Ms. Olatoun Gabi-Williams

Biography

Olatoun Gabi-Williams is a Nigerian journalist, social advocate and convener of public engagement campaigns around literature, child welfare, sustainable development, and Alzheimer's disease awareness. In 2003, she established Sponsor A Child Nigeria, notable for its flagship projects, Building Futures (a partnership with Proctor & Gamble Nigeria) and The Good Home Scheme, a rights-based caregiver training and evaluation toolkit for formal care and early learning institutions, recognized by the Embassy of France in Nigeria as its 2014 Human Rights Project.

Olatoun is the founder of Borders Literature for all Nations better known as Borders Literature Online. She founded this literary advocacy platform in 2015 to promote African literature and the African publishing industry globally. Today, as a result of her encounter with indigenous language publishing, the vision of Borders includes a desire to advocate fair trade practices in publishing, emphasizing community origins of published works.

In 2021, Borders joined the United Nations in Namibia and 5 pan-African book industry institutions to establish the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Book Club African Chapter: African Publishers Network (APNET), Pan-African Writers Association (PAWA), Pan-African Booksellers Association (PABA), African Library and Information Associations and Institutions (AfLIA), Association for the Development of Education in Africa (ADEA). The Club seeks to curate high-quality reading lists targeted at school children ages 6 – 12 years + for each of the 17 UN SDGs.

Also in 2021, under the auspices of the UN SDG Book Club African Chapter, Olatoun founded the Ambassador Schools Program to encourage to encourage indoor and outdoor SDG focused activities for schoolchildren under the guidance of schoolteachers.

Olatoun is an arts columnist at Guardian Nigeria where she contributes book reviews, event critiques, and interviews with writers and industry professionals. She is the Administrator of Gabi Williams Alzheimer’s Foundation (GWAF), a national award-winning non-profit that honors her late father, Dr. Gabisiu Ayodele Williams, a renowned public health practitioner. The organization focuses on Alzheimer’s disease awareness, while helping, through information dissemination and seminars, to strengthen available caregiver infrastructure, with a special focus on Lagos State.

Visit her at: www.bordersliteratureonline.net www.gabiwilliamsalzheimersfoundation.org www.sdgafricaambassadorsschools.com