ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2021
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. In 2021, over 25,000 young leaders on 2,000+ campuses across 153 nations applied to join the Class of 2021. 136 campuses worldwide (just 6%) were selected to host the 2,000+ Millennium Fellows. The Class of 2021 is bold, innovative, and inclusive.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT OPEOLUWA OLAWALE OLANIPEKUN, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2021.
Ladoke Akintola University of Technology | Ogbomosho, Nigeria | Advancing SDG 3 & UNAI 1
" Continuous learning and working continuously is the bedrock of improvement and perfection.
I'm excited to be in a place where I'll have a room to learn, work together with other world Changers in my domain. It is an opportunity for me to have a platform to promote my social impact work. I'll get to know and do more about UNAI and SDGs goals. It is the best thing that can happen to me now. I'm excited. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Sex Education for Adolescents
Adolescents in many cultures in Nigeria do not have access to information on sexual matters due to the cultural belief and the taboo attached to it. To promote knowledge of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), the Sex Education to Adolescents (SEA) project was designed to educate and empower secondary school students with age-appropriate information. This project will support young people and give them empowerment by improving their analytical, communication and other life skills for health and well-being about sexuality, human rights, values, healthy and respectful relationships, cultural and social norms, gender equality, non-discrimination, sexual behaviour, violence and gender-based violence, consent, sexual abuse and harmful practices. The use of innovative methods to put the message across, such as comics, infographics have been found effective and will be used. Five (5) schools will be involved, with a hundred (100) participants in each secondary school.
According to UNICEF 2017, 44% of young girls are married before their 18th birthday and 18% are married before the age of 15. Furthermore, Nigeria has the largest number of child brides in the world. Also, Nigeria has the highest absolute number of cases of Female Genital Mutilation in the world with 65% prevalence in the southwestern part of the country. Hence, the project aims at reducing the rate of occurrence of early child marriage, teenage pregnancy and female genital mutilation in southwestern Nigeria by creating awareness, educating members of the community, empowering females in the community and involving the male folks in the campaign. It aims at reaching out to adolescents, both males and females, their parents and significant others, and educating them on the effects of early child marriage on the mother, child and society at large, importance of female education and empowerment, consequences of female genital mutilation, reproductive rights and advocating for the girl child. Involving males in the campaign is due to the essential roles they play in decision making and their impacts on the increasing menace.
About the Millennium Fellow
Opeoluwa Olawale Olanipekun is a Young Nigerian with promising future. He was born in Sagamu Ogun state, where he had his primary education before he was later moved to Isara Remo with his parents to further complete his primary education. He had his secondary education at Saapade Grammar School, Remo North Ogun State Nigeria. He later proceeded to Ladoke Akintola University of Technology — Ogbomoso, where he's currently studying Agricultural Economics.
As an aspiring young citizen of the world, he had attended various trainings, e.g, Standard Organization of Nigeria — Conference on Agro-allied Matters 2018, volunteered for various international development events, such as World Speech day, 2018, International Youth Day 2020, etc. He had also been part of change makers across the Continent of Africa through YALI. Opeoluwa became passionate about his contribution to the world,by taking to heart the then MDGs, he has since then become hopeful to seeing the day he'll be fully opportuned to carry out these goals.
As a young entrepreneur, Opeoluwa is currently running with SDGs 1 (No Poverty), SDGs 2 (Zero Hunger), SDGs 4 (Quality Education) and SDGs 8 ( Decent Work and Economic Growth). In his quest to fully sync into these global need, he's currently studying Agricultural Science as a means to achieve SDGs2, He's an advocate for good education to at least the College grades. He also studied Human Resource Management and Project Management respectively. He Hopes to do more through is acceptance into this fellowship.
