Summary: Nigerian Samuel Agboola gave up a lucrative career to teach at a girls’ school and become a member of the Changemaking Teachers Activation Program—CTEACH. CTEACH teachers focus on education’s being a tool to help make positive change in students’ communities and elsewhere. Agboola has fostered change in the local environment and inspired his students to look at the moral consequences of their actions in order to improve people’s lives.

Profile: Samuel Agboola is a computer science graduate, and at one time his career goal was to work in the areas of oil, gas, IT, or banking. He applied to many jobs in those areas, and to make ends meet he secured a job as a teacher in a local girls’ school. That changed everything: From that point on, Agboola cared less about making money and much more about making positive change.

He began by teaching at the Girls Junior Academy in Lagos, Nigeria, and then became one of the first members of the Changemaking Teachers Activation Program—CTEACH. CTEACH teachers not only give their students information but also help them use that information to “drive social impact within their communities and learn how to integrate changemaking systems and practices into their teaching.”

This was a perfect fit for Agboola: “The most fulfilling part of teaching for me is that it allows me to inspire and empower young minds to create positive change and to be morally upright. . . . Personally, changemaking is about making a positive difference in your community, workplace, or home.”

The changemaking can take on various forms. In Agboola’s first year, teachers were tasked to reduce plastic waste in the school and improve reading skills among students. Relevant activities included repurposing plastic bottles into garden planters and creating a library. Students collected the bottles, sold them to recyclers, and used the money to help equip the library.

Agboola does not regret for a second giving up a lucrative career for this one: “I no longer see problems as problems,” he says, “but as raw materials for creativity and innovation. . . . I would integrate changemaking education into national curricula. Every student should develop essential skills to drive positive social change.”