Abdul Fatai made haste to arrange his wears; neatly displayed on the 4 layers wooden shelf are handmade leather sandals, he pulls each out and wipes the edges with a rough dusty piece of cloth. Fatai looks cheerful and satisfied as he paced slowly; holding up his left knee to support his movement, his inability to walk upright does not deter his determination to unleash his potential and work towards his childhood dreams.
Fatai recalled a bullying experience as a child which made him even more determined to become self-reliant: “I could not play with my age mates when I was in school, they will gather and laugh at me, and they will laugh at the way I walk. I am always sad, and I cry about it, that was why I asked my mother why my leg is like this, she said it happened when I was 6 months old” he quips. Fatai’s disability propels his motivation, as he is determined to prove that physical disability is not able to stop a determined mind. “I don’t want to depend on anybody, that is why I am determined to make it in a legitimate way, I know some of my classmates who are into yahoo yahoo (local parlance for internet fraud) but I told myself I will do the right thing to survive,” he said.
Though determined to do the right thing, Fatai had a challenge with funding his dream to be a big-time shoemaker. He admired good shoes and dreamt of building a shoe factory, but the fund to learn the skill was unaffordable: “I wanted to learn how to make shoes in a professional way, it is very expensive so I plan to work and save for it” he noted that while returning home from work he found the team from Kairos and ActionAid making a public announcement for the returnee and potential migrant capacity program, it was his chance and he took it.
Fatai was selected to participate in the capacity development program, he learned shoemaking. “I started making shoes the next day of the training,” he said and in a short while, he built a small shoemaking business and gradually etched toward his childhood dream of owning a shoe factory. “I am very grateful for the chance to learn this shoe making; it has made me believe that I can do anything anybody with two legs can do without depending on other people,” said Fatai.