Nigeria Tennis Live, a brand of Tennis Live Nigeria Limited, is among the recipients of a Social Justice Fund grant by the Warner Music Group in conjunction with the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
The WMG BFF AJF Repertoire Fund is an eight-year, $10 million initiative, with $1 million allocated to Sub-Saharan Africa, which also empowers Warner Music employees to support local nonprofit entities focused on uplifting marginalized communities.
Each year, organizations are awarded grants between $5,000 and $15,000 USD to advance work in education, arts, culture, and criminal justice reform.
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And in its 2024 edition, Nigeria’s go-to tennis organization, NTL, has been awarded $2,500 grant by the WMG/BFF/SJF for the works being done to promote local tennis in Nigeria.
Temilade Adeniji, the Managing Director of Warner Music Africa and SVP, Sub-Saharan Africa Strategy, reveals why Nigeria Tennis Live was selected, among others, for this grant.
She said: “The work Nigeria Tennis Live is doing to build the youth tennis ecosystem in Nigeria by supporting young athletes is vital.
“Not only is it another avenue to showcase Nigerian excellence, the role of tennis (and many other sports) in building leaders of tomorrow cannot be understated. Glad we are able to support NTL in doing this important work.”
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Damilare Okunola, Founder of Nigeria Tennis Live, expressed his excitement at getting funding to advance the works already being done by the tennis organization.
“This is like God smiling down on us after the years of toiling in the wilderness. Funding is always a big deal for startups like ours, but we’re also passionate and have always believed that it will come some day.
“We’re particularly grateful to Ms. Adeniji, whose roots are from Nigeria, and the SJF programme for finding us worthy of this grant. We shall surely make the best use of this fund,” he said.
Part of the grant is meant to get equipment for NTL as well as help a tennis player with some tennis items, to help ease the burden of getting items for tennis competitions.
Organizations from Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa and Nigeria are among the other recipients of the funding by the WMG/BFF/SJF Repertoire Fund.