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ANAYO OLERU is an author, CEO and creative director at Zebravillaworks, a creative designs start-up. He has developed a board game called Eradicate, designed to help children learn how to eradicate mosquitoes from their environment. He conversed with STEPHEN ONYEKWELU. Excerpts:
You are quite an unusual guest. How would you describe yourself?
I am a multi-talented prospectus entrepreneur, caricaturist, author, board game developer, graphic designer, the CEO and creative director of Zebravillaworks—a fast-rising start-up, setup to unleash the creativity in African youths.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria on May 1998, I graduated from Distinction High-school, Lagos, in March 2015.
Since my school days I have always been so passionate about solving crucial problems in the country. With my board game developing skill, I had developed lots of board games for major problems like, Math dread in students, Business in Lagos, disasters, Mosquitoes and lots more, including funny entertaining games.
Read Also: Malaria: Delta to distribute 3.5m free insecticide mosquito nets
I was opportune to attend the BusinessDay CEO apprentice Africa 2016, which motivated and inspired me to push on with my endeavours.
This year I was privileged to win the top art piece in Africa at the Tana High Level Art competition held in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, where former President Olusegun Obasanjo was the chairperson.
And if more opportunity is given, I’d planned not only to solve crucial problems, but open more doors of opportunity for other talented African youths out there.
What inspired you to create this board game?
Seeing how vulnerable harmless children die every day from Malaria, and other mosquito-borne diseases, brings deep pain to my heart. Schools today only teach students about the existence of mosquitoes, but they don’t emphasize how deadly they are, and how instantly they should be eradicated from their environment.
That is why what most people care about is repelling them, not actually preventing them. Even with all the repellents, the number of people who die from mosquito-borne diseases increases every year. The problem can be solved when people get to know that mosquitoes breed, where exactly they breed or can breed, and how they can be prevented not just repelling them. And with Eradicate, the problem is tailored down.
How did you design it?
Actually to prevent Mosquitoes the first thing to do is to attack where they breed. Eradicate is designed to educate players on where to find their breeding sites in each and every environment humans inhabit. It teaches how to prevent or destroy those breeding site, and the result of eradicating them.
Eradicate is divided into several episodes or mission—these are places where humans can be found, for example, Estate, Road, school, around the House, home, market etcetera each with its own board structure, they are drawn based on the outlook of the particular area in mind, so that a player doesn’t only play but sees their personal surroundings with their mind’s eye as they run around the board. It is also designed with so much goodies, so it doesn’t seem like a ‘too-serious’ game. There is the fun part, the strategic part and the part where players have to interact with themselves.
Board: The board points out the breeding sites and how they can be identified.
Solved cards: Clearly unfold how their breeding sites can be entirely destroyed.
Characters: Since the game is African. The characters are also African.
Easily, players cut out the characters, solved cards and dice. Glue the dice together and play. Players have to run around the board, landing on problems and solving them. Two players lose out, first is the player without a mosquito net, and last player who failed to solve all his problems.
Who should play this game?
Ages five upwards can play it, but mostly students. Parents can play with their children; teachers can play with their students. Children play, they get educated, and thereby pass their knowledge to their parents or siblings.
What is your plan for the game, five, ten years from now?
In years to come, my plans are to bring Eradicate into the computer and mobile application platform, where players in all part of Africa, could get educated, where schools pick up this platform as a way to keep educating the young generation. Then gradually, our country and our continent will be among the few lucky countries or continent where mosquitoes had been eradicated.
What else would you want to add?
Eradicate is divided into 10 episode; one for each week. As a part of the 10 week programme, I had also made plans to visit several schools and families each week, brief them on the importance of preventing mosquitoes play the game with them and encourage them to practice what had been learned from the board game and send feedbacks.
