They are friends with the same passion. As Law students at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) in Ondo State, Toyosi Ayeleso, Tomiwa Adaran, Olaleke Oni and Busayo Ojewale shared a vision – to put smiles on the faces of needy children. They established a social enterprise to raise money for their project. DAYO OJERINDE (Mass Communication) writes.
After a degree in Law, what naturally preoccupies the minds of many young lawyers is their practice.
But for the quartet of Toyosi Ayeleso, Tomiwa Adaran, Olaleke Oni and Busayo Ojewale, the wig and gown hold little attraction. After completing their programmes at the Adekunle Ajasin University, Akungba-Akoko (AAUA) in Ondo State, they veered into another field.
Four years ago, they conceived CSI Media, an entertainment outfit, to achieve their aim of establishing a social enterprise. What started as a campus idea has become a popular brand in the events industry. But, the profit from the business is invested in charity to cater for needy children and the less-privileged.
Toyosi, Tomiwa, Olaleke and Busayo are passionate about helping the needy and impacting their lives. As students, they used their ingenuity and entrepreneurial skills to give back to the community. After lectures, they would go for campus events where they organised the red carpet to add glitz to events.
On the motivation behind CSI Media, Toyosi, the team’s brand strategist, said: “We wanted to bring smiles to the faces of the less-privileged in our community. We kept doing this with our personal resources as students. We have been visiting the homes for the physically-challenged and orphans to share the profit of the business with them.
“When we started, we could not sustain the charity, because we had limited resources from our source of income. We came up with the idea of establishing CSI Media as a social enterprise from where we could generate funds to help the children in need. The four of us are partners and we are being driven by the same philosophy.”
As the profit margin of the business increases, Toyosi said opportunity widens for the less-privileged to benefit from the charity.
Tomiwa said he and his colleagues were motivated by their deprived backgrounds, noting that the enterprise is being sustained by their ability to innovate and bring out new ideas.
“The CSI Media started incorporating the red carpet sessions into corporate and social events, with the aim to raise money from the rich for the use of the poor. In fact, we have made efforts to ensure that red carpet session is part of every event, whether it is a state function or private events. We wanted to bring elegance closer to people. We devised different tactics to make events memorable for organisers and attendees. We discovered that our strategies worked,” Tomiwa added.
Since 2012, when the enterprise was established, Olaleke said the team understood early that there was no excuse for failure. “Once we founded CSI Media, we vowed to make it work,” he said.
In the past three years, the team has enjoyed support from notable people in the country, including Aare Afe Babalola (SAN).
Olaleke said: “We have hosted high-profile dignitaries on our red carpet. We have had quite a number of them, including Aare Afe Babalola, Oba Frederick Akinruntan, Governor Olusegun Mimiko, Governor Ayodele Fayose, Mr Dele Adesina (SAN), Mr Femi Falana (SAN) and notable musicians.”
The only female member of the team, Busayo, who spoke on the future, said: “We hope to continue to break new grounds, new boundaries and add value. We owe ourselves a duty to impact on our world. We understand that winning is the only option. We have to put enough smiles on our clients’ faces to make them pay enough to allow us effectively run our charity project. We are also into environmental advocacy project in partnership with Rhealyz Naija. We have provided about 20,000 free materials to ensure people clean their toilets. We want to build good lavatory facilities in the schools of the physically-challenged.”