Introducing Abimbola Abiodun: TAP Grant Recipient

Abimbola Abiodun Adebayo is a highly dedicated, resourceful and ambitious lady who is goal-oriented and purposeful. She hails from Efon-Alaaye in Ekiti State, Nigeria. She is of Yoruba ethnicity, predominant in the Southwestern part of Nigeria.

Abimbola began her educational pursuit with the acquisition of her elementary education in Federal Housing Primary School, Ado-Ekiti where she served as the Female Head Prefect in her final year in the school. She attended Federal Government Girls’ College, Efon Alaaye for her secondary education. While in secondary school, she was active in information dissemination as a member of the Press Club. Her meritorious performance led to her appointment as the President of the Press Club.

In 2009, Abimbola proceeded to study Urban and Regional Planning in the Faculty of Environmental Design and Management, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria and was elected the governor of her class for three years. In the course of her academic journey, she also engaged in several extracurricular activities and won various awards for her distinguished performances notably in Environmental activities, Students Activism and Sports.
The quest for knowledge on how to proffer solutions to the menace of waste in developing countries in order to achieve a quality and sustainable environment for healthy living motivated her to take a break from studies for a gap year in a notable Environmental Organization in India.

Abimbola is strongly convinced that a gap year experience will create an ethical and international exposure opportunity for her to explore, learn and understand more on waste management procedures that could be adopted to transform her country and create an aesthetic environment devoid of environmental pollution from waste.

In addition, the gap year will help her to experience the world in a way that stimulates her personal growth through cultural exchange and to become a well-informed global citizen through the awareness of the world outside her home country.

During her gap year, she would extensively explore and understand:

  • The existing Environmental Management efforts in India especially in the aspect of Waste Management in relations to Nigeria
  • The relationship between India culture on Waste Management and the effect of India culture on Environmental Management
  • The Environmental Management plans and policies needed to be put in place to achieve a conducive environment
  • What necessitates the paradigm- shift in Environmental Management and what are the future possibilities among others.

Abimbola will forever be grateful to Omprakash Ethical and Educational Global Engagement (EDGE) and the organizers of Travel Access Project Grant (TAP); Jenn Miller and Sean Keener for providing the necessary mentorship and funding for her to completely learn and understand the realities she seeks to transform through the journey of self-discovery and understanding of context, seeing the world through the eyes of others, be subjected to critical reasoning and generating new techniques of solving the social and environmental problems of human.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a step…

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