ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2019
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. In the three months the application was open in 2019, over 7,000 young leaders applied to join the Class of 2019 on 1,209 campuses across 135 nations. 69 campuses worldwide (just 6%) were selected to host the 805 Millennium Fellows.
During the Millennium Fellowship, Millennium Fellows' dedicated 96,705 hours and their 422 unique projects positively impacted the lives of 564,366 people worldwide.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT JOAN OLUWASUBOMI OYELADE, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2019.
University of Ibadan | Ibadan, Nigeria | Advancing SDG 6 & UNAI 9
" From where I stand, I see surrounding me a mosaic of colour, science and creativity, all coming together to paint an amazing picture of nature’s priceless beauty. This is the picture of Earth, and I am excited to be a Millennium Fellow because it is both a privilege and opportunity to be a protector of such treasure. Being a Millennium Fellow creates the perfect platform for me in pursuing the Sustainable Development goals and ensuring that, even after I am gone, the beauty I see now can be seen by everyone. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: LET'S RECYCLE
My project which is named LET'S RECYCLE is a call to the need for recycling in Nigeria and a move to see that recycling is established in my country starting from our local communities. The aim of the project is to enlighten people on the need to recycle, and not only recycle but reduce their waste production. It is a structure that hopes to instill a sense of responsibility in citizens even as they are exposed to the Sustainable Development Goals. It focuses basically on children of the primary and secondary school ages who are still trying to find their feet in this world. Hoping to build a generation of protectors.
As a way of promoting recycling the project involves the use of art, whereby house hold materials like cereal boxes, shoe boxes, old clothes and basically anything is collected and put together again with a deep sense of creativity to make art works and tools that can be used all over at homes, offices and schools. This way these tools like pencil cases, greetings cards do not need to be made afresh again. The trees cut for paper are reduced as we are reusing the ones we've already gotten, and the amount of waste produced will also be reduced. It is also to be an avenue for people to come out of poverty by selling these materials to the general public.
The project hopes to build creative, architectural and problem solving skills in children as they come to a place where they see themselves trying to make something out of what one will call nothing. Bringing gold from dung. And as they are also taught the SDGs they can channel these skills into solving world and community problems. The project is to start off as a club in schools where over the week they collect materials and gather together to make these useful materials occasionally.
As this goes on, the children will also be encouraged to be part of the move to promote recycling in Nigeria. I and my team will try to get support from the government and private organizations that recycle waste and see that waste separation starts from the homes and source of waste production. The children go home to encourage their parents to separate household waste and take them for recycling.
We hope to bring the local communities to that point where every home has a bin for separate materials and our government sees the need to establish polices and build factories that recycle in Nigeria.
About the Millennium Fellow
Joan OYELADE is a pioneer student of the department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a young girl who from an early age has developed a deep love for the Earth. This has driven her to pursue a B.EHS degree in the Faculty of Public Health, College of Medicine. She sees herself as a caregiver of both the environment and it’s inhabitants, and plans to further study in areas that will equip her to do this. She particularly seeks to help build a clean environment and culture among people, promote proper waste disposal, and imbibe the culture of recycling and reuse as this will help protect aquatic life.
