SEASON’S GREETINGS FROM SELL FOUNDATION

Compliments of the Yuletide season to our worldwide audience on the Sharing Education and Learning for Life, (SELL) Foundation blog. The SELL Resource team is happy to announce to you in this blog that more young adults are experiencing the SELL Programme. Only in 2012, we recorded over a thousand participants and this year from our records so far, 2281 young people (934 female and 1347 male) have been reached. This shows that the efforts the SELL Facilitator trainees and the Resource team are putting in delivering workshops to youth groups is yielding good results. This results I am talking about is not only in numbers but also qualitative impact. Some of the previous blogs carried testaments of how the experience of the SELL Programme has transformed young people. When young adults say things like; 

• “I no longer see the people of the other community as enemies,………” 
• “Women and children are equal human beings as men and should be equally respected”.
• “Now I am learning to know myself, I know what I can do and I will learn to develop my potential”.
• “The education of the woman does not end in the kitchen……….”
• “The earth holds us all, it is in our hands to care for it”. 

it keeps one going, because you know that change is on the way and it is possible. The testimonies from our participants are endless and spirit uplifting, we pray that the impact of the programme will continue to be felt by its beneficiaries. 

The highlight of events that took place this year are as follows;

We started the year 2013 with a SELL workshop with clients of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency NDLEA, Rehabilitation Centre, Bauchi, the following week was a training of mentors of SELL. Within the year, the Resource team and the SELL Volunteer facilitators delivered the SELL Programme among various youth groups in different communities within Nigeria and in Kumasi, Ghana. Apart from the mentoring training mentioned earlier, we were also involved in community trainings of facilitators both in Nigeria and in Kumasi, Ghana. We held two meetings with leaders of the community teams at the SELL office in Bauchi. A yearly event of the SELL Foundation called Annual General Reflection took place as well in April. An input on Islam was also given to an audience of invited guest who came to celebrate with one of the resource persons of the Foundation, Fr. Leo Traynor on the occasion of his Silver Jubilee as a priest. The input on Islam was given by Rev. Sister Katleen McGarvey who is an expert in that field. Lest I forget, the SELL Resource Team Building, evaluation and looking into the future programme also took place. To be candid we had some awesome moments of work this year, thanks to all who made it possible.

I Know that I have appreciated all and sundry, but I will not fail to mention specifically all our benefactors of the SELL programme; you who always care to log on to our website to read our blogs, the beneficiaries as they always yearn for the SELL Programme.

Remember I said we have a few Programmes before the end of the year;

• In Kumasi, Ghana the SELL Facilitators there are going to deliver the SELL Programme in series, I mean consecutively for the three Sundays that remain in this year. The workshop will be delivered to the youths at Akatago community in Kumasi, Ghana, we wish them the best with that.
• Also from Kumasi, the Facilitators of the SELL Programme there are having their end of year meeting on the 14th December, 2013. The Resource Team again wish you a wonderful and happy deliberation. 
• Just last Thursday, 12th December, 2013, a SELL Workshop on Community Building took place with the National Youth Service Corp Members, NYSC, Servicom Community Development group, Bauchi. NYSC, is a mandatory one year Scheme in Nigeria that offers young Nigerian graduates to serve their fatherland. Mary and Beji members of the Resource team facilitated the workshop. Corp members that took part in the programme were 18. I ceased an opportunity to chat with one of the participants during their break time and the lady said it was one of the best workshops she attended during her service year; they all look forward to another time with SELL.

For now, stay back and enjoy our photos from some of the workshops that took place in Kumasi Ghana and some from the workshop with Servicom corp members, Bauchi. It was nice having you on this page today. 

Maria Mhishap,

Communication Desk, SELL Foundation.

Hello, happy new month to you, at the Sharing Education and Learning for Life (SELL) Foundation, we are happy that the year 2013 is coming to an end. 2013 has done us a lot of good in relation to delivering workshops in Nigeria and Ghana. Though we also experienced some tragedies of the loss of three facilitators in training; Alex Matthew, Dominic Nege, and Marcus James, but we thank God for everything because he alone knows why we had to grieve at that time. 

This blog carries the report of the workshops delivered by the SELL Facilitators in training from various communities in the North East and Plateau State in Nigeria, as well as in Kumasi Ghana. The facilitators have shown great commitment to running the workshops in their various communities over time and we congratulate them because sharing is one of the methodologies of the programme. The SELL Programme encourages sharing with one another on our experiences through facilitated process and group discussions among members at any given time during workshop sessions. 

• In Zing town of Taraba State, Nigeria, the SELL Team there delivered the Justice unit of the SELL programme, the workshop happened on the 18th – 19th October, 2013. 9 Persons; 7 male and 2 female, attended the workshop. 
• Yola Community Team in Adamawa State, Nigeria, also had a SELL workshop on Self Awareness unit on the 19th October 2013. Attendance at the programme was 30 (17 male and 13 female).
• The SELL Team in Shendam, Plateau State, Nigeria, Facilitated four workshops in that area. Here is a run-down of these workshops.

• At Total area in Shendam town, a group of youths from the Catholic Church took part in the SELL Programme that was delivered in their church. The unit of the SELL that was explored there was Leadership and recorded 48 participants (31 male and 17 female).
• In a different town called Kwande, the Peace Building unit of SELL was delivered and 26 participants (19 male and 7 female) attended. 
• In another town called Kwalla, the Shendam SELL team delivered the Leadership unit of SELL to the youth of that community and 21 persons 5 of which are ladies turned out for the workshop.
• Lastly in Langtang town still in Plateau state, the SELL Programme was taken there for the first time and 21 persons took part in it. The resource team wish to applaud members of the SELL Team in Shendam for these great efforts they are putting in to support other young people through the formation programme of SELL.

From the SELL Resource Team,

• We had our annual end of year evaluation and looking into the future, on the 25th to 28th November, 2013. It was indeed a moment of great decision for SELL. Two external facilitators; Rita Schwarzenberger and Tommy Haydan guided the process. Some many concerns regarding the programme were raised and a lot of clarity came at the end. We are grateful to Rita and Tommy for their wealth of experience that they shared with the Team and above all grateful to God for seeing us through those moments.

• The Board of Trustee of the SELL Foundation also had her second meeting for this year on the 30th December, 2013.  
• Some things are difficult to say while others are just so easy. Over one year now we enjoyed a very good working relationship with one of our colleagues; Isaac Gbenga.  Now, Isaac has resigned his appointment with SELL Foundation. This is not for any ill reasons but to prepare for further studies. I must say that Isaac is a gentle man to the core, he showed dedication to service and is blessed with great human relationship skill. We will all miss Isaac at the Foundation, just so difficult to say goodbye.
• One of our resource persons, Fr. Leo Traynor who is also one of the authors of the SELL Programme will be going on sabbatical leave and that will take some time before he returns. The Resource team will miss Fr. Leo’s support and early planning abilities. He has always encouraged us to build relationship with people; he usually says “life is all about building relationships” among other moral supports we have gotten from him. We wish him God’s blessings in this endeavor he is set for.

I wish to thank you for staying with us on this page, see you again soon.

Mhishap (Maria), 

Communication desk, SELL