Uncle Sele and Izehi Anuge launch exciting month-long celebration
Lagos — Two of our leading supporters in Nigeria have launched an ambitious month-long programme of events for World Values Day on 16 October, building on years of grassroots work that has established Nigeria as a beacon for values-based learning in Africa as showcased in previous World Values Days.
Uncle Sele, head of the Uncle Sele Foundation, and Izehi Anuge, founder of Shape A Child, have shared their jointly-developed plans for October that include everything from a slum-based academic competition to intergenerational cafés and public values walks in Lagos and Enugu. The initiatives reflect a maturing approach to values education that combines immediate community impact with sustainable institutional change.
Combating learning poverty in Makoko
The centrepiece of Uncle Sele Foundation’s programme is the Slum Brains Competition, now in its second year. Launched in 2024 to combat learning poverty — the inability of children under ten to read or write properly — the competition takes place in Makoko, Lagos’s largest slum. The initiative addresses a troubling reality: whilst schools in disadvantaged areas frequently receive donations from individuals and non-governmental organisations, there remains little accountability for whether these resources translate into genuine educational outcomes.
“We want to ensure that schools in Makoko are driving quality education and the value of learning,” Uncle Sele explained. “This is to ensure that children are being properly educated.” The competition represents a shift from mere resource provision to active verification that disadvantaged children are receiving instruction that meets acceptable standards.
The foundation’s work in Makoko exemplifies its practical approach to values education. Having observed children crammed into inadequate learning spaces, the organisation commissioned a complete school building and distributed desks, whiteboards and library materials. Teachers have been trained in values-based pedagogy, and school fees paid for vulnerable pupils. Yet Uncle Sele insists that physical infrastructure alone cannot address learning poverty without corresponding emphasis on educational quality and character formation.
His Values Schools Tour, which has become a signature initiative, will once again take interactive activities and competitions directly into Lagos classrooms throughout October. The month-long campaign transforms World Values Day from a single observance into an extended celebration reaching thousands of Nigerian schoolchildren. The foundation has also developed the “Parenting or Life Transfers” programme, recognising that values education must extend beyond school gates to be genuinely transformative.
The S.H.A.P.E. framework
Meanwhile, Shape A Child has pioneered what Anuge terms the S.H.A.P.E. framework — a five-layered approach designed to cultivate resilient, value-driven individuals prepared for complexity. The layers address Self Mastery, Harmony with others, Actions in terms of deeds and choices, Purposeful Citizenship relating to nation and world, and Ethical and Environmental Consciousness as leadership.
“Each layer is intentional. Each layer is transformational,” Anuge said, articulating a methodology that has attracted attention from government bodies including the National Orientation Agency, which is now incorporating values-based curricula into national frameworks.
The framework includes many engaging resources and activities including the Blow a Balloon activity, a powerful exercise that involved children thinking about the one value that they would really like to see in the world and then writing those values on balloons and sharing the balloons with the world. That exercise, which proved a highlight at this year’s International Children’s Day Conference, will be replicated across multiple venues during October’s WVD celebrations.
The SHAPE framework is being introduced to between 50 and 100 teachers over the next 2 months ahead of WVD.
Bridging the generations
This October will see the debut of Walk for Values, a public procession through Lagos and Enugu where participants move from one community to another, singing and chanting whilst advocating for respect, kindness, honesty and responsibility. The walks aim to engage children and community members through melodies, creative expressions and conversations promoting positive character development.
Another way of connecting the generations will be through holding one or more Crossroads Intergenerational Cafés, part of a global World Values Day initiative. These online gatherings bring together young people aged 14 to 20 from different countries and continents together with elders over 55 for structured conversations about life choices and transitions. Both groups find themselves at crossroads — the young contemplating university, careers and independence; the elders considering retirement and how to spend their remaining years.
The format, based on knowledge café principles, creates space for intergenerational dialogue often absent in contemporary Nigerian society. Previous cafés involving schools across Africa, Europe and Asia have demonstrated young people’s appetite for wisdom from older generations, whilst elders report renewed purpose through engagement with youth perspectives.
A model for the continent
Both organisations have leveraged social media effectively, using Instagram and Facebook to coordinate activities and amplify their message. Virtual parenting conferences complement in-person Values Day events, supporting families in building stronger relationships through shared principles.
Their work addresses what both activists describe as an erosion of social values in contemporary Nigeria. Anuge has been particularly vocal about foreign media content that fails to align with Nigerian cultural values, whilst Uncle Sele focuses on the stark reality that millions of African children cannot read simple texts by age ten — a deficit that perpetuates cycles of poverty and limits life opportunities.
The collaboration between Uncle Sele Foundation and Shape A Child represents a powerful model for civil society activism. This year’s WVD programme promises to be more ambitious than ever in scope and impact.
“We’re building lives,” Uncle Sele said, summarising the foundation’s mission. The emphasis on building rather than merely teaching reflects a philosophy that values must be lived and modelled, not simply discussed in abstract terms.
As World Values Day approaches, both organisations and their teams of helpers are mobilising schools, parents and community leaders for what promises to be Nigeria’s most comprehensive values celebration yet. Plans include art exhibitions, the distribution of values-based jigsaw puzzles to public schools, and collaborative projects showcasing how ethical education can transform individual lives and entire communities.
International observers have praised their important initiatives, with many feeling that these serve as a model for the continent. The emphasis on sustained year-round programming, experiential learning and community engagement distinguishes this Nigerian approach from single-day observances common elsewhere.
“We are creating a world where values are lived, not just taught,” Anuge said. “From classrooms to boardrooms, we are shaping ethical leaders for the future.”
In a nation grappling with educational inequality and rapid social change, Uncle Sele and Izehi Anuge offer compelling evidence that lasting transformation begins not with grand policy declarations but with patient, persistent engagement — one classroom, one conversation, one community at a time. Their October programme for World Values Day demonstrates that when local knowledge meets global movements, the results can be both practical and profound.
