About Us · The AVID Foundation

Our story

The name carries the reason.

The AVID Foundation restores school libraries in Nigeria.

We were founded by members of the Nigerian diaspora in Canada. Too many Nigerian schools have a library that is locked, empty, or was never built at all.

Avid is not a word anyone is born into. A child becomes one by having something worth reading within reach, at the age when reading is still being decided.

That gap is not a mystery. It is a shelf, a room, a trained teacher and a timetable. We fund exactly that.

We are Canadian by design: incorporated here, governed by a Canadian board, accountable to Canadian regulators.

We hold no Nigerian entity. We deliver through vetted local partners, or directly with schools under written agreement. We begin in Lagos.

Our mission

To refurbish, restock and sustain libraries in under-resourced Nigerian schools, and to support the people who run them, so that every child in those schools has books to read and a place to read them. We begin in Lagos.

Our vision

Where every classroom has a library behind it.

A Nigeria in which no child's literacy is limited by the absence of a library, and every school library is a working, used and valued part of school life.

Our values

Five commitments, written so you can hold us to them.

Dignity: We refurbish to a standard we would accept for our own children.
Local leadership: Nigerian educators know what Nigerian schools need. We fund their judgement rather than replace it.
Accountability: Every dollar is traceable to a school, a receipt and a result.
Durability: A library that closes within a year is a failure, however good the photographs.
Evidence: We measure whether children read more, not how many books we delivered.

Leadership

Who is accountable for this.

Founder

Ade Olumide

The Library Prefect who now builds libraries.

Ade Olumide is a Nigerian-Canadian who spent her formative years in Nigeria before settling in Canada as a young woman. A project management professional with over 8 years of experience, she has led initiatives across government, banking and CPG sectors. She holds a Master’s degree in International Development and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics — a combination that shapes both her conviction that education is the surest lever for opportunity and her insistence that good intentions be matched by rigorous execution.

Her commitment to AVID’s mission traces back further than the foundation itself: she served as Library Prefect in her secondary school years, an early stewardship she now returns to at a larger scale. At AVID, Ade leads strategy, partner selection, and the foundation’s relationships with funders.

Beyond her work, she is an avid traveller who values time spent with those closest to her.

Our board

A volunteer board, whose members are at arm's length from one another.

We are appointing it now. Each director appears here as they are confirmed, before we accept institutional funding rather than after.

Governance

Built for the scrutiny, from the outset.

Canadian charity law places clear obligations on organisations working abroad. We built our model around them from day one.

Records showing every disbursement served its charitable purpose
No pass-through of funds to any foreign organisation
Board authority over our resources, retained

Legal status: Incorporated in Canada as a not-for-profit corporation. Charitable registration status is in progress; we will publish the registration number here the moment it is granted.
Board: A minimum of three directors at arm's length from one another. The board sets strategy, approves all grants and disbursements, and is responsible for ensuring our resources are applied exclusively to our charitable purpose.
Financial controls: Dual signing authority; staged disbursement against milestones; retention of all supporting documentation.
Reporting: Annual financial statements; annual return filings; project reports to funders and donors.
Conflict of interest: A written policy requiring disclosure and recusal. Directors do not transact with the organisation.
Safeguarding: A child protection policy governing all activity conducted in or around schools, by us or by our partners.

We are seeking partners for our first cohort in Lagos.

Sponsor a library Email the founder

No one is born an avid reader.