Welcome to the website of the Zeribe Nwosu Foundation (ZNF). Below I highlight the aim, mission and vision of ZNF, practical approaches we are taking towards our strategic agenda, and early success stories that reinforce our optimism that this foundation will achieve its goals and positively impact lives for years to come.
Hello!
It is my pleasure to welcome you to the official website of the Zeribe Nwosu Foundation (ZNF). I am the founder and chief executive officer of ZNF. This foundation started in January 2021. The main aim of ZNF is to give back to the society mainly through programs oriented towards education, mentorship, and scholarship. In addition, the foundation will pursue philanthropic initiatives that might include, among others, periodic visits to hospitals, orphanage homes or very rural areas to identify and assist those in need of support (e.g. for medication, food, etc).
The primary mission of ZNF is to promote education at all levels (up to PhD) and to take educational opportunities to the doorsteps of those who could benefit from such opportunities. Our vision is a future in which ZNF would have an extensive international reach and help countless people to achieve their career goals, help scale up global literacy level, and assist people in medical need.
Our affairs are piloted by a strong dynamic team
Since commencement, we have assembled a team of over 20 highly talented volunteers with extensive breadth of experience across various academic disciplines. These volunteers help to deliver on the foundation’s broad goals. Our plan is to continue to recruit the most brilliant selfless minds who value what we do as a foundation and are ready to draw from their breadth of experience and background to fine-tune the foundation’s agenda while learning from each other. We are interested in people that enjoy assisting others and are open to co-existing in an environment that is diverse, equitable and inclusive. I want to take this moment to thank members of our volunteer team, which includes those involved in our administrative tasks and those maintaining our communication apparatus, without reservation for Dr. Ukpai Eze who has been tirelessly committed to supporting the foundation from day one.
We have practical and versatile initiatives
To successfully pursue and hopefully achieve our goals, we have implemented several initiatives, including the ZNF Seminar Series, ZNF Meet a Mentor Series, Zeribe Nwosu Scholarship (ZNS), and ZNF Annual Essay Competition. Specifically, we have organized monthly seminars (since June 2021) across a range of topics, including data science, CV and personal statement writing, career opportunities, university admissions application process, manuscript editing, tools for e-learning, to name a few. Through our mentorship initiatives, we have assisted those applying for studies, scholarships or jobs by reviewing their application documents, providing guidance on how to succeed at interviews, and advising or posting training opportunities that could be pursued to boost their chances of success. Further, we have established a rigorous and transparent scholarship program that strongly considers academic merit and financial needs, and we remain optimistic about identifying and supporting outstanding and prospective future leaders who are innately driven to assist other people. The ZNF Annual Essay Competition, which we started in 2022, will provide us a unique opportunity to promote creative writing and communication skills that could prove valuable to the essay participants. Overall, through these programs and others not yet to be developed or posted on this website, we hope to impact lives, uplift families, and contribute to building societies and nations.
We promote equal opportunity for all and strongly encourage women
I am fully committed to ensuring that the ZNF team is as diverse as possible. To this end, we are focusing not only on ensuring diversity in terms of the part of the country [currently Nigeria] where our team members are drawn from, but also gender balance as well as a representation of the science technology engineering and math (STEM) and non-STEM fields. We also remain committed to sharing opportunities and extending our reach without discrimination, and we welcome everyone to our seminar series. Importantly, across our communication platforms, we guard against discriminations and forbid comments or posts that denigrate religion, race or propagate political ideologies. ZNF is women-friendly and we welcome the participation of women in all of our activities. We will always ensure the representation of women among Zeribe Nwosu Scholarship awardees and will also pay attention to underrepresented groups to the extent possible. Our desire is to support women who would go on to become tomorrow’s professors, policymakers or highly influential people in the society.
Early success stories
We have achieved highly encouraging results in less than 2 years since starting ZNF. For example, we have already assisted over 10 individuals to secure admission into top universities in the US, UK and Europe and with that have helped prospective students to access thousands of dollars of funding support. We have reviewed over 50 CVs and personal statements, given career advice to about 70 individuals under the ZNF Meet a Mentor Series, and have ~950 followers on the ZNF Telegram Group. We have successfully organized ~20 seminars and have received exciting news from those who applied for opportunities shared on our Telegram group. Further, we have identified very intelligent but needy secondary school students and paid for their registration fees for the West African Examination Council (WAEC), National Examination Council (NECO) and or Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) exams – major exams required for admission into Nigerian universities. Therefore, we are supremely confident that our activities are meaningful and good and that the impacts we desire to make are possible.
I invite you to browse through our website to see what updates and achievements are already posted under each of the programs itemized above and, also, feel free to contact us should you wish to support in anyway. Further, please keep in mind that we will continue to update this website with additional information about our current and new initiatives and progress. Thus, if you have any question about an information previously posted on any aspect of our website, feel free to contact us for clarification.
Future programs and openness to collaboration
In the near future, ZNF will advance outreaches (e.g., school outreach, medical outreach or rural hospital visitation) and help to facilitate training on emerging skill sets (e.g., bioinformatics/data science). We also hope to be able to support entrepreneurial initiatives at some point. Although the foundation is currently focused on Nigeria, our plan is to extend its reach to other countries in Africa and beyond.
Lastly, we foresee that ZNF will operate long into the future and pursue bigger ambitions that are beyond our immediate imaginations. We are ready to prepare for that future and we look forward to a time when this foundation will be at the cutting-edge of promoting all levels of education and career development. However, while our ambitions are grand and unquestionably exciting, we are also mindful that we cannot make a significant impact by working alone. Therefore, ZNF is very open to collaborating and partnering with individuals, companies, government agencies and non-governmental organizations that have similar interests and vision and are willing to share resources (whether intellectual, financial, or other forms of cooperation) for the advancement of our common interests.
Thank you very much for your interest in our activities and good luck in your endeavours.
Zeribe Nwosu, Ph.D.