Slum Art Foundation and Mutual Benefits Assurance Group Turn Waste Paper Into School Fees for the Children of Ijora-Badia

There is a school in Ijora-Badia built almost entirely out of what everyone else threw away. Its walls are packed with recycled PET bottles. Its children learn to read with one hand and collect waste with the other, because for years, waste was the only resource this community had in abundance. What that school has never lacked, however, is imagination — and on July 11, that imagination goes on public display, as the Slum Art Foundation and Mutual Benefits Assurance Group open the doors of Freedom Park, Marina, Lagos, for a charity art exhibition built entirely around the children of Ijora-Badia.

One hundred original artworks will be on display, including a striking collage art series made from waste magazine paper — old, discarded pages torn, cut, and reassembled by the children’s hands into mosaics of extraordinary beauty. It is a fitting metaphor for the Foundation’s entire philosophy: nothing is truly waste until you decide it is. Every artwork sold at the exhibition goes directly toward something urgently practical and deeply personal — it becomes part of the school fees that keep these children in class, alongside funding the renovation of their school, the purchase of computers, and the installation of solar power to finally light up their classrooms.

The Slum Art Foundation was born in December 2017 out of a simple but stubborn belief: that a child’s postal code should never determine their potential. In the years since, the Foundation has built a free school constructed from recycled PET bottles in Ijora-Badia, turning an environmental burden into a place of learning, and has trained thousands of children in art, literacy, and — more recently — animation and AI-powered storytelling. What started as one man’s conviction has grown into a living, breathing case study in how community, creativity, and corporate partnership can rewrite a child’s story.

For Mutual Benefits Assurance Group, this is more than a sponsorship — it is a statement of what the company stands for. The partnership sits at the heart of the Group’s Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commitments: environmentally, by championing a model that transforms plastic and paper waste into infrastructure and income; socially, by directly funding the education of some of Lagos’s most vulnerable children; and in governance, by backing a transparent, community-rooted institution with a proven, decade-long track record. The company’s Managing Director/CEO, Mr. Femi Asenuga, spoke candidly about why the organisation chose to stand with the children of Ijora-Badia:

“We do not just insure lives and futures — we invest in them. When we learned that this school was literally built from bottles the world had discarded, and that these same children now turn waste paper into art that pays their school fees, we knew this was a story of resilience we had to be part of. This is what ESG should look like in practice — not a policy on paper, but real support that changes real lives. Supporting this exhibition is our way of telling the children of Ijora-Badia: we see you, we believe in you, and we are with you.”

The exhibition is the vision of Adetunwase Adenle, Founder of the Slum Art Foundation and Co-Founder of Animation Hub, and a four-time Guinness World Records holder. For close to a decade, Adenle has poured his life into developing children in underserved communities like Ijora-Badia, using art, technology, and education as tools of transformation rather than escape. He has watched a generation of children go from having nothing to work with, to building a school out of bottles and painting their way toward school fees, computers, and light.

That work has never been carried alone. Adenle continues to draw strength and counsel from the Chairman of the Slum Art Foundation’s Board of Trustees, Mr. Dotun Adeoye, whose steady guidance has helped shape the Foundation from a grassroots idea in 2017 into a structured, sustainable institution now serving some of Lagos’s most vulnerable children.

“I have always believed that talent is universal, but opportunity is not,” Adenle said. “These children turned bottles into a school and waste paper into art. All we are asking the world to do is turn that art into a future. This exhibition is their voice, and I am grateful that partners like Mutual Benefits Assurance Group and leaders like Mr. Dotun Adeoye keep giving that voice a platform.”

The choice of venue carries its own quiet symbolism. Freedom Park, Marina, Lagos — once a colonial-era prison, now reimagined as a space for culture, expression, and freedom — mirrors the very story this exhibition tells: that circumstance does not have to define destiny. Its open-air setting, deep cultural heritage, and central location in the heart of Lagos make it one of the few venues in the city that can hold both the weight and the joy of an event like this — a place where history, art, and purpose meet, and where young voices from Ijora-Badia can finally be seen on a stage that matches their courage.

Organisers are clear that this is only the beginning. Given the depth of need — and the depth of talent still waiting to be discovered in communities like Ijora-Badia — the Slum Art Foundation and Mutual Benefits Assurance Group have announced plans to make this a monthly event, building a recurring platform where more children can showcase their work, more of these stories can reach the public, and support for their education becomes sustained rather than seasonal.

Members of the public, corporate organisations, and the media are cordially invited to attend, view the artworks, and become part of a growing movement that is proving, one canvas at a time, that a child’s circumstances are never the end of their story.

About Slum Art Foundation
Founded in December 2017, the Slum Art Foundation is a community-driven non-profit organisation using art and education to empower children in underserved communities across Lagos, Nigeria. Its flagship initiative, the Pet Bottle School in Ijora-Badia, is a free school built from recycled PET bottles, providing art and literacy education to children who would otherwise have no access to structured learning.

About Mutual Benefits Assurance Group
Mutual Benefits Assurance Group is a leading Nigerian financial services provider offering life, general, and specialty insurance products. The Group remains committed to Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)-driven initiatives that create lasting impact in the communities it serves.