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henry akhigbe eigbiremolen - My Blog
henry akhigbe eigbiremolen - My Blog


COMMUNITIES AND VISIONS
Related to country: Nigeria

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Background of Program
Communities and Vision is a community development service organized and coordinated by Corper Henry A. Eigbremolen (BN/08A/0899) in Otukpo, Benue State, Nigeria.
As an MDG trained corper, my primary task was to increase awareness about the MDG’s by training youths within the community I serve.
To achieve this task I structured a series of seminar topics and solicited for support from professionals within the community to facilitate the various topics.
To ensure that the participating youths had good understanding of the issues a series of research questions where attached to the poster to stimulate the curiosity of the prospective audience.
For effective coordination there were ten groups on different topics. Interested participants could join any of the group they had preference for and follow up the research process till the end of the programme.
A group of twelve corpers known as team twelve Otukpo where part of this program. Their task was to coordinate the research groups, to ensure the achievement of the outlined objectives.
To give credibility to the outcome of the research findings, the team 12 corpers where to receive research guideline from the professional facilitators. Due to this, the volunteer professional had dual functions:
i. Facilitate the seminar
ii. Coordinator & direct the research process by giving guidelines to the corpers.

Objectives
The objectives of this action learning seminar program were.
i. Promote sustainable development: CDS carried out by corpers often become waste after their service year because the benefiting communities are not part of the process from the on-set.
ii. Stimulate self-dependence amongst the youths: The idea behind the research was to empower the competence of the participating youths after the entire research process. This would enable them to carry out independent projects there after.
iii. Create a culture of development-oriented competitiveness: ten groups with various development issues were created This was to attract different membership that would enhance affiliations to their groups objectives. Bearing consciousness of other groups this would stimulate commitment to the groups course as such develop constructive competitiveness.

How Far
The program started effectively on the 11th of October 2008 and ended on the 22nd of November 2008.
Different Secondary Schools within Otukpo community were used to host the seminars. The research groups were to meet on a parallel bases, but unfortunately most of the research groups never really took off.
The seminars went on as planned but one edition could not hold due to unforeseen circumstances.
The program was supposed to round up with a rally but turned out to be a forum to critically analyze the state of youth in Otukpo and Nigeria at large.
The Hon. Commissioner for youths and sports development Benue State was duely represented and also religious authorities where on hand to express their views. The youths where not left out of the discussion.

Challenges
It feels easier writing this report, but if I had a choice in the middle of the whole exercise I would have bailed out of it. Thank God I did not but it was not easy.
Funding was the greatest challenge.
Despite the level of awareness created most of the youths did not participate poor level of commitment from anticipated support groups left me with singularly running the key activities and logistics. So many promises were never kept.
Due to the abstract nature of the project it was challenging getting people to participate in the program. Attracting sponsorship was almost an impossible task.

Achievements
During the process a lot of people got to know about about the MDGs. I made a lot of friend. I never really felt I was making a difference until after the program, when youths and people in the community began acknowledging the impact “Communities and Visions” had made in their lives.

Conclusion
It has being challenging and interesting; I believe development is relative to the challenges of every community as such communities should evolve their developmental visions and take practical steps towards achieving it. Youth empowerment should also be seen as a vital aspect towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

February 17, 2009 | 6:34 AM Comments  0 comments

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