One of the needs of young people of this contemporary time is information; with access to right information and a little help, they could make judicious use of the information they have. When people are helped in such ways, they find the right solution to their own problem. The SELL Foundation engages in helping young adults across creeds and beliefs contribute to building the community of their dreams. Two members of the SELL Resource team, Isaac and Maria, while guiding their peers, and building an ecumenical spirit through the SELL Programme, were at the ‘Family House’ of the Nigerian Christian Corper’s Fellowship (NCCF), at Yelwa-Lebra in Bauchi town, Bauchi State, Nigeria to explore the Leadership unit of the SELL Programme. A total of 30 young adults took part in this workshop on the weekend of Friday 23rd to Saturday 24th February 2013. At the end of the workshop some of them had this to say; “the style is simple, it makes me feel at home. I suggest it should be incorporated among the Programs at the orientation camp for Corp members because it will go a long way to change our mentality on leadership” (G.A Yirvoms Esq.). Please this particular leadership training should be taught all over the state and Local Government Areas in Nigeria, the youth need such education and even some interested Government bodies. Because this is a very interesting and needed Programme to empower, sensitize and teach young people more about leadership (Akissani Tabitha).

While the workshop was taking place with the Corpers, Jonathan and Moses, also members of the SELL Resource Team, were at Shuwa a town in Adamawa State of Nigeria. The duo went there to train young People that were selected to take the facilitator training of the SELL Programme. Jonathan gave this report of the training;

The first community training of facilitators of the SELL Programme was held in Maiduguri area from the 20th to 24th of February at the JDPC Centre in Shuwa.

12 young persons from across the various communities of Borno and Adamawa State of Nigeria took the training.

The Unit of SELL they were trained in was the Peace - Building unit of the Programme.

At the end of the training, the young people said they were very enthusiastic to bring such a Programme to other young people in their communities. They then made plans and selected different dates for when they will be running the Programmes in their communities. We wish them well as they plan and hope their efforts help to make the country a better place and yield fruits for peace and unity. The 12 new facilitators will serve Borno, Yobe and parts of Adamawa states of Nigeria.

UPCOMING EVENTS

On Wednesday 6th – Sunday 10th March 2013, some young people who have already taken the first SELL Training of Facilitators for Bauchi community, are going to experience the 2nd phase of the training. The Training will take place at the Youth Formation Centre, Bauchi. Reports of this will be brought to you next week.

Stay back and enjoy our photos of the two reports, see you again next time.

Written by;

Isaac and Jonathan,

SELL Foundation.

The Sharing Education and Learning for Life (SELL) Foundation has completed the first in series of six trainings for the Yola community, Yola is the capital of Adamawa State, Nigeria. In our earlier blogs, we informed you that the target area of SELL is majorly the North- Eastern Region of Nigeria; Adamawa state, forms one of the North-Eastern states. The desire to reach out to more young people in this region of Nigeria has become more critical since in recent years most of the areas of the region have been affected by various degrees of civil disturbances. 

Before the training date, invitations were sent out to 33 people, out of which, 23 made it for the training. The training started on the 6th and ended on the 10th February 2013.

The summary for this training for Facilitators which focused on the Leadership Unit of SELL is captured below from some of the Trainees’ evaluation; 

• Some of my Insights include; Understanding team work, identification of my leadership styles, ability to value individuals opinions, necessity of sharing ideas, group discussions etc -  Pwamoreno Raymond.
• I learnt the following during the training; how to understand and respond to the need of my group, how to avoid the negative use of power and authority and how important and critical good communication is in our lives. Another useful learning that I hope stays with me is how to always remain approachable and accountable as a leader. – James Jampi.
• The SELL Programme (Training) does not need to stop at our learning set, since it is targeted towards bringing about change in the society by helping people to realize the need to be open to change, peace and seek to be effective leaders in the various systems they find themselves. - Paul Moses.
• Sharing Education and Learning for life facilitators training was educative, interesting, encouraging, motivational and stressful, stressful because nothing good comes easy. – Rejoice Peter.
• My greatest insights were how I was helped to understand the kind of leader I am with the use of animal pictures. Also it helps me know what to do as a good and effective leader. I learnt how I could live with people of different back-grounds in peace and also to develop a heart of love for other people. – Patience Martine.

To crown it all the training was successful, the new facilitators selected dates that they will share the programme with other young people in their communities.

In a similar vain on the 15th – 17th February 2013, two members of the SELL Resource Team; Leo and Maria went to Jos, Plateau State, Nigeria to work with some young people at Rantiya community. The unit of the SELL Programme that was delivered at Rantiya was the Self Awareness unit. In all, the programme recorded a total of 20 participants (5 young men and 15 ladies).

As at the time of writing this blog, Moses and Jonathan, both members of the SELL Resource team are doing training for Facilitators for the Maiduguri community Team. The Peace Building Training which Started on the 20th will end on the 24th February 2013. We wish them all the best as they continue and journey mercies back upon their return.

St. Patrick’s Missionary Society (SPMS) has been very supportive of the SELL Foundation both in moral and financial aspects. It will be good to mention that the originators of the SELL Programme are members of the SPMS (Leo, Tommy and Noel), of course they are still resourceful members of the SELL Foundation bringing in their wisdom and creativity to help in shaping the programme for the formation of young people in our contemporary world. It was for this reason that a member of the SPMS Leadership team Fr. Tom O’Connor, when he came from Ireland to visit their members serving in Nigeria, had in his schedule a visit to the SELL Foundation and the Youth Formation Centre Team. Tom came to our office on Tuesday 19th February 2013. During his visit, we shared with him the vision of the Foundation an overview of the SELL Programme and also presented to him the Foundations timeline. Tom was impressed with us for the magnitude of work we are doing, this was expressed in his body language when he saw our impact map of all the areas that the foundation has taken her programme to. He encouraged us and assured us of his support and continuous prayers.

In a different story, a member of the Kumasi SELL Team, former Miss Mary Efua is now Mrs Mary Takyi. The Wedding between Mary and Takyi took place on the 10th February 2013 in Kumasi Ghana. The SELL Family wishes the couple bliss in their marital life.

A report came to us last week from the Abuja SELL Team, Abuja is the Capital of Nigeria. The team Leader JohnMaria said they held a meeting to plan for their workshops and other SELL Activites in 2013. In all, 7 Team members came for the meeting, they also used the opportunity to refresh themselves in a relaxed atmosphere where they ate and drank together. 

UPCOMING PROGRAMMES 

Three SELL workshops are took place this past weekend 22nd – 23rd February 2013;

• The Leadership unit will be shared with Deanery executives of our lady queen of peace deanery in the Catholic Diocese of Jalingo. The facilitators for the programme are two members of the Jalingo SELL Area Team Freda and Victor.
• Mary and Hilary both members of the Youth Formation Centre Team, with the support of the SELL Team in Tafawa Balewa, Bauchi State Nigeria, will be Delivering the Justice unit of SELL to some youths in Tafawa Balewa axis.
• Still in Bauchi, Isaac and Maria will lead an interactive forum with the Nigerian Christian Corps Fellowship, Bauchi Branch. The Focus of the workshop will be the Leadership unit of SELL.

Reports of these three programmes and other stories shall be brought to you next week.

Stay Blessed!




Maria Dagogot,

Communication Team Member, SELL Foundation.   

The river Niger runs right through Nigeria from the western region and empties into the Atlantic Ocean in the southern part of Nigeria. This southern part of Nigeria with six states make up what is called the Niger Delta region of Nigeria.

This area is also an area full of many paradoxes. This area produce over 80% of the entire wealth of Nigeria, being the oil producing area of the country, however, it also has very visible, high level of poverty.

It is to this Niger Delta area of Nigeria that the SELL Team made up of Leo and I took the SELL Programme from the 25th of January to the 12th of February 2013. In all, we spent a total of 18 days in this region, covering Four States in the journey while working with three different groups.

The journey started with our arrival at the Family Life Centre in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria. There, we worked with the group called Friends of St. Patrick. This group supports the work of St. Patrick Missionary Society in Nigeria. The Unit of the SELL Programme that Leo and I shared with this group was the Justice Unit. 42 participants took part in the workshop. For them, it was a time to discuss and share their experiences on some of the challenges they face in the society. They reflected on the way society is structured and how unjust structures in the society helps to perpetuate injustice. Among the sessions and simulations that were used in the course of the workshop were the Newspaper analysis and the diamond framework of analysis which was used to explore the oppression of women in the society.

Participants in the workshop were grateful to the SELL Team for our sharing the unit with them. They hoped that the learning from the workshop will help them to understand more social issues in the community and help them to work for a more just society.

The next stop for Leo and I was the ever busy city of Port Harcourt in River State of Nigeria. We are grateful to Mr Uche, a member of the friend of St Patrick who gave the duo a comfortable drive in his car from Uyo to Port Harcourt.

In Port Harcourt, we worked with the young people of Woji Estate in Woji community, Port Harcourt. The Workshop in Port Harcourt started on Tuesday 29th of January and ended on Sunday 4th February. With this workshop, the young people of that community have taken all six unit of the programme. Therefore, at the end of the workshop, they were awarded the certificate of participation by the Foundation. The two units of the programme shared with the young people were the Community Building and the Justice Units. 

After the work in Port Harcourt, Leo and I went on then to Bomadi, via Yenagoa in Bayelsa state of Nigeria. Bomadi is a town by the side of the river Niger in Delta State of Nigeria. The young people in the town had organized the SELL Programme for their young people and those from neighboring communities along the creeks.

The workshop began on Thursday evening and closed on Sunday Morning. The unit covered with the young people was the Self Awareness unit of the SELL Programme.

According to the young people who participated in the workshop, this was exactly what they needed. The Self Awareness Unit of the SELL Programme helps young people to explore issues around their life story and assist them to reclaim their self worth. 

 The young people, in the course of the workshop, shared very emotive experiences from their life. In this shared learning experiences, they realized that these experiences that we all have had in the past have influenced to some extent what we are today, and that the choices we therefore make today will influence what happens and the experience we will have of tomorrow.

By Monday the 11th of February, tired from all the journeys but delighted by the work that has been done and the number of people that we have shared the programme with, Leo and I started our journey back to Bauchi.

We are very grateful to all the people who open their doors to us, providing us with warm hospitality.  We are also very grateful to the young people who took time out to organize the workshop locally. We look forward to working with you again.

Jonathan

For the SELL Foundation Team.

Our first week in office in 2013, saw us delivering the Sharing Education and Learning for Life (SELL) Programme at the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Rehabilitation Centre in Bauchi, Nigeria.  The programme was run with the clients on rehabilitation; the clients were 41 in number, some of the staff of the agency also joined in the programme. 

Areas of the programme we uncovered were on; personal history, choices and about understanding the human personality using a tool called the ‘Joharis Window’. 

Some comments made by the clients during the programme was that, the influence their friends had on them has made them make decisions that are detrimental, some said that after their rehabilitation period, they will turn a new leave in their lives, while others said having experienced the SELL programme, they will make good use of their lives and be the better people they are called to be.

We really appreciate the opportunity given us by the NDLEA Command in Bauchi to meet the clients in a working atmosphere. We look forward to a sustained partnership with the Command.

SELL TRAINS 12 MENTORS OF THE PROGRAMME

Another interesting event that happened for SELL is that, the Foundation organised training for some of her Area Facilitators. The purpose of the training is for the Participants to be able to mentor the emerging Community Trainees in their workshops. On the 17th – 20th January 2013, all those invited convened at the Youth Formation Centre (YFC), Bauchi, where the SELL Foundation works from.

Umar, a probation member of the SELL Resource Team and also one of the mentees, gave this report of the Training.

            “Twelve of us took the mentoring training, Moses and Jonathan both members of the SELL Resource Team facilitated it.  

          The training was interesting and educating, all participants showed great commitment towards becoming mentors which we all saw it to be challenging.

           The learning was quite captivating and awakening. Some energizing exercises were performed to keep everyone fully participating. An inspirational film on mentoring titled ‘’Akeela and the Bee’’ was shown on the second evening. Two hours break was taken on each day after lunch, and an exciting social night took place on the last evening of the training.

          The major areas of learning during the training were;

• Understanding conflict
• Skills on mentoring
• Giving and receiving feedback
• Anger management etc

On the whole, the mentoring training was a huge success, thanks to SELL Foundation for this new exposure and Learning”.

The SELL Foundation wishes you all a happy Eid-El maulud.

UPCOMING PROGRAMMES

• Jonathan and Leo, have travelled to the South of Nigeria to run the SELL Programme. The duo will be working in Uyo, Port Harcourt and Bomadi. Details of how it went shall be brought to you once they return.
• Next week will see Moses and I travelling to Jalingo, the Taraba State capital Nigeria. We will be joining members of the SELL Area Team in Jalingo to run the SELL Programme with an all women group.

See you again soon with more update, for now, it’s bye-bye.

Maria Dagogot, 

Communication Desk, SELL Foundation.

All is set for the training of 33 young people in Yola, Adamawa state, Nigeria. Yola is one of the capital cities of the North- Eastern States of Nigeria. Being one of the target communities of the Sharing Education and Learning for Life (SELL) Foundation, the need for this training cannot be overemphasized.  

In 2010 - 2011, the SELL Foundation trained 4 persons from Yola area and they are; Halita Patrick, Moses Ahmed, Rachael Raphael and John Jiddere and since then, the quartet has run workshops in the communities around Yola, as the need to create more awareness of the Programme of SELL Foundation became evident. So far, the 4 facilitators have delivered workshops on Leadership, Community and Peace Building of the SELL Programme; the other 3 units of SELL were also delivered in some of the communities. In the course of delivering the programme, some of the young people who participated at these workshops were identified as potential facilitators and these are the ones to receive the facilitators training this week.

The training in Yola is scheduled to take place from Wednesday 6th – Sunday 10th February 2013. After this training, the new facilitators will work with the existing quartet to run workshops in the communities around Yola. 3 members of the SELL Resource Team (Moses, Isaac and Maria) will be guiding the training.   

Still on programmes to happen, Leo and Jonathan of the SELL Resource Team having worked at Port-Harcourt and Uyo (South-South, Nigeria) in the past week, will be working with a group of young people from Bomadi town, Bayelsa State, Nigeria this week on 7th -10th February 2013. Reports of all their work will be brought to you soonest.

REPORT OF LAST WEEKENDS’ WORKSHOPS

• Mary and Hilary of the Bauchi Area Team, together with Isaac, a member of the SELL Resource Team, delivered the Leadership unit to a group of students from the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU) Bauchi. The interactive forum took place on the 26th January 2013 at the Youth Formation Centre, Bauchi. 27 participants attended. At the end of the forum, the participants said they have acquired useful skills on Leadership that will help them manage their association effectively. 
• Victor and Dominic of Jalingo Area Team, Taraba State Nigeria, invited the SELL Resource Team to support them with delivering the Programme on the 1st February 2013 at Jalingo. The group that took the programme was the Catholic Women Organisation (CWO), Jalingo Diocese.

          

It was a very large group, the four facilitators (Moses, Dominic, Victor and Maria) splited the participants into two groups, like wise themselves and worked with them separately as two groups. One of the groups took the Programme in English and the other in Hausa Language. A total of 162 women were in attendance, they worked with the Women on the Community Building unit of SELL.

          From the feedback that came from the Women, the workshop was a very insightful programme for them; some said they have never experienced a workshop with many learning as this. In their evaluations, we gathered that the learning acquired will be very useful to them in their homes,  and will also help them to coordinate themselves well in groups in their communities. 

• While the work in Jalingo was taking Place, Mary, Felicia and Gobet of the SELL Area Team in Bauchi- Gombe states, Nigeria, were also engaging with a group of youths from Wuntin-DaDa community in Bauchi town. Mary who gave the report said the workshop recorded 27 participants. They worked on the Justice unit of SELL. 

The Resource Team appreciate the members of the Jalingo and Bauchi-Gombe Area Teams for all the work they did last week with their respective groups.

Thank you for staying with us this week on the blog, see you again with more stories on our activities in SELL. 

Have a nice week!

Maria DAGOGOT,

Team Member on Communications, SELL Foundation