Olawale Aganga-Williams: A Young Man’s to Provide Affordable Homes for the Homeless Dream

Having been homeless once in London, Olawale Aganga-Williams, the Managing Director of AGFRO Limited, a UK-based real estate company, understands the needs of the destitute. Through his Olawale Aganga-Williams Foundation, he is taking steps to provide shelter for the needy and less-privileged in society,
Olawale Aganga-Williams: A Young Man’s to Provide Affordable Homes for the Homeless Dream

Having been homeless once in London, Olawale Aganga-Williams, the Managing Director of AGFRO Limited, a UK-based real estate company, understands the needs of the destitute. Through his Olawale Aganga-Williams Foundation, he is taking steps to provide shelter for the needy and less-privileged in society,

sometime in January, Olawale Aganga-Williams and his eponymous foundation stormed the Ojo area of Lagos to give food palliatives to indigents. About 3,000 people, including nursing mothers,  widows and the elderly benefitted from the largesse and expressed gratitude to the young man who is based in the United Kingdom.

That singular charity event marked the beginning of the long term goal of Aganga-Williams, which is to free Nigeria from poverty and make it secure. This desire led him to launch the Olawale Aganga-Williams Foundation, with the core objectives to empower communities through training, skills acquisition for job creation, education and scholarships for underprivileged children and youths.

Also in his pipeline is to provide shelters for the homeless, beginning with Ojo.

To many, this may be a herculean task given the economic hardships bedevilling the country. It is not uncommon to see homeless people occupying every available space in the markets, streets, garages, under the bridges in Lagos at night. According to a United Nations’ report last year, about 1.6 billion people live in substandard housing and 100 million are homeless in Nigeria. Forceful evictions, poverty, and family issues are some of the reasons for homelessness. Lagos, a megacity according to Amnesty International, has more than 30,000 people who have been forcibly evicted from various settlements, and other 300,000 residents are under threat of losing their homes.

As worrying as this trend is, Aganga-Williams who was once homeless and has worked with an NGO that caters to the homeless in the UK is ready to roll up his sleeves.

“As an individual, I have always believed that with the resources every country has, we can do more for our citizens,” he said on a recent Sunday afternoon.

In his view, homelessness is a global issue. In the UK, most homeless children are a product of broken homes, gang wars, or forceful evictions by the council. However, he argued that the situation is far better than in Nigeria.

“For a country like Nigeria where homelessness is still an issue, why don’t we invest more in training programmes that these street kids can actually go to and spend their time learning something or skillset or whatever it is just to better themselves than just being outside getting involved in gangs.”

Aganga-Williams’ passion to help the homeless has a backstory. As a young man who left Nigeria to study, he refused to return home when his parents asked him to. When the funds for upkeep stopped coming, the young man who owns a real-estate company AGFRO Ltd in the UK found himself living on the streets of London.

“I was once homeless and slept in a car. My personal experience of going through that tough stage in my life basically brought out the humanitarian part of who I am today because if you haven’t experienced it before in your life, you will never understand. There is no amount of conversation, you will never be able to feel their pain.”

He continued: “That is why I think we are not targeting our resources to the place of needs. I understand that we can’t solve everyone’s problems. Everyone’s needs cannot be met at the same time. But I’ve also believed in small steps. If we could do one shelter today in one local government, that could house 500 people. That is 500 people taken out of the streets.”

Aganga-Williams strongly believes that through his foundation he can reduce housing deficits. The way he sees it, homes can be affordable for Nigerians if the people are empowered alongside. It is more about the government providing the enabling environment for such to thrive. The most poignant question to ask when addressing affordable homes for the young businessman is if the common man can afford these homes.

“That’s why we need to start empowering our people, not just with food alone but with training programmes and skillset that can help them get better jobs. And the government can start creating programmes that can create more jobs.”

Apart from taking the destitute off the streets, Aganga-Williams plans to integrate them back into society.

“There would be training programmes where skills can be learned and school scholarship programmes for those who want to return to school. That’s why the partners we have are looking to really invest and help us with grants that will support those that are uneducated and want to be educated. So we’re not just looking at one aspect of life. We’re trying to focus on where we can actually help people going through these difficult times in their lives.”

He emphasized that the objective of his foundation is to meet the needs of the people and targets to feed about 100,000 people by the end of the year.

“The main aim is to focus on the needs of the people. Because our problems are vast in this country. So we’ve started with the Food Bank Palliative system. So that basically is a pack of different food such as rice, beans, and a little palliative pack and we have been sharing that in the region, especially Ojo. And also we’re looking to give relief to the elderly just to help them in their daily lives.”

Ojo is dear to Aganga-Williams for many reasons. First, it is the place of his birth even though his parents are from Idumota, Lagos.

“My friends used to joke, ‘can anything good come out of Ojo?’ So I thought to myself that if there is anything that comes out of Ojo, I will be one of them,” he said.

He added that he understood the challenges faced by residents in the area.

“I’m aware of the problems they’re currently facing because I’ve lived through it before I left this country. Those are the problems I grew up with. They have water issues, bad roads, erosion and unemployment too.”

For him, the area has not changed that much since he travelled to the UK for his tertiary studies.

“It’s quite painful to see the current state of Ojo. There would have been steps taken to improve it but it is not visible.”

He disclosed that he recently secured 500 hospital equipment for Ojo. His next intervention is to provide wheelchairs for the elderly and disabled. At the moment, he is investing in data collection to ensure that his resources are going to the people that need them most.

This Day

Total
0
Shares
Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts