through full university sponsorships, Toluwanimi said yes.

Not for applause. Not for headlines. But because he remembered what it felt like to have someone believe in you before you became anything.

Through his quiet yet powerful partnership with the foundation, two undergraduate students who once stood on the edge of uncertainty were pulled into the light of possibility. Their entire academic journey from year one to graduation is now fully funded, giving them not just a chance at a degree, but a future filled with hope.

“I don’t need to know their names to believe in their potential,” Toluwanimi said. “I just know that if we don’t start investing in them now, we risk losing too many bright minds to circumstances they didn’t choose.”

What makes his act remarkable isn’t the number of students it’s the intention behind it. It’s the message: that change doesn’t always have to be loud to be powerful.

The Funmike Empowerment Foundation, led by Oluwafunmike Esther Salami, has long believed in this same philosophy that small acts of faith and partnership can multiply into something far greater. For them, this partnership is one more step toward their bold vision of sponsoring 1,000 scholars by 2030 under SDG 4: Quality Education.

“Toluwanimi’s support isn’t just a donation it’s a declaration,” Salami said. “It declares that every child matters. That opportunity should not be reserved for the privileged. And that real leaders give, not because they have to but because they can.”

For the two students, the sponsorship is more than financial aid. It is a turning point. A door opened. A promise fulfilled. They may not fully understand yet the weight of what has been done for them, but one day they will.

And when they do, they’ll remember a man named Toluwanimi a tech founder with a heart for people who decided that their dreams were worth betting on.