Rebecca Ejifoma
Shirley Olumuyiwa is a young graduate and philanthropist at heart. She, alongside her fellow National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) members, in partnership with TM Bookstores, revamped the library of a public secondary school, Festac Grammar School, Lagos.
The project included giving the library a facelift from its poor state, computers, and stacking it with 400 books ranging from sciences and arts to commercials, among other academic materials.
Olumuyiwa said, “I shared the project idea with my colleagues and TM Store.” She wanted to help these children, reawaken the culture of reading in them, and champion good academic performance among students from homes with slender means. I hope to achieve a turnaround in the children’s academic performance.”
The president and founder of TM Bookstores, Tolulope Adebayo, said that his organisation has a reading group that could have as many as five study groups yearly.
“We read books on giving in 2011. Afterwards, we all decided to give something to society. To put up a library in a secondary school aligned with our organisation. Shirley felt the plight of the students in this school who wished to read but had no books.
Adebayo described the library as a nursery where these students can go and dream.
“We wanted to give them a library that can bring some sanity to their behaviour,” he stressed. “That is why we have given them books to help them conceive those dreams. This is a nursery for them. The goal is that in choosing their career, they can know what they want to become because their minds have been open.”
