Emmanuel Sofa is the Executive Director of the Stand Out For Environmental Restoration (SOFER) Initiative and one of Nigeria’s most passionate social entrepreneurs tackling marine debris.
In this interview, Sofa speaks on his experience in the marine environmental movement and his thoughts on the urgent need to fight climate change. He argues the tide may turn in a hopeful direction for Nigeria if some of the environmental decadence that exists in the country are addressed now.
The interview was conducted over Zoom and has been edited for length and clarity.
Thank you for joining us, Emmanuel. Please share with us what you do at the SOFER Initiative?
Emmanuel Sofa is my name. I am the Executive Director of the Stand Out For Environmental Restoration (SOFER) Initiative. As Executive Director, I am responsible for all administrative and field activities. In general, we work to raise environmental awareness, encourage community action, and influence people’s attitudes about the environment.
The organization began with a mission to educate people about environmental issues. When I realized how bad people’s attitudes about the environment were in terms of waste, litter, and the like, I took it upon myself to ask essential questions regarding the environment. So it began as a volunteer initiative in which I would gather a group of friends and take to the streets. We spoke with people about environmental challenges, including basic things such as how to keep the environment clean so that malaria and mosquito breeding are prevented.
To demonstrate what we were talking about, we also cleaned the environment. We began our journey in Port Harcourt. We picked up rubbish and provided bin baskets and bags for recharge card sellers on Stadium Road, encouraging them to educate their customers about the importance of not littering the environment. The plan was to start small and gradually affect towns and cities by instilling small changes in people’s attitudes on the streets. It all began with monthly activities and grew from there.
Was this a side project? Were you working full-time?
I am a full-time Aviator and Air Traffic Controller. As a result, I was doing this on the side to assist communities. I have always wanted to make a difference in the little things, believing that my words or actions can make a difference in the world. SOFER is one of those actions.
My friends joined me, and we gradually made it more enjoyable. We started registering people as volunteers since we couldn’t afford to pay them. We devised enjoyable activities because it is one of the most effective ways to entice young people to participate in something for which they are not compensated. This went on in Port Harcourt for nearly a year before I was transferred to another airport in Akwa Ibom State.
I kicked up the project at Akwa Ibom State with more fun activities like basketball, volleyball, and cleanup exercises. At the park, we also had a green Christmas. The events were designed to encourage young people to begin taking action in response to environmental challenges.
When and how did the initiative start getting international recognition?
After one of our World Environment Day cleanup events at Ibeno Beach, I decided to submit some of the photos from the event to the UN Clean Seas Photo Contest. Fortunately, I won and was invited to the 6th Marine Litter Conference in California. At the conference, I was honoured with an award. They asked if I wanted to stay for the remainder of the conference, which I gladly accepted.
During one of the conference sessions, there were talks about ocean waste but I didn’t know much. They wanted to know if there were divers in the room and I didn’t even know how to swim. It turned out I was the only one who wasn’t a diver. I was also the only black person at the conference.
Science has shown, coastal cities such as Lagos and Port Harcourt may be submerged in the ocean by 2039
I genuinely wanted to learn more. I noticed that Africa and the oceans surrounding Africa were not mentioned on the map. So I approached the presenter and inquired about the reason for our seclusion. He explained that there were no organizations or data to indicate marine activities in Africa because there were none. I responded that we definitely have marine issues, notably the abandoned fishing nets on the beach. So I took out my phone and showed them a few photos of waste nets on Ibeno Beach in Akwa Ibom.
I eventually met Ingrid Giskes, who is still the Chair of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative, a non-profit dedicated to global marine challenges. Ingrid asked me to come up with an activity and project that would allow me to be co-opted into the organization.
And at this point, was SOFER a registered NGO?
Yes. Like I said before, it was initially about just having fun. But at some point, The UN environmental program wanted to work with NGOs during the Ogoni cleanup, but we weren’t an NGO at the time. However, a friend advised me to approach the United Nations and see what might be done. I went but the UN said they couldn’t work with me because I wasn’t an NGO. On my way out, I stopped and I told them that I had been carrying out a lot of research in this area for a long time, of my own free will. And that I was hoping to work with an organization or community with some of the ideas that I had created. The head of that unit then referred me to his research assistant, who went through my work and said it was good enough to start up my own NGO.
I had no idea where to begin, so I just went ahead with the process. To raise awareness in local communities, I started recruiting volunteers and talking to people. The NGO registration was going to take a long time, but we had a name and an idea. This was between 2010 and 2011. We were registered as an NGO in 2011, but we worked virtually because we didn’t have an office.
I financed the organization with my monthly savings of N55,000. I spent roughly N25,000 per month putting together programs, providing food, and managing volunteer transportation expenditures. We made an impression in the communities where our exercises were held. We gradually grew from 11 to 40 volunteers, and by the end of the project, 400 people had signed up to help.
Emmanuel Sofa
Interestingly, not everyone was on board with what we were doing. People have asked if I am from Nigeria, implying that our projects aren’t a Nigerian thing. In fact, a colleague told me that I was wasting my time and resources on projects that would never succeed in this country. I saw it as a challenge and kept the fire burning, especially since the majority of our volunteers were really passionate and motivated. This inspired me to keep going and pushing forward.
I moved to Uyo in 2013, where we organized several beach cleanups and other events. During one of the activities, a volunteer informed us about Ford Motor Company’s $5,000 grant to non-profits. We didn’t have the structure, even though we were already a registered NGO. Anyway, we applied and were selected as one of the top five applications out of 250.
The funders mentioned they were moved by the passion behind our project, which was a campaign to educate tricycle riders about being intentional in keeping the environment clean. We urged them to keep bin baskets on their tricycles and educate their passengers about the dangers of littering.
Then there was Naija Diamonds, a documentary series produced by Mo Abudu and Diamond Bank to inspire young Nigerians to make a difference. Mo and her crew visited Uyo, and I was interviewed on Moments with Mo. They came to see the volunteers and we all campaigned on the street, which gave us some exposure. People gradually became aware of what we were doing, and this went on for eight years.
Were there challenges? Tell me about them.
For me, SOFER was a vision of something good and the belief that people would begin to get the idea. Of course, there were frustrating times when it felt like nothing was being understood. It felt like people weren’t getting the whole idea behind what we were trying to do. In those times when I wanted to pull back, there was usually some grant, support, or word of encouragement from somewhere. Presently, we are more about marine products such as fishing gains, remediation and community/women empowerment.
Where is SOFER at the moment, in terms of projects?
With the SOFER Initiative almost defined at the moment by the projects we do, we are expanding our capacity. We want to have an impact on the future generation because it can be difficult to persuade them to participate in something so novel. So, in addition to the existing Fishing Net Gains Project, we’re working on a new programme.
Is your work primarily tailored towards issues related to the marine environment? Are there plans to expand to other areas of climate change?
Yes. We are focusing on marine environmental challenges because that is where our funding comes from. We have received funding from the Joanna Toole Foundation in the United Kingdom. Joanna Toole, one of the GGGI (Global Ghost Gear Initiative) co-founders, died in a Kenyan plane crash, and the first grant for the Fishing Net Gains Project was named after her. We were one of the first recipients of the grant. Further, we received a bigger grant from the Canadian government, and the project was completed in March. We are currently working on finishing and submitting our report. This is why our focus has been on marine projects. As I previously stated, we do not have consistent funding, and we are now able to work and build operations solely on the grants we receive. Other climate change and environmental projects, on the other hand, are in the works.
Tell us about the other projects in the works
We have a project called Bootcamp Environmental Education (BEE). We realized that future generations may have to deal with some of the environmental decadence that exists now or in the past. We decided it was time to take some steps to encourage them to rise and secure their future.
The majority of the times, people are complacent about climate change and its potential consequences. Because I usually discuss some of these concerns, my friends used to call me a doomsday prophet. However, as science has shown, coastal cities such as Lagos and Port Harcourt may be submerged in the ocean by 2039 owing to the negative consequences of climate change. Both increasing sea levels and rising temperatures are raising red flags.
People respond “Oh no, it won’t happen” when we discuss these topics because they are only concerned with the here and now. So, with the BEE project, we hope to start educating preteens and teenagers about environmental and climate change issues while also encouraging them to delve into these areas. We want to pique their attention sufficiently so that they will begin to fight for their rights. We want to make kids aware of what is going on right now and what might happen in the future so that they can defend their future.
“We discovered that Environmental Studies is not offered as a subject in our secondary schools. Why? Why aren’t we including environmental subjects in our schools’ curricula so that students are aware?”
We were also looking forward to working with the British Council, and I am delighted that the chance came our way. We discovered that Environmental Studies is not offered as a subject in our secondary schools. Our ecosystem is rapidly changing and environmental disasters are occurring all over the world. Why aren’t we talking about it? Why aren’t we including environmental subjects in our schools’ curricula so that students are aware? As a result, the project aims to assist us in incorporating environmental studies into primary and secondary schools.
We don’t want to do it all by ourselves, so we attempt to develop programmes that can subsequently be integrated into communities. Our fishing net game initiative in coastal communities is one example. We strive for a circular economy in which initiatives are integrated into communities for long-term sustainability. All we have to do now is teach them how to be sustainable. All of our efforts, including the BEE project, have this as a core value. We want to empower young kids and amplify their voices when it comes to challenging leaders on environmental issues.
We have begun reaching out to young people to prepare them for our upcoming environmental and climate change programmes. Soon, you will see them giving presentations at the National Assembly.
You aren’t just making people aware that there are environmental issues, getting them involved is important. However, knowing that technology is the future, do you have plans of incorporating technology into your environmental awareness projects and activities?
We have plans in this regard. We’ve also tried to make sure that our programs address SDGs 1 and 2: No Poverty and Zero Hunger, respectively. Poverty and hunger are two key concerns that local communities are dealing with. As a result, before we contemplate using technology to drive our campaigns, we want to make sure there is a project or concept in place that puts food on their tables and helps people improve their lives. Right now, we’re concentrating on this. For example, the HubNet (a facility/Station constructed by SOFER Initiative for the collection and documentation of fishing gears) is a facility that assists in the collection of marine waste.
We’ve trained 250 women in six communities on how to recycle waste into items such as shoes and bags. For each recipient community, we establish a circular economy. So far, we’ve established five HubNets Stations in Nigeria and one in Cameroon. Our Fishing Net Gains Project West Africa, which is financed by the Canadian government, is also expanding across the border. And so, once these facilities begin to expand along the coast, we intend to use technology.
We have also designed the HubNet locator (an app that would easily assist anyone who wants to bring end-of-life fishing gears to the HubNet for recycling). We have tried to reach out to both marine and port administrators to get them to go live. We ask questions like: “So what happens when you find waste in the ocean?” “How do you find locations for dumping these wastes?” and “Do you continue to let these wastes harm animals and users of the ocean?”
Sometimes, there are entanglements in the seas, turbines are cut off, and oil exploration workers face multiple challenges as a result of marine wastes. Our HubNet locator finder, thankfully, helps trollers, vessels, and local fishermen to dump wastes responsibly, making recycling easier. This is currently in the early stages of development. We almost got funding for it but the COVID-19 pandemic has stalled that. However, we have proposals to have the HubNet and the idea behind it in Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, and Cape Verde.
How do you leverage technology in reaching young people in your environmental campaigns?
Helping young people earn revenue from their ideas is one approach we are exploring to reach them. We have a business concept that entails developing a machine comparable to the Aso-oke weaving machine as an offshoot of our circular economy. At the moment, we’re looking into using the loom machine to make a variety of shoes. We wish to teach local women how to discover their own paths to bettering their communities’ economies.
As an organization, we are also striving to break free from the constant search for funds. And so, we are creating virtual marketplaces and encouraging young people to come up with ideas for transforming marine waste. Like with plastics, where young people are recruited to collect them for recycling, we are working on something in that regard. Meanwhile, we are focusing on getting communities to believe in what we do and creating our sources of raw materials. In the future, we also hope to collaborate with ports and marine administrators.
When you think about the future of the SOFER Initiative, what are you most excited about?
I am looking forward to seeing how people’s perceptions of the marine environment will continue to alter as a result of our efforts. Someday, I’d like to wake up in my rocking chair and reflect on how our initiatives have resulted in the needed solutions to marine waste. The belief in young people is one of the most thrilling aspects of this journey. I didn’t expect so many young people to support our efforts when we first started. We now have around 40 of them trying to solve marine environmental problems while alleviating poverty and hunger in Africa. Some of our young employees volunteered for up to five years before becoming full-time employees. These are the people who have contributed to the organization’s success. This is what keeps us going and motivated, whether or not we receive a reward.
