You were informed in the last blog that the story of the expansion of SELL will be shared with you in the next blog, this is it now.
About the expansion of SELL, we feel happy on this development, but before I share the news; let me share with you a little background on the journey of SELL so far.
The Sharing Education and Learning for Life (SELL) Programme started in Nigeria in the city of Kabba, Kogi State. The initiators/authors of the programme were Rev. Frs. Tommy Hayden, Leo Traynor and Noel McGeeney (Priests of St. Patrick’s Missionary). The trio, developed the programme to be a participatory life giving programme, adopting the Paulo Freire’s methodology of inclusion; that is, whether formally schooled or less formally schooled one could benefit from it by sharing from his/her life experience and listening to others share their own life story under the atmosphere of mutual trust and friendship. Fr. Tommy later went on sabbatical leave while Leo and Noel continued to develop and experiment the programme with various Youth groups. In the cause of doing that, the duo met with Moses Alokpa and Jonathan Ekharto and invited them to join them in the work, they then, formed a team of four men.
In 2007, the team of four moved to Bauchi State Nigeria to further the cause. While in Bauchi, they worked on covering the entire North - East Nigeria and as I write this blog, all the States of the North East Nigeria and the neighboring Plateau State have had a good taste of the programme. It was challenging though, but they still showed resilience and God has always been there.
The year 2009 was a year of many first for the SELL programme; the first facilitator’s manual was produced; the first training of facilitators was conducted and the first female, Maria Dagogot Nee Ghinsel was invited to join the team of four men. Maria’s presence brought a little gender spread and the female perspectives of things were not missed out.
The essence of the facilitators training was to have more people facilitate the SELL workshops, which imply that more young men and women would experience the SELL programme through workshops. Since then, the people who have benefited directly and indirectly from the SELL Programme through her workshops, seminars and interactive forums will be numbering over five thousand. More than two hundred young men and women have been trained as facilitators of the SELL programme in Nigeria and Ghana having a little fraction of the beneficiaries. SELL has produced a review manual, and have expanded the team with an almost unique balance of three ladies and four men namely; Moses Alokpa, Mary James, Beji Jibe, Belyn Boniface, John Jiddere, Fr. Patrick Esekon and Maria Dagogot. Other people have worked with SELL Resource Team and have moved to other endeavors of life.
From a faith base organization, it got registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission as a Non-Governmental Organization.
Now the Expansion of SELL that we are celebrating among other things is the establishment of the programme in a Ghana. Frs. Leo and Tommy Hayden both went on sabbatical leave in 2013 and had the calling to and establish the programme in Ghana. Before this new development, SELL already had a relationship with a group of Youth in Adukrom Community in Kumasi, Ghana. This relationship was defined by a yearly visit to Ghana by the SELL Resource Team to either deliver a workshop or run training. So far, 30 Youth from Adukrom have been trained as facilitators of the programme, they in turn are delivering workshops to other Youth within Kumasi town.
 Leo and Tommy’s dream is to assist the young people of Ghana with a life shaping programme that SELL offers. They are setting up a new Centre in the Northern Region of Ghana, hoping that it will have a great outreach and reception in the near future. We pray that God’s blessings that have always been with the programme will manifest greatly for Leo and Tommy and very soon we will begin to read the success stories from there too.
On a sad note, our friend and colleague on the SELL Resource Team, Moses Alokpa lost his Dad on Monday 16th November, 2015 at their home town in Cross River State, Nigeria, may his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. let’s remember Moses and his family in our prayers.
Thank you for your time, see you again soon.
Maria Dagogot,
Communication Desk Officer, SELL

​On Saturday 31st October, 2015, the SELL Resource team welcomed two important personalities at their office.  Before I tell you about them, I will like to say that it is not new on this page that SELL has the Saint Patrick’s Society (SPS) as one of their major Partners. It was in view of this that two members on their leadership team scheduled to visit the Foundation. Fr. John Marren is a man with many portfolios, we didn’t know all that because he only said ‘I am John Maren’ and that was it. It was when he left that Fr. Patrick Esekon; SPS representative to SELL Foundation told us that John Marren serves the Vicar General of SPS, he is also the assistant Central Leader of SPS as well as the Development officer of the Society. We were all amazed at his humility and friendliness. Fr. Kevin O’Hara the district Leader of SPS in West Africa also visited SELL together with John Marren. The two leaders visited SELL to see how the Foundation is faring. The Resource Team members and the SPS men had series of meetings during the period of their stay, it was all for the development of the Foundation. Some challenges were also expressed to the leaders, they encouraged the resource team members and by extension the volunteers of SELL not to relent in their efforts of service to the youth, they said any cause without a challenge is heading towards stagnation.
They were taken through the beautiful banners and overview of SELL by the Head of Programmes of the Foundation, Mary James.

We count this week a week of many blessings because you could only have a general overseer (borrowing the term from the Pentecostals) of a religious body once in a very long time. But with SELL we always count ourselves lucky; Last year 2014, after the election of the leadership that brought John Marren and his team to office, the overall leader Fr. Victor Dunne took as one of his first assignments visit to Nigeria; during that visit, SELL Foundation was one of the key places that was visited. When high profiled people come to SELL like this, it goes a long way to inform you that they have seen the quality of the programme SELL offers and the numerous potential that lies therein.

The year is gradually coming to an end, as it is with many organizations, at the SELL Foundation office, we are busy writing reports to our partners and wrapping up for the year.
Please feel free to give us feedback on how you experienced us this year; this will help us serve you better in the coming year.

The next blog will be on the major expansion SELL is experiencing at the moment, stay with us to hear more.
It is your regular person,
Maria Dagogot,
Communication Desk officer SELL>

​Jos and Bauchi Community Team of facilitators have concluded the Facilitators training of SELL Programme. The training took place in the month of October 2015, at the Youth Formation Centre Bauchi with a total number of 12 participants present. The low turnout was due to the fact that, most of the participants were workers and students. The students resumed schools a week before the date of the training while the workers were engaged in their places of work. The facilitators; Moses Alokpa, Maria Dagogot and Beji Jibe found it a challenge working with such a small number of participants, knowing that both teams had over 12 participants each.  Challenging as the situation was, we did our best and the participants were quite engaging, it was nice working with them. In the cause of the training, three units of SELL were explored and these include; Wisdom of Traditions, Community Building and Self Awareness.
Here are some of the comments from the trainees, (all comments are related to the units that were explored at the training);

• Lucy said she is amused at the wealth of wisdom embedded in our cultures.
• The challenge of accepting diverse cultures and practices is what William says he will struggle with.
• I cannot change the inevitable except my attitude says Maccolins.
• Being aware of the changes in our culture from our ancestors to date, says Mado.
• Having respect for other peoples culture – Habila and Nancy.
• Awareness of the spiritualities of our great/ grand/parents. - Matthew
• Knowing more about our Identity and culture – Dorcas
• The challenge of owning my spirituality and do an evaluation of it says Clifford
• Choji said that we all have inherited our spirituality.

Other participants also made the following comments;

• The importance of speaking our dialects cannot be over emphasized – Emmanuel
• Where wisdom resides and how she is transmitted to us. –Ritmua

And Clifford observed that; most religions have similar sacred signs and symbols.
Stay with us on this page, see you again soon.
Maria Dagogot,
SELL Communication Desk officer