Cohort 1 Takes The Stage: Inside The Children's Cultural and Dramatic Arts Residency Showcase

Over the past weeks, a group of children and teenagers in Owo have been doing something unusual with their free time. Instead of the usual holiday routine, they have been in rehearsal, learning traditional dance, drama, and the values that sit underneath both. This was Cohort 1 of the Ajasin Foundation's Children's Cultural and Dramatic Arts Residency for National Citizenship, and on Saturday, 29 August 2026, their work comes to an audience.

The residency was built around three ideas. The first is heritage: giving the children a real, working knowledge of Owo's traditions and values, not just facts to recite but customs to carry. The second is peace, using creative arts as the instrument through which young people express themselves and settle differences, rather than turning to conflict. The third is citizenship: helping children understand and perform messages of national unity and civic responsibility in a way that speaks to their own generation.

None of this stayed in the classroom. The children rehearsed scenes, learned steps, and worked with the kind of discipline that a stage performance demands. The Grand Finale and Showcase on 29 August is where that discipline meets an audience for the first time, in a single afternoon of dance, drama, and storytelling built entirely around the three ideas the residency was designed to teach.

The programme carries the guidance of Dr Leke Ogunfeyimi and Mr Amos Adelekan Afolabi, and it reflects the Ajasin Foundation's continuing work of keeping Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin's legacy of education and moral leadership active in the lives of children today. A residency like this does not exist to produce a one-off performance. It exists to give children tools, in culture and in character, that outlast the residency itself.

The showcase takes place at Imade College Event Hall, Owo, Ondo State. The red carpet opens at 11:00AM and the programme starts 11:00AM prompt. Admission is free and open to families, lovers of arts and culture, educators, and community leaders. For enquiries, call 08063030770.

Full details, directions to the venue, and a place to tell us you are coming are on the event page: www.ajasinfoundation.org.ng/events/childrens-cultural-residency-showcase