I want readers to know there’s treasure in our environment, says Temiloluwa Adeshina

The author of Risi Recycle – The Dustbin Girl Dr. Temiloluwa Adeshina, Co-founder Readland Global, LEC TechGirlsNig, Technovation Club Ambassador, Academy of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) alumni, speaks about her book that touches a raw vein in society – terrorism and its toll on human lives, the orphans it spews out and how such orphans are making sense of the strange world they suddenly find themselves

What is the inspiration for writing Risi Recycle – The Dustbin Girl?
RISI Recycle is basically my life. It’s how we began to gather children from the streets, especially when we were in the Agege community in Lagos. I resigned from teaching in 2018 from Brainville Schools. I was the health teacher at that time. I resigned and faced ‘purpose’, which was to gather kids on the streets, kids that were not going to school while taking my children to school. People thought I was mad at that time, but that was for me, purpose. So, we began to gather children on the streets and bring them to my sitting room. We parked up the settee into different rooms and began to teach the kids how to read and write. And that was how Readland started, from my sitting room, in 2019 or thereabout.

Readland Global today has moved into various communities. I first got into the dustbin estate in 2020 during the lockdown. Lafarge began to sponsor a project called Read-To-Children in the slums during the Covid-19 lockdown. They paid for flat screen TVs, they paid for masks, and they paid for books. That was when we published Mama Safety in Go Go Germ Go and then Kaffy the Dancer, and it went viral. It was through a book. And so, when we gathered kids in Ajegunle community, that was the first time I visited that community, and that was when I knew about dustbin estate. And that was when the inspiration came: how could we tell Peter that there is life even after this dustbin? How could we tell them they could get global visibility right in their communities? Readland had five centres in that community, and Lafarge sponsored the reading programme.

It was from this community I first saw a girl coming to meet me; she had never seen a laptop before in her life. And she said: Please, can you teach me how to use this system? And that was when the inspiration for Risi Recycle came. They were living in the midst of dirt; they were living in midst of impossibilities. How could I make them see that they could become global figure in their community? That was when the seed for ‘Risi Recycle’ was sown, that I would write a book and I would let them know that you can become a global figure. It doesn’t matter where you come from. Dirt is not death.

So, I wanted them to see possibilities of transformation within the dirty environment that they were in. I also wanted to know that now the world needs saving. And why did I say that? If we don’t take care of our environment – we are the eenvironmen- if we don’t take care of where we come from, at that time global warming has already become a major issue; things were happening around the world. And I wanted them to see that right from the dustbin where they were, their trash could become treasure. That was the thing. There was a lot of trash in the dustbin estate. You need to visit there. I have been there many times, and I wanted them to know that their trash could become treasure; and right from the trash where their environment is, there is treasure in it. So, I wrote the book for them to see the goldmine within the trash in their community.

So, what is the idea behind the name Risi?
My husband is very good with alliterations and when it comes to book naming. For in stance, Bantu the Big Bad Bully Series. He was the one that gave it the title. It was used for anti-bullying campaign in all Lagos State schools in 2018. It was also selected as one of the best content books in Africa, when the wife of the then Vice President, Dolapo Osinbajo travelled to London and Paris. It was exhibited in London and Paris. I got a call from the wife of the then Vice President, Dolapo Osinbajo, asking us to come to Aso Rock, that she saw my book in London and Paris. And that she would want us to be on her bookshelf project.

So in 2019, we started a bookshelf in several communities – in Lagos, Port Harcourt. She asked us to recruit librarians for her. She started paying librarians and brought books into these communities. That’s why I said Readland that started from my sitting room morphed into a community thing, beyond even Nigeria. Now we’re in Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Zambia, still helping communities, spreading the love of literature.

What is Bantu the Big Bad Bully all about?
It is an anti-bullying book that has to do with a boy called Bantu. He is a bully, so children are afraid to go to school. In all my books, children are heroes or heroines. And so, some five children came together and planned how to stop the bully that didn’t let them go to school, because he normally stole their food. Teachers even could not help. So, they came up with a concept of pepper jollof rice, and he didn’t know. They put plenty of pepper in the jollof rice. So, when he began to eat, he started shouting, calling for help. After that, they made him apologise. And, gladly they all could come back to the school.

It was used for an anti-bullying campaign in Lagos State. Guarranty Trust (GT) Bank sponsored it and we gave over 5,000 copies to all public schools. That was in 2019.

Dr. Temiloluwa Adeshina

Is it your first time of entering for The Nigerian Prize for Literature?
Yes, this is the first time I am putting in a book for The Nigeria Prize for Literature.

Beyond the issue of recycling, in terms of themes and messages, what do you hope the readers will take home from the book?
The book’s thematic concerns is about the environment and technology. I want the readers to know that in our environment there is treasure. And so, we need to be custodians of the trash of our environment; we can turn it to become treasure. I also what them to know about technology. The language of now and the future is technology. When you pick the book, I want you to know that you have to be digitally literate. I also want them to know that it doesn’t matter if they don’t know anything about technology, that whatever they want to become, every career every child wants to become in future is hinged on technology. So, it is important that we leverage technology; it is important also that we can turn the trash in our environment into treasure.

Does the book also address the issue of the girl-child?
Yes, it does. Risi is the protagonist, but you’ll find that she has friends like Amina who is Hausa where they believe that girls are not meant to go to school. You will find girls like Chioma. In fact, Chioma speaks pidgin in this book. And, basically she speaks her language. Her father does not believe that the girl-child should be trained; they believe girls end up in the kitchen.

At the end of the day, Risi, because her parents died during Boko Haram attack in Maiduguri, where she is from, finds herself alone. Her father is a professor at a Maiduguri university. But her father used to keep a secret which she doesn’t know. But he dies during the Boko Haram attack; then people advised her to come to Lagos. She comes to Lagos and is on the street and an old woman, Iya-agba, who recycles refuse, found her. The woman picks her up as her daughter. But the old woman lives in the last house in the dustbin estate. Everybody calls her a witch because she doesn’t have children. But Risi does not believe it. She wondered: ‘How can someone who picks me up on the street, out of kindness be a witch?’

So everyone calls Iya-agba the ‘cat with nine lives that refuses to die.’ But now Iya-agba is sick, and so Risi is faced with a dilemma – she can’t go to school. She is picking things to survive on the street. She meets Adam; she meets Ali; she meets Chioma, and Amina. And all of them, together, they try to make ends meet in the community. But Gogolu Factory that helps them to make a living shuts down. So, they need to seek help in the community. And they meet one woman called Mama Bottle. She has a recycling factory that picks things and trains women in the community on how to scavenge in the environment. A lot of things happen to her. She has to fight thuggery; she has to find how to make a living; she has to pass through all these, overcome so many circumstances, just to ensure that later on in the future she makes a living.

She meets a lot of people while she is here, but because she has a background of attending school before, she is kind of enlightened in the midst of the three of them. So, she is a lifeline to all of them. Little by little, as they pick things from the dustbin, they all tell the stories of their lives.

Chioma says her father does not want her to go to school. She keeps one book always in her sack. She says, ‘if my papa find this book dem go beat me’. So, Rising likes to read. The boy, Ali likes to play ball. He believes that one day he will play for Arsenal, Chelsea or Man United. He says all these things while they are talking. Meanwhile, Amina believes that one day she will be a lawyer and fight for the right of girls from the North. But all of them are just living there, trying to make ends meet in the community.

There are some thugs in that community called ‘Killer’ and ‘Scopio’. They steal their scraps. So, Risi has to fight this, go through this, little by little. And then she is also bullied. She is bullied by one girl called Omotoke whose parents have her sent to Lagos from Florida, US. She has become spoilt. They need to train her and put sense into her head. She bullies Risi. The thugs bully Risi. And one by one, Risi begins to get opportunities. Little by little, Toke, who I call the TikTok Queen is always on the phone. She doesn’t respect anybody in the community. She has an auntie called Auntie Abike. Her parents sent her to Auntie Abike in Ajegunle, so that they can put some sense in her head.