Greetings to you our esteem reader, it feels great to be with you again this week with so many stories to share from SELL, I am going to take each story at a time. So for this blog, you will be reading the story from Kabba.
Yes I remember so well that in my last blog, I reported that a SELL training took place in Kabba, Kogi State, Nigeria. Kabba has a wonderful history with SELL, the long and short of this history is that the well Known SELL programme started in Kabba with Frs. Leo Traynor and Noel McGeeney authoring and piloting it and shortly after joined by Jonathan Ekhartor and Moses Alokpa. It will amaze you to know that it was two of the pioneers of the programme Moses and Jonathan who went back to Kabba to deliver the training even though Jonathan works with a different organization now.
The training started on the 31st May – 5th June, 2015 at the former Centre for human development, now Diocesan Pastoral Centre. Two units of the SELL Programme where explored; the Self Awareness and Leadership units.
Moses, a member of the SELL Resource Team and one of the facilitators said the training was worthwhile and the young people who were 18 in number were very intelligent and they made the process very engaging. The challenging part of the training were the issues that came up during the sexual health session; these include the trend of Incest in Nigeria, Homosexuality, pornography, lack of proper education around sexuality etc. The participants shared their dismay on how their society is nonchalant about such vital topics. Action plans were drawn on steps to take that may curtail such ignorance and create awareness on the importance to talk about the human sexuality at all strata of the society.
Moses, a member of the SELL Resource Team and one of the facilitators said the training was worthwhile and the young people who were 18 in number were very intelligent and they made the process very engaging. The challenging part of the training were the issues that came up during the sexual health session; these include the trend of Incest in Nigeria, Homosexuality, pornography, lack of proper education around sexuality etc. The participants shared their dismay on how their society is nonchalant about such vital topics. Action plans were drawn on steps to take that may curtail such ignorance and create awareness on the importance to talk about the human sexuality at all strata of the society.
Moses and Jonathan both confessed that working in Kabba again was nostalgic to them. Of course I cannot end this update without showering accolade to Taiye Mofolorunsho who is a Facilitator of the SELL Programme from Kabba and works as the Programmes Coordinator of the Centre for human development. In the same vein, the Director of the Centre Fr Donatus Ogunleye was wonderful too. The duo planned the logistics of the training and made sure it happened. James Olorunmolu who was trained as SELL Facilitation with Taiye back then was also at this training to give moral support to the trainees
Still at Kabba, the leaders of the Catholic Women Organisation (CWO), Lokoja Diocese came together and asked to utilize the opportunity of the presence of the facilitators and take a unit of the SELL Programme. As a result, the day the facilitators training ended, the women who were 42 in number, came together and took the Leadership unit of SELL. After exploring the sessions of the units, the facilitators used great wisdom and came up with some of the key issues on sexuality that were shared by the youths during the training and the women agreed that, less information on sexuality was a challenge to them in their community. They were also assisted to come up with an action plan as mothers that will help members of their families to become aware and properly deal with the challenges around sexuality and sexual health.
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog, please stay with us, because you are soon to hear about two members of the SELL Resource team who went for studies at South Africa and are back, and also the facilitators training in Yola and other SELL community workshops that took place during the week gone by.
Maria Dagogot.
Maria Dagogot.
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