We Use Simulation to Teach Children Leadership and Communication – Akin Olu-Philips

Education they say is the best legacy, invest in it and you won’t regret you did as it open doors of opportunities. This belief is what defines the prime mover of Peat Philips Foundation, Mr Akin Olu-Philips who is investing his time, money and knowledge in making sure Nigeria and Africa as a whole are at the same pace with other developed countries through Scripps Spelling Bee. The young but intelligently industrious communicators is the brain behind Nigeria Spelling Bee Competition, a competition that educates, train and galvanize the children between the age of 8 to 13 in becoming a leader and a good communicator while representing the country at the global level. In this interview with ISAAC OGUNTOYE, the young and humble humanitarian turned philanthropist spoke on why he established Peat Philips Foundation and his dream to train children on leadership and Communication.

Tell us a little bit about how Spelling Bee started?

Spelling Bee Competition started in Nigeria in 2014. We were in partnership with Young Educators Foundation, a Ghanaian based NGO that holds the African franchise for Scripps Spelling Bee. The Scripps Spelling Bee is the national Spelling competition in America. They host the Annual Scripps Spelling Bee. Young Educators approached me for a partnership to host the annual Bee competition in Nigeria and we hosted the maiden edition in the State of Osun with the support of Sheri Care Foundation, the pet project of the First Lady of Osun State Her Excellency, Alhaja Sherifat Aregbesola. It was a beautiful co-incidence because I’m equally from Osun state in line with the adage that says, Charity must begin at home. The first edition had a young girl, Zainab Olawale from Middle School Oshogbo as our first Champion. She was 11years old and she had the privilege of traveling to the United State of America as our maiden winner and that signal the beginning of the Scripps Spelling Bee journey in Nigeria. We are preparing for our sixth edition this year 2019.

This year edition, what is going to be the difference?

In the first four years, our winners attend the Scripps National Spelling Bee Finals in Washington DC as non-competing guests because Ghana is the only country in Africa with the rights to compete at the annual US finals. As Nigeria organizers it was a thing of concern for us because many individuals and organization were asking questions why Nigeria was not participating, but in our several approaches to the issue the organisers of the Scripps National Spelling Bee competition in the US made us understand that it is meant to be a national competition for Americans and with over 11 countries already allowed to compete at the National Finals it is almost loosing it national essence, so they cannot allow more core countries to participate. However, plans are in progress to evolve an international Spelling Bee competition, which will afford more countries an opportunity of competing. So, Nigeria winners only come to watch the US Finals and later go on a tour of the country and afterwards return home. But the 2018 champion due to our inability to get an emergency interview date at the American Embassy the way we normally get it every year couldn’t make the Scripps final in May, but in line with our planned new direction we applied for a summer camp for her and the feedback was good. Hence, in line with our new vision and direction for the Foundation our Champions will be attending a summer camp in the US as the Grand Prize of winning the Nigerian competition. Summer camping is a prominent phenomenon in America, which is also gradually taking root in Nigeria. It is a time where students take part in extra curricula activities that supports school curriculum in building and strengthening their education.
And we felt it is time to start getting them from the younger age. So, the Spelling Bee is dedicated to children between the age of 8 and 13. We felt we should catch them young, train them on the skills of communication and leadership and in the next 15 to 20years Nigeria and by extension Africa will be better for it. We strongly believe that education cannot be limited to only what is taught in the classroom; co-curricular activities must be included in the curriculum.

Why do you change from Young Educator Foundation to Peat Philips Foundation?

We operated as Young Educators Foundation, a registered NGO in Nigeria in partnership with our Ghanaian friends until last year due to non-alignment of vision and ideas but we decided to rebrand and refocus by setting up Peat Philips Foundation. The vision is clear our focus is “Leadership and Communication”. The Young Educator Foundation focus was actually to promote literacy and encourage reading culture in our children but Peat Philips Foundation is taking it a step further by teaching developmental values that is enshrined in quality leadership and articulate communication skills, our observation is that aside reading and being literate, there is a dearth of men and women with leadership and communication skills in our continent especially our nation.
Nigerians children actually read but what do we do with all our acquired knowledge when our values are all turned upside down. You will be amazed at the level of knowledge that the typical young Nigerians possess due to reading and exposure but what we want to do at Peat Philips Foundation is to galvanize this knowledge into valuable citizenry. We need to let them understand that your knowledge can be used in bettering our society regardless of the field you find yourself. Leadership and Communication for us is not just about politics, leadership can be found in all spheres of life. When you have the leadership potential and you understand the concept behind leadership and you also have good communication skills, regardless of where you find yourself, you can help evolve a better society.

What are the major challenges for the past six years?

The major challenge has been funding. Funding in the sense that, corporate Nigeria has not come to terms with the fact that, if we actually want to change our society where you put your money into is very important. We put a lot of money into entertainment. Don’t get me wrong, entertainment is very good, and for the wellbeing of the people we need to be entertained. We need to laugh, we need to rejoice and we need to have fun but the bedrock of our society also needed to be fed, which is the education sector. Now, what we have done is to support the brands also because we understand what they are thinking and where they are coming from. It’s unfair on them to spend so much money sponsoring an educational program that very few people get to be impacted. So, to be able to marry the two we’re evolving our programmes into a TV Show and we have spice it up with fun and entertainment. It is more like a mini Big Brother Africa because we usually accommodate the national finalist in a camp, called the Bee Academy. The Bee Academy is where we camp them for weeks and all the educative activities carried out using entertaining modules in the house are recorded and it’s going to be use for the TV Shows for the 2019 edition. Basically, our major challenges have been funding, and we also have to go back, think through on how to help ourselves by making sure that we are more attractive to brands support. Since brands are putting their money into entertainment, let us infuse entertainment into the Bee because the Bee can be a bit boring because it is education.

Like you said, having brand support has been the major challenge, but in the last edition, you have Indomie as one of the sponsor, and they are known to be major sponsor of educational program, what is the relationship?

In fairness to Indomie, last year they were our lifesaver. DUFIL Foods has been extremely good and kind to the Spelling Bee programme, they actually save us and this year, there is an ongoing talk with them. We are almost at the last stage of discussions. They’ve accepted us fully that The Spelling Bee Nigeria is an Indomie project, so, what we are discussing now is the value. We’ve made our budget for the year and we have presented it to them. It’s quite huge because covering the whole nation is not something that is small. And at the same time, taking the winner on an international tour is equally big. In the next few days, we are going to sit again to make our final decision. The plan is for Indomie to become the title sponsor, consequently we are going to rebrand and be called Indomie Spelling Bee.

You’re passionate about children education, and the present government is also advocating for quality education, why didn’t you approach them for sponsorship?

Basically, we’re been careful about who we approach for sponsorship. We would eventually get government involvement but we want to make sure that we have built our brand to a point where nobody can interfere with it because if we rely on government for our sustenance. I’m not saying that they will come to disrupt it but we need to be careful about it. Another thing is that, we want to make sure that we have been fully established as a brand with our distinct DNA, so, if government wants to come in, they can come in to endorse us. We would partner with them to build the education sector.

With all your plans for the 2019 edition, what impact is this going to have on the winner?

This year winner will have the opportunity to attend a summer class on leadership and communications, and the summer class is going to be very intense.

Aside the fact that our camping is always intense because the children get to learn so many things, if you watch the TV series this year, you will understand what I’m saying. We are in partnership with Metamor46, a leading experiential learning company that uses simulation to teach leadership and communications. We use simulation pattern to teach them communications. Spellers also learned the importance of team work, patience and persistence from fun activities, in all our classroom, we use experiential training process to communicate and teach them certain values. It is the same thing they are going to get in the USA during the summer camp. The child is going to be exposed to standards in communication and leadership such that it stays with the child for the rest of his or her life. And this year there is an interesting package we’re having. We’re involving public schools this year. Our registration is a token of Five Thousand Naira (#5000) only.

Before now, the winner have been going to the United State of America and United Kingdom, what about this year edition?

The winner of the spelling bee this year will be going to the USA for the Summer Camp in August. Our champion will attend the one week summer camp and afterwards will be a guest of some notable organizations like the World Bank, United Nations, New York Stock Exchange, Nigeria Embassy in Washington DC. My dream is to be able to afford all the top 3 winners an international travel exposure but that will be depend largely on funding. Our principle at PPF is everyone is a winner as long as you are good enough to make it to the national finals, we always emphasize to participants that their focus should be on the values that they will get from the academy whilst the winning prize is just an icing on the cake. So, in order to squash the winner takes all mentality, we always ensure everyone that makes it to the national final takes something home. In 2016 aside the champion’s trip to the US, we were able to take the 2ndplace winner on a tour of Oxford University Press in UK and it was a very good trip for the girl and her mother. We are hoping to extend it to the 2nd place winner again this year if the funds permit us. The world is about the winner takes it all but I don’t want this to be the case of these children. For instance, I would like the third winner to make a visit to any African countries if we have enough funds.