By the ended of the weekend, about 400 young people have encountered the programme in local communities in Plateau, Bauchi, and Niger States of Nigeria, including Abuja the Capital City of Nigeria. I will like to give you just a little insight into the programme that took place in these various communities and the feedback that we got from the young people that encountered the programme.
In Abuja, the programme was for young leaders of local groups from the Catholic Church of Abuja Archdiocese. Due to the large number of participants, 295 in all, the Facilitators of SELL in Abuja, Lucy and Johnmaria decided to run the programme as a seminar on Leadership using ideas from the Leadership Unit of the SELL Programme as laid out in the SELL Programme Manual. The Programme took place at the Civic Centre in Wuse district of Abuja metropolis.
At the end of the one-day seminar, the young leaders were happy with the opportunity. While they felt the programme was short, as it was a one-day programme, they were confident that they have learnt some skills on how to improve on their approach to leading other young people in their churches. We appreciate the courage of Lucy and Johnmaria for running the programme and their wisdom of choosing to run the programme as a seminar and not a workshop as this would have been practically impossible due to the number.
For the workshop that took place in Plateau state, it was hosted in a local community called Chip, a rural community under Pankshi Local Government Area of the State. This workshop was facilitated by the Shendam Area Team of SELL Facilitators (Kathrine, Dajan and Fidelis). Again, this was a well-attended workshop with over 58 young people in attendance. For this reason, the facilitators had to use their creativity to manage the group so that they can draw out the learning effectively. The programme took place from Friday the 25th to Sunday the 27th of May.
Mary, Jacob and Ada facilitators in Bauchi town facilitated a workshop for young people in Kafin Tafawa Community of Bauchi State. Kafin Tafawa is a Satellite town to Bauchi Metropolis. The unit of the programme that was done in Kafin Tafawa was the Leadership Unit. Using the Animal Pictures, the facilitators helped the participants to identify their leadership styles and how they can use the different styles to help in the leadership of their groups.
A participants at the workshop Christy, was so happy about the process. She said that she was surprise at how just looking at the characteristics of various animals selected for the process can help one in exploring ones leadership style. She said she was happy to have found out her own leadership style.
The total number of participants at the workshop were 29, comprising of 15 female and 14 male.
Finally, for the week, a training of facilitators for the SELL Programme took place in Minna Niger State of Nigeria. Moses and Jonathan, who facilitated the training left Bauchi for Minna on Wednesday, though the training was to start on Thursday the 24th. This was to enable them prepare thoroughly for the Programme. The journey to Minna saw them travelling through Jos and the Southern Part of Kaduna State Nigeria. The journey took about seven and a half hour, travelling through bad roads for the most part.
For them, the joy was that they arrived safely and met very enthusiastic young people who were ready to be trained as facilitators of the SELL Programme in their communities. In all, 13 young people drawn from Abuja and Minna Area Groups with 3 young people joining in from Bauchi took part in the training. Those trained now are to join those already trained facilitators in Abuja and Minna so that they can be able to reach more young people. We hope to follow this up with more training opportunities soon.
I like to close by saying a big thank you to all the facilitators who where in the field last weekend, for taking the programme to as many young people as possible. We hope that we will continue to record many successes like this for the rest of the year.
UPCOMING WORKSHOP
As we enter into the first week of the month of June, Moses and Maria are busy with preparing for a workshop that they are having with community leaders in Masuga in Kontagora District of Niger State. They will be working alongside Tommy Hayden of the St. Patrick Missionary Society, one of the originators of the SELL Programme. As the participants are local community leaders, they will be working with them in Hausa Language. The programme will begin on the 7th and run through the 17th of June 2012.
While they are away, I will be holding the forth in the office, working on preparing for the training we will be having in Ghana later on in the Year.
Am sure Maria will give you all the details of the Masuga workshop when she returns from the trip.
Jonathan
Programme Coordinator
For the Resource Team.