No fewer than 50 from an initial 100 youths trained on leadership, inclusion and civic engagement have been inaugurated as community champions by Foundation for Community Empowerment Initiative, in collaboration with Nigeria Youth Futures Fund and Leap Africa.

Maina disclosed these in an interview with PERISCOPE NIGERIA shortly before the end of a two-day training held from Wednesday 10th and Thursday 11th July 2024, at Amina Hall, Gombe State.

He explained, “This is a continuation of the training we had last month (June, 2024). We trained 100 youths on leadership skills and inclusion in governance.

“This time around we picked 50 out of the 100 we trained last month as community champions they are known as youth action groups after the two days training.

“We intend to give them mentorship session in such a way that they can influence some of the policies that directly affect youths’ inclusion and governance in their communities.

“The mentorship session will be every month so that issues that have to do with youths can be tackled by them.”

Maina emphasised that the champions would be supported using framework, “During this training we have been able to develop a framework, action plan to guide them carry out their responsibility in the long run we expect a level of sustainability and engagement so that when they are going for advocacy they won’t go empty but with experience on what to say. We are training them on how to go about it,” he added.

While lauding Leap Africa, and Nigeria Youth Futures Fund, he added, “This is the second phase of this project we started it since last year (2023), we scaled the project this year (2024).We want to appreciate them for their efforts and support and we urge them to do more so that our youths wont be left without being busy, so that they get involved. I also want to call on government to support this initiative, there is a saying that two heads are better than one if we can synergise, get support from government, private sector the level of impact will be holistic and impactful in such a way that the number to be trained will increase significantly.”

Maina  called on youths to take ownership saying, “Research and Statistics have shown that youths consist of larger percentage of our population and when it comes to leadership our youths are sideline and governed by those not in their age bracket, so there is generational gap what Nigeria needs now are people with desired change and not about religion, ethnicity. Let’s bring those with capacity, requisite knowledge, skills in politics, economy.”

Lecturer at the Gombe State University; Department of Biological Sciences, Dr Ishaku Lemu-Haruna, who presented paper on ‘Mentorship; the how’s and why’s‘, harped on how to start mentorship and why it’s imperative to be mentored.
He said, “We realised that in today’s generation if you have a mentor it’s easier to get directions on where you are headed, without a mentor you may get there but it will take you longer and perhaps you may not have the necessary tools to get into the position.”
While urging participants to apply lessons learned in their personal lives, “Particularly, in reaching out to a mentor it’s important to craft out a message that aligns with the interest of the mentor. Talk about what the mentor is interested in that is also something you are interested in, that way you have established a common denominator between the two of you,” he added.

A Development Practitioner, Yahaya Yusuf-Atiku, who presented papers on ‘Community engagement, youth action group and engagement strategy’, said “We want to stimulate critical consciousness in the youths that they are agents of transformation that things will not continue the way they are, that things will become better with their involvement, we don’t all need to be corrupt.”

He noted that youths should see themselves as agents of change, drivers of change in issues that pertain to governance in their communities, adding that “There is hope things will get better, things are not going well. There are opportunities, and we will leverage on them to make a difference; I’m a youth and I encourage other youths to come on board.”

A participant, Bulus Happy, who is a serving corps member, represented group one in problem identification segment.

She said, “We were given a task to identify a problem in the community and actually look for ways to provide solutions. We identified a primary school in Tumfure (Akko Local Government Area). In that school pupils stand to learn because they don’t have desk. We agreed to meet the school Head Teacher, to discuss our intentions.”
The graduate of Adult Education and Community Development noted that her group expects to get support from stakeholders in the community towards providing desks and chairs, adding “Is a community you will find someone within there who does carpentry work, it’s a community service instead of charging them very high, since he is doing it for the community he will reduce it for them.”