RESOLUTION PROJECT

Oladayo Olatunji

OLATUNJI+PHOTO

Oladayo Olatunji

Education

Ventures

Country

BIO

Olatunji Oladayo is a student at United States International University-Africa, majoring in International Relations. He is a resilient, result-oriented, resourceful, and creative person. Olatunji is a person with a physical disability (right hand) and from a very disadvantageous background. His parents are subsistence farmers in one of the rural community areas, Ose Local Government Area, of Ondo State, Nigeria. As a person with a disability and from a vulnerable home, it is very difficult to pursue his academic pursuits since his parents’ income on a yearly basis is less than $50. With the relentless support of his parents, he was able to graduate from one of the high schools in the rural community called Ute High School in Ute, Ondo State, Nigeria. Olatunji realised that millions of Nigerians have disabilities, and most of them are from very poor backgrounds. Been a disabled person and from a poor home too, he really wanted to rewrite the history of persons with disabilities in Nigeria. That was the reason he founded a not-for-profit organisation (Poverty and Disability Initiative in Nigeria, also known as PADIN), an organisation fully registered with registration number CAC/IT/141708 to empower persons with disabilities in order to meet their physical, economic, health, political, social, and material needs. Bringing unsurpassed certainty to financial freedom for vulnerable women and youths through entrepreneurial skills and vocational training skills. Olatunji is the founder and executive director of PADIN, a Global Peace Ambassador under an international organisation (Global Peace Chain), and an ambassador to Nigerian Rotary Youths. He is one of the Nigerians under 30 most influential in 2021; he is a MasterCard Foundation Scholar cohort 6 at USIU-Africa; and he is currently a Resolution Fellow 2023.