Government should identify, support vision of youths with leadership qualities – Charles Alade

Charles Alade is an international voiceover talent and coach from Nigeria. In this interview with IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI, he spoke on how training youths in voiceover artistry has created a great impact for the industry. His platform which has trained over 400 talents across Nigeria during its megacity tour with 16 world class voiceover trainers and coaches is set to launch in Ghana, the African and global voiceover space.

How has your platform been sourcing, engaging and producing young talents in the area of voiceover?

Our goal has always been clear from the onset which is to discover, develop and deploy African voiceover talents into the global space. That is why we move from city to city and in the last two years, we have hosted 10 editions of the voiceover bootcamp training over 400 voiceover enthusiasts within and outside the broadcast media space. We also had the privilege of engaging 19 foreign voiceover coaches from the UK, USA, Canada, Bahrain, Zimbabwe, Kenya and other countries of the world to teach at our bootcamps. The voiceover bootcamp was primarily designed to help people with great voices acquire formal trainings on how to maximise their voices to make money for themselves and help brands sell their products or services because we do not have enough of such platforms yet in Nigeria.

You have been training talents on a tour around the country. How would you assess the enthusiasm of youths you have encountered under this project?

The experience has been phenomenal and heart-warming for me as the founder. I did not know people were going to fall in love so much with the idea of voiceover because it is not so popular in this part of the world but I have noticed a similar trend in that every city we host the bootcamp, the students do not want us to end the bootcamp. And even when we formally close, they all want to join the online community that we have created where we further mentor the participants of each bootcamp until they are grounded in the career.

What’s the motivation behind this voiceover talent drive?

I was active for 13 years on radio as a presenter and left as a general manager and I can say boldly that all my income put together did not give me what voiceover has produced for me today. I realised that no on-air personality can really be comfortable financially by living only on their salary. One voiceover gig can pay your monthly salary or even more. So, aside other motives that drive me, I just wanted my colleagues in the broadcast media space to be happy and make more money with their voices aside talking on radio or TV because they will not be on screen or behind the microphone forever.

You have tentacles in communication, music, social issues. How do you balance out your time and focus across these fields?

This is one question people ask me all the time. You probably did not tell you that I am also pastor a church and I oversee six different branches of a ministry in Nigeria but I gave each dimension of my life full attention as if it were the only thing I do. For example, if you see me do music, you will say that’s all he knows. If you listen to my voiceovers, you will not want to call me for any other thing because I am excellent at it, and if I manage you as a talent, your career will experience an upsurge in no time. I am an author of many books and I recently started the Charles Alade Initiative which is more like a foundation. We are currently providing 1,000 new school uniforms to the boy-child in Oyo State government-owned secondary schools.

What is the rationale behind your programme that focuses on underprivileged children and its impact so far?

I noticed that the society in a way is focused mainly on the girl-child. There are so many interventions both local and international on the girl-child but little or nothing is given to the boy-child. Secondly, we conducted a study and I noticed that many children do not attend classes because of the terrible state of their school uniforms which has badly affected their self-esteem and lastly because I remember how difficult it was for my parents to send me to school and I thought within myself that if God has blessed me, I must give back to my society too. Currently, out of the 1,000 uniforms we promised to give out to 1,000 boys, we have delivered 200 at Community Grammar School Lagun, Ajia Secondary School, Ayete Grammar School and Okedere High School at Ibarapa. We are still producing more. We pray for more financial capacity because this project 1,000 is self-sponsored and the current state of our economy is not helping the situation.

How would you advise the government in addressing the various social economic problems facing Nigerian youths?

I want to strongly recommend that the Nigerian government should support the vision of our youths. Imagine I get support from the government with the little I am doing and just one million youth get governmental support, our country will be a better place. You see a country that wants to succeed must never keep her most active and populated demography idle. It is true that the government cannot solve everyone’s problem but if our leaders can identify youths with leadership qualities and empower them, many great things will happen by default.

How would you advise young people that are trying to find their feet in or make a career in the media industry?

I want to encourage to believe in themselves, know what they want and get mentored. Media is quite wide but whichever aspect of media they choose; it is vital to get adequate knowledge on how to navigate such spaces. Don’t just assume things. Be passionate about gaining knowledge rather than show off. There is life after social media. Nobody lives online and everyone will return to the reality of life after putting off one’s data. Lastly and most importantly, identify your purpose. When purpose is missing, confusion is only natural.

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