Social Justice Through Creative Expression
Empowering youth through alternative education and literary development
WHO WE ARE
COAL is a nonprofit with the goal of empowering children and youth through alternative education and literary development, through which we amplify youth voice and create platforms for literary and creative expression across African communities.
Our Model
— Open Mics
COAL’S Open Mic is an event of performances in genres such as spoken word poetry, short story readings and music performances from various artists in the creative space all weaved together to further Civic Engagement. Open Mic allows the audience and literary professionals to constructively critique various literary and creative works.
—Book Readings
This is a book reading event which features, literary and civic discussions, interactions and a book review with the guest author. COAL’s Book readings serves the dual purpose of encouraging not just a reading culture within our immediate working community but also the reading of African literature by making these available and adding the allure of interacting with the author.
—Community
Engagement
We are passionate about community engagement that creates social impact through the execution of community-focused projects with a focus on Civic Engagement, Education, girls and women’s issues. We are moved in general to creating community impact on issues affecting the greater good of humanity.
OUR PROJECTS
— COAL Literary School Clubs
The “Catch them young” mantra is as old as time itself. The school club tries to improve the reading culture among students in the hope that this would translate into a deep discipline for reading and learning for pleasure. It also hopes to expose these students to other avenues of expression e.g. spoken word poetry.
— COAL Lit Store
After recognizing the difficulty faced in accessing African literature; the inability to exchange or recycle old books for new ones considering the cost of books and the stringent payment structures of most stores limiting the variety of books most book lovers can purchase. COAL’s Literature store seeks to make books affordable and available to individuals who need them.
— Spoken Rhythm
Spoken Rhythm is our annual literary event staged to promote consumer-friendly poetry through entertaining performances accompanied by live music and theatre.
IMPACT STORIES
Job Ayuba
COAL is creating an inspiring learning community for young people.
Rachael Msendoo
In the Chronicles of Literature COAL deserves the alpha as well as the omega pages *applauds*
PARTNERS
BE A PART OF OUR JOURNEY
SUPPORT LITERACY DRIVE
TO SCHOOLS IN NIGERIA
Beyond the regular formal education obtained in Nigeria and other African countries, we want to create an avenue where teens and young adults can express themselves through literary education powered by spoken word poetry.