Help me get back to School, please!

Those of you who know me know that since I left High School five years ago, I've been busy dedicating my time to building, educating, and impacting young people around me.

In the last two years in particular, I helped organizations like the Roothub accelerator system educate 10,000 young people to acquire computer literacy and programming skills, where I tutored hundreds in web development. I was part of the team that raised over one million Naira for the 1-book-for-1-child program in Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria, which gives hope to public primary and secondary school children. I also gave support to Immpact, a program that was designed to elevate digital literacy in my state, Ebonyi. In 2018, I was incredibly excited to join Finimize in its mission to empower millennials to take control of their financial futures, and have led four events since then as a Finimize Nigeria Community Director.  Few months ago, I generously accepted an offer from Product School LLC to bring together product people from Africa or those interested to build digital product that'll have impact on the continent, on the community slack workspace, while am currently enrolled on a Product Data Analytics course as I'm learning how to offer insight into user behavior with intentions to aid startups as they build word-class products, when am done with the course.

Through all of this, I've been working quietly behind the scenes to try to get myself to University to put myself in the best possible position to build a career and help others for the long-term.

In Feb 2020, I took the unified matriculation examination with the intention to start university as soon as possible. I applied to Renaissance University, Enugu, an affordable private university with a well-respected computer science program, but like everyone else, my plans were temporarily stalled by Covid.

I received an admission letter from Renaissance University on November 17th that made me both ecstatic and anxious. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to attend University and get the degree that I've wanted for so long, however thanks to new rules and cost structures, with effect from the next academic session (starting December 5th, 2020), tuition will increase by 150% from N200,000 (initial expected fee) to N500,000. 

I have already raised N92,000 ($238 USD) but still need N408,000 ($1056 USD) to be able to pay the new fee.

I am ferociously applying for remote Junior Product Manager jobs with companies like Appcast and SmartRent to secure some additional income that will sustain me through my studies. I just need to get through this admission hurdle and, while it is incredibly difficult for me to ask for help, I'm doing so because I believe in the power of community and have faith that others might be willing to help so that I may one day pay it forward to others like me.

Your donations would go a long way to help me reach my goals. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read my story and consider helping out. 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ezennamdirichard

Email: ezennamdirichard@gmail.com