Seyi Oluyole of Lagos, Nigeria, has experienced scarcity. She has experienced the loss of her home, lack of stability, hunger, and the pain of having to give up on her education. But she also knows about abundance: the abundance of a powerful dream. In 2014, after studying in America and armed with useful knowledge, she founded the first free arts academy with a formal curriculum in all of Africa, the Dream Catchers Academy, in order to transform the lives of young girls.
Childhood Beginnings
Ms. Oluyole is the youngest of five siblings born in Lagos, to parents who sacrificed everything to put their children through school. Until about 8 years old, Ms. Oluyole remembers that her family owned a two-bedroom flat and had enough food, and the children attended school. However, amid high inflation and unemployment in Nigeria in 2001, all of this changed. When her parents sold their home in order to have enough money to pay for her siblings’ college fees, the whole family was abruptly thrust into homelessness and poverty. Ms. Oluyole couldn’t attend school regularly. Nevertheless, she was always very aware of the importance of education. “No matter where my family was,” she said, “my mother would always tell me, ‘You’re going to carry your book and read it.’”Eventually, when she was 13, her family moved to a slum. There, Ms. Oluyole met children her own age who had known nothing but poverty and who never attended school. “When I saw children who were not reading, I was very surprised.” She became fueled by a desire to help educate children living in the slums, and the early idea for Dream Catchers Academy began to take shape.While living in the slums, she was approached by her church to teach some kids how to dance. “I realized that I could actually use dancing to encourage them to go to school,” she said. She started getting local kids to perform and earn tuition money.
Through the instability, her parents still saved whatever money they could to send her to school. Ms. Oluyole eventually graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in English literature.
Academy Comes to Life
Following this achievement, she decided to relocate to Nebraska in the United States, where two of her older brothers already lived, to continue her studies. She applied for and received a scholarship to study for a master’s degree in human services at Bellevue University. She left Nigeria and moved to Nebraska at age 21. Unfortunately, two years later, the funding for her scholarship ended abruptly when the person championing it died. Her brothers struggled to cobble together enough money to pay for her courses.It became clear that she would not be able to complete her master’s. In 2014, she told her brothers that her heart was in Nigeria, and she would take what she had learned in America and use it in her home country. She went home with a plan: she would teach talented girls how to dance, provide them with academic education as well, and teach them transferable skills for their future. She would name it Dream Catchers Academy.
Challenges
She got a job as a writer for a Nigerian TV show and used her salary to pay for the children in her dance program to go to school. “At this time, I opened an Instagram account,” she said, “and my idea was that we could be invited to do a music video, get paid, and the money could go back into their education.” But the gigs did not come in. It became difficult to provide for children.At one point, they had to ration food. One Sunday in March 2018, the kids did not have enough to eat. “I really wanted to distract them,” she said. “I took the kids to a bus yard very close to our community and we danced. I didn’t take many videos. I thought that because they were hungry, they didn’t dance very well,” she recalled. Even though she didn’t like the videos much, she decided to post one onto Instagram.
Breakthrough
By the end of the week, that video started making the rounds online. “I was confused; it was not a good video!” Ms. Oluyole said. Various Nigerian blogs posted about it, with comments like, “This is how I want to be happy.” The following Saturday, she received a notification that supermodel Naomi Campbell had posted the video onto her Instagram. Later that evening, “my friend called me and said, ‘[pop star] Rihanna posted your video!’ I picked up my phone and I actually saw this video on Rihanna’s page. It was so surreal.” Rihanna’s post alone drew more than 2.6 million likes.Things started moving after that. Donations poured in, increasing by 50 percent. In 2020, supported by donations, Ms. Oluyole decided to build an actual school facility for the children, offering education in dance, music, visual arts, tie dye, and regular subjects like math and English. Girls at the school range in age from 6 to 15. “My parents were never able to send me to a school where I could develop my talent. So I was going to build an arts school,” she said. Today, there are 50 girls enrolled at the school. Some of the students have gone on to college.
The road hasn’t been easy, though Ms. Oluyole keeps thinking of ideas to raise money. Funding is not always stable, but she is optimistic: “If you believe strongly that you are meant to be doing something, just go for it. Go for it and trust the process. You just have to keep working hard and be consistent, and great things will happen.”
