The Ornaments of Grace and Virtue (OGAV) Board of Trustees is comprised of leaders in the fields of international and social development, legal and human resources expertise, and seasoned educators.
Our Trustees currently consists of;
Kenny has over 20 years’ experience, spanning all levels, in the education industry. Her experience cuts across both the British and Nigerian curricula at teaching, management and board levels; and in nursery to tertiary schools. She therefore has wide and varied knowledge of working with children and teenagers.
She is a strong advocate of school improvement which she believes can only be achieved through continuous teacher development, research, constant review of the curriculum and restructuring of the learner’s environment.
Kenny obtained a B.Sc. Biochemistry from the University of Ibadan, and holds a Certificate in Entrepreneurial Management from EDS, Pan African University, Lagos. She is a Goldman Sachs Scholar, a Character First implementer and a certified Career Direct consultant. She is a full Member of The Nigerian Institute of Training and Development and has accreditation from the Centre for Management Development as a certified management trainer in Nigeria. She is an ILO Certified Small Business Consultant licensed to run the Start and Improve Your Business, and Expand Your Business programs.
Kenny has been involved in school start-ups and development/turnaround projects. She was a Leadership and Microenterprise Consultant at the Entrepreneurship Development Centre, Lagos and is an in-house consultant to the NECA Network of Entrepreneurial Women. She is the Chief Executive Officer of Sycamore Edge Nig. Ltd.
She is married to Pastor Bayo Omojola and they are blessed with four children.
Non-Executive Director- Access Bank PLC
Mrs. Ogunmefun is a Barrister and Solicitor, who is member of the Law Society of Upper Canada, as well as a member of the Nigerian Bar.
She obtained her LL.B (Honours) from the University Lagos in 1974 and was admitted to the Nigerian Bar in 1975. She was admitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada in 2004.
She has a certificate in Dispute Resolution from York University (Ontario) and has completed the Canadian Securities Course with the Canadian Securities Institute (Mutual Funds Licensing).
She has over three decades of experience in Corporate/Commercial and Banking Law, having begun her career at Chase Merchant Bank Nigeria. Following her admission to the Law Society of Upper Canada, Mrs. Ogunmefun practiced in the areas of Family Law and Immigration Law.
She also has extensive experience as a Board member, having served of on the Board of Credite Bank Nigeria and more recently she served as Board Member of Kinark Child and Family Services (Ontario, Canada), where she was the Chairman of the Governance Committee.
She has attended several courses on Corporate Governance and Risk Management.
CONNECT WITH US
Ornaments of Grace and virtue organization welcome individual membership who is passionate about mentoring girls and impacting them positively. New members must share our believes, objectives, and uphold the values of the organization.
Membership has a nominal fee that ensures your commitment and also goes towards supporting our program.
Individuals are encouraged to send their updated contact information to: contact@ogav.org or fill out the form below and a membership form will be sent out to you.
We look forward to hearing from you. Join us to make a difference.
Mission
To develop independent, responsible, young girls through character building, mentorship, acquisition of knowledge, skills and ethics.
Vision
To nurture and empower girls, using a holistic approach, to become leading young women in the society and in turn impact the community positively.
Our Values
We value each and every girl as a valuable, respectable part of the community that needs to be nurtured and mentored.
“Strive not to be a success but rather to be a value”- Albert Einstein.
Strategic Directions:
Learning beyond the classroom – Co-curricular school-based program and Summer Leadership Camp initiative.
Objectives:
Trained as a nurse, Mrs Aduke Philip received her nursing degree from Lagos University Teaching Hospital in 1977. Upon graduating, she took a position at the University College Hospital as a nurse in the emergency ward. In 1979 at the request of her mother, she made a career change and took a sales position with S.A. Adeyinka Enterprise. Her handwork ethic and “can do” attitude helped propel her through the ranks to the position of CEO. Her stimulating and motivational management skills coupled with her knack for quality customer service and accountability, helped grow the company to the largest Enamelware distributor in South-West Nigeria. Mrs Philip also serves on the board of directors at Identity Matrix Transport and Logistic Ltd. She has held many leadership positions within her community and serves on the board of directors of several charities one of which is Ornaments of Grace and Virtue.
Since her start at S.A. Adeyinka Enterprise, her interactions with business and community leaderships over the years have seen very little growth in the involvement of women in the upper echelons of leadership. Mrs Philip believes these needs to change and this belief has fuelled her commitment and ardent involvement in activities and organizations that foster the empowerment and advancement of women. She is happily married with two children and serves as the financial director.
Alaba is a graduate Nurse with specialty in Medical surgical nursing and nursing education.She attended the prestigious Queen’s School Ibadan , for her secondary school education, graduated from university of Ife, Ile Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University with honours in Bachelors of Nursing Science in 1984. Obtained Master degree in education at University of Lagos.Worked at National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos as clinical Nurse and nurse educator before voluntarily retiring in 2008, after 23years of service.
Alaba is presently the CEO of Citizen Home Care Services, an outfit for providing care for individuals in their home setting, bringing comfort to their door step.
As a nurse, she is very passionate about ensuring quality life for all, especially for the less privileged. Her focus is on the youth and the elderly, therefore, she is always ready to contribute to empowerment of the youth and the elderly.
She is happily married to Sir(Arc) Dipo Ajayi & blessed with children.
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Area of Focus
Learning beyond the classroom Initiative
Working with secondary public school girls in Nigeria.
At OGAV, we have a particular approach on helping girls in public secondary schools through Learning beyond the classroom Initiative.
OGAV promote the advancement of girls’ education with a focus on Girls acquire the broad range of academic, social and emotional skills to equip them for success Girls’ transition from lower secondary school education (JJS) to senior secondary education (SSS) and their completion of full basic education successfully ready for a post-secondary destination Girl’s’ acquisition of knowledge, essential skills, and soft skills (ethics, life skills etc) to help their smooth transition from school to postsecondary destination and lead a fulfilling life averting poverty.
Mentoring Girls in the Community – Toronto, Canada.
A community partnership project with Christian Horizon to meet the needs of the girls within their care such as developing self-esteem, confidence, improve social and communication skills which will empower them.
Career Guidance
Assisting and supporting girls through various services and activities to help choose a career. Students are able to identify their career options by defining their abilities, skills and interests using the self-assessment tools and receive suggestions on occupations matching their profile. Students are encouraged to make a plan, set a goal and take action to manage it. Career guidance helps create an atmosphere of optimism and help empower the girls make an informed career decision.
Skill development
Introduce girls to the nine essential skills so they can recognize the skills that they already have, and make connections for the skills they will need in future. Understand that skills are transferable from one activity to another.
Essentials skills: Reading, Writing, Document use, Numeracy. Oral communication, Working with others, Thinking, Computer Use, and continuous learning.
It is important for the girls to develop these skills because they enhance their ability to deal with change, heightens their self-esteem, confidence and provide stepping stones for personal growth
Academic success
We know that success in school takes more than academic skills. We ( OGAV) are committed to supporting and enhancing the girls learning and to providing the skills they need to become lifelong learners. It takes a combination of skills —academic skills and social skills (ethics) -organization, time management, prioritization, concentration and motivation to achieve academic success. Most children say they want to do well in school, yet many still fail to complete the level of work necessary to succeed academically.
Academic Success is then designed to provide a holistic view of a girl’s ability to succeed in school through four critical factors that most directly influence student success:
Academic Skills: behaviors, beliefs and skills that directly facilitate academic success
Commitment: commitment to, drive toward and perceived importance of academic success
Self-Management: ability to anticipate and respond to pressure and stress related to school life
Social Support: availability of resources to support academic success
Students are introduced to assessment questionnaires – Learning styles and Multiple Intelligence to help them identify how best they learn: visual, auditory, and tactile/kinesthetic and their intelligence empowering the girls to take charge of their learning. Girls will undertake a self assessment of class/ study skills to help them reflect on how to improve their study and learning abilities using their learning styles.
Through collaborative partnerships, we offer services and resources that empower the girls to take responsibility for their own learning and achieve success.
Character Education
Character education is the teaching of children in a manner that would purportedly help them develop variously as moral, civil, good, mannered, well behaved, non-bullying, healthy, critical, successful, traditional, compliant and socially acceptable beings.
Development is a deliberate effort to encourage positive personal attributes, civility and solid ethical and moral actions. Character Development focuses on each individual’s personal management at home, at school and within the community.
A common approach of these programs is to provide a list of principles, pillars, values or virtues, which are learned or around which themed activities are planned.
Life Coaching
Life Coaching is the art of empowering the girls to live a more fulfilling and effective life.
Life coaching takes a more holistic approach. It deals with a whole life situation starting from the present and sets goals for a totally successful future.
Every day we make choices to do or not do many things. These choices may range from profound to trivial and each one has an effect that makes our lives more fulfilling or less fulfilling, more balanced or less balanced, that makes our process of living more effective or less effective. Life coaching helps you learn how to make choices that create an effective, balanced and fulfilling life.
The facilitator helps each girl to identify what she wants in life and suggests strategies and tactics that will take her from ‘where she is now’ to ‘where she wants to be’. This process assists the girl’s personal growth. They are no longer alone but have an ally who will work with them to establish better goals, sustain momentum, overcome setbacks and to steer towards success.
The facilitator and the girls work together to establish goals inspired by the girls dreams, and design a plan to reach them. The girls commit to the plan and are responsible for taking action. The facilitator commits to supporting the girls in overcoming any obstacle that may arise during their journey.
The facilitator/organization creates a safe and loving atmosphere full of acceptance, empathy, and appreciation for the girls. In addition, the role of the facilitator will be one of supporting the girls to take action, overcome the obstacles, learn from them, keep moving forward, cheering them, and celebrate with them their achievements. The facilitator also educates the girls by sharing with her new tools, skills and a way of being effective that will assist her to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life.
In every case, the outcome is that each girl is more focused on their objectives and achieves these faster than if they worked alone.
All of these will generate rewarding insights. They will develop their self-awareness, change any limiting beliefs and create new, productive behavior. All of this will have a happy and fulfilling impact on their life.
OGAV help the girls connect their head and their heart in a way that transforms their passion for their dreams into action for their life.
Leadership development
Leadership is “organizing a group of people to achieve a common goal”
At the most basic level, a leader is someone who leads other. While leadership is learned, the skills and knowledge possessed by the leader can be influenced by his or her attributes or traits, such as beliefs, values, ethics, and character. Knowledge and skills contribute directly to the process of leadership, while the other attributes give the leader certain characteristics that make him or her unique.
The girls will learn how to earnest their beliefs, values, ethics and character in developing leadership skills that they can use to their advantage to become a leader. Also, the knowledge and skills the girls acquired , provides the opportunity to demonstrate using leadership skills to accomplish community projects.
Here are the schools in partnership with OGAV. Working together to reach the girls, meeting our goals and empower their future.
on: August 25, 2016
Teenage girls in public secondary schools in Lagos State Education District I, have benefitted from a four-week summer camp organised by a nongovernmental organization (NGO), Ornaments of Grace and Virtue (OGAV) in collaboration with the district.
The girls were exposed to etiquette training at the Government College, Agege, for the duration.
President of OGAV, Mrs Olubusola Kolade, said the camp, with the theme: “Etiquette,” featured career guidance, safety guidance, character education, life coaching as well as academic and leadership skills development.
She said: “We decided to fill a gap that we have seen in the society and the need for girls to be properly brought up for them to succeed in life. Eighty-five per cent of what is required in life’s journey is the social skills, while personal development and academic knowledge just form about 15 per cent. So, we decided to go to schools, especially public schools, where some of these things are not readily taught and to nurture girls using holistic approach to become proper ladies in society and to impact in the community positively.”
Being a holiday camp, Mrs Kolade said activities were organised to hold on Tuesdays and Fridays at the College.
Tutor-General/Permanent Secretary (TGPS) of the district, Dr Olufolayimika Ayandele, advised the pupils at the opening ceremony, to listen and conduct themselves well during the camp.
“You should always remember that character defines who you are and what you will be in future. This empowerment programme is meant to build your character and academic performance; teach you how to build yourself positively and how you relate to the economy and the society; and also how to overcome negative influences; to make the right decisions and be confident with truth; leadership skills and ethical behaviour,” she said.
Some of the participants described their experience at the summer camp as worthwhile.
Oluwademilade Ogo said: “I was enlightened more on sleeping, walking, eating, sitting and talking etiquette and I was taught how to dress outside school in order for people to respect me.”
on: July 23, 2015.
Teenage school girls in Lagos State Education districts III and IV, have been registered to participate in a girls’ summer camp next month.
The camp, which is hosted by a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Ornaments of Grace and Virtue, (OGAV), in collaboration with the two districts, is meant to nurture and empower girls to be independent and self-confident as they grow.
President of OGAV, Mrs Olubusola Kolade, said the camp, with the theme: “Etiquette,” would feature career guidance, character education, life coaching as well as academic and leadership skills development.
She said her girls were expected to develop virtues of self-control, fairness, care, good citizenship, self-motivation, punctuality, reliability, creativity, respect, trustworthiness, responsibility and creativity in the month-long camp.
Being a day-camp, Mrs Kolade said activities would begin from Tuesday, August 4 and end on Thursday, August 27 at the Lagos State Education District III office, Falomo, Ikoyi.
She expressed confidence in the success of the camp based on the testimonies at the organisation’s first anniversary celebrated with Gbaja Senior Secondary School, Surulere, last month.
“My girls were so happy by the end of the training, which we started in their school last year.The programme is highly essential for young girls, because it is a mentorship club. My facilitators are well-trained in relating with the girls so everything they need would be provided,” she said.
on: September 24, 2015
Some female students in SS2 and SS3 in Education District III have learnt to do things with decorum, thanks to the four-week Girls’ Summer Camp organised by a non-governmental organisation, Ornaments of Grace and Virtue (OGAV).
The ceremony, which held at St Gregory’s Hall, Education District III Headquarters, Ikoyi, Lagos State had participants taught etiquette and leadership development skills.
Some of the participants, who spoke to The Nation on the last day of the event, described the programme as a ‘life changer’ and related some of the new things they learnt or have improved upon.
“Now I know how to address my elders, respect myself and my peers, dress properly, speak, walk and act properly as a lady,” said Hamdalat Akingbade, an SS 2 pupil of Wahab Folawiyo Senior School, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Adama Mohammed, another SS3 pupil of Girls Grammar School, Ikoyi, who demonstrated how to set a table for a three-course meal, said: “I have learnt a lot about etiquette. We have been working on practical ways of doing everything and it has started helping me already because there are some things that I have corrected about myself, especially in my behaviour. I can boldly advice my peers to behave like proper ladies and to not over react on issues.”
For Omotolani Daniel, an SS2 pupil of Wahab Folawiyo Senior High School, Ikoyi, who demonstrated how to walk like a lady said: “I have learned a lot about makeup and other crafts as well as moral characters. I discovered how to be bold. I would gather people and teach them what I have learnt and I would also try to generate income for myself. Whenever we are asked to come for programmes like this, we should all try to attend because they are always helpful and we all must learn a trade to be independent.”
The event was replete with colour as participants displayed what they had been taught during the month-long programme in practicals.
Oluwadamilola Adekoya from Wahab Folawiyo Senior School, Ikoyi, showed guests how to tie head gear. Others simply talked about their desired identities and displayed art works showing their personalities.
Secretary of OGAV, Mrs Kehinde Omojola said she had an exciting experience facilitating the camp.
“It has been very exciting facilitating these children. We all had fun. While teaching, we had to use them as models. Hearing some of them speak, I was very impressed. I know Lagos State is doing so much to make our schools better. The children have been punctual, obedient and ready to learn. They just want to soak in everything. We have made fun of ourselves, we shared mistakes which they learnt from and it has been nice,” she said.
Omojola said the camp’s objective was to fill the gap of moral decadence and social etiquette in the society.
She said: “We decided to fill a gap that we have seen in the society. There is the need for them to be properly brought up, because for them to succeed in life, 85 per cent of what is required is the social skills, while personal development and academic knowledge just forms about 15 per cent. So, we decided to go to schools, especially public schools, where some of these things are not readily taught.”
Director of Schools Administration of the district, Dr Raji Mudasiru, praised the recent focus of the society on morals, and leadership education outside the classroom. She called for extension of such projects to other parts of the state.
District Counsellor, Mrs Aderonke Odunsi-Titus and Mrs Kehinde Beckley, who anchored the event were optimistic that participants would shine in future.
– Providing a safe place – camp for girls to learn through structured opportunities for enriching experiences.
– Providing a safe environment for the girls and laud them away from roaming the streets and exposing themselves to danger and unsafe activities
– Improving learning that leads to academic success, helps them become lifelong learner as an adult and foster better social life for disadvantage girls
– Providing access to healthy foods
– Providing opportunity to bridge the gap for our least advantaged children, and to what their better off peers have.
Student’s Testimonial
o I have learnt how to behave in public and how to be confident as a lady- Ibrahim Rahmat
o I have learnt character virtues that will make one excellent and acceptable in the society- Adoke Rebecca
o The teaching on etiquette and how to dress has really changed me that I no longer dress anyhow because I learnt that how you dress is how you will be addressed.- Eze Grace
o This program has taught me how to be responsible and to be well organized has a lady which accords you more respect even from the opposite sex – Adeniyi Aishat
o I gained a lot from the topic posture; how to sit, stand and walk has a girl. – Adebiyi Suliat
