The President of Junior Chamber International (JCI) Nigeria, Adetola Juyitan, has proposed to partner with like-groups to push the limit of youth empowerment and development.
Juyitan said this recently in Lagos while giving an account of the stewardship of JCI Nigeria in the last six months.
She charged youths to rise to the occasion by engaging themselves productively, adding that the organisation was ready and determined to assist them to nurture their innovative skills and talents into rewarding ventures through its numerous programmes.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Act As One’, Juyitan noted that JCI Nigeria has designed programmes tailored towards enhancing the capacity of the youth particularly on leadership and entrepreneurial skills urging youths to take advantage of the opportunities.
According to the president, the organisation has been recognising the enormous role of youths in different spheres of human endeavour through innovative ideas and solutions by designing initiative for that purpose.
“Today, we have an initiative or a programme titled, ‘Ten Outstanding Young Persons’ (TOYP) in Nigeria that we carry out to encourage people to nominate anyone they feel has carried out great projects wherever that person is. Though the government may not have noticed them, they are making waves in their little way.
“It is interesting to know that a lot of people that we know today such as Linda Ikeji, Rotimi Amaechi were noticed, identified and rewarded by JCI through this particular programme. We had recognised the impact they were making even before the world got to know much about them. TOYP is a platform that gives young people the opportunity to be seen while also opening doors for them globally.
Since we started the programme in Nigeria, some of the winners have gone ahead to win at the global stage. Two years ago, we had two winners at the world stage and last year, we had one person. We recently won six awards at a global meet in Mauritius,” she said.
While seeking support from well-meaning individuals and organisations to deliver on such responsibility, she added that JCI Nigeria remains open to partnership and alliance that is geared towards making life better for the youth.
“JCI is an organisation that unites all sectors of society. In all that we do, we do our best to involve the government, those in the business community.
We try to cover that area in the course of the year. We have been able to sign up several partnerships. Some are still in the offing, some we have started mining the rewards and benefit. Of course, we have carried out several projects and programmes in the year. We have been involved in courtesy visits to traditional rulers, bank directors, multinational firms, heads of diplomatic missions all in a bid to seek support and partnership and other benefits for our youth,” she said.
While outlining some of the achievements of JCI Nigeria, Juyitan stated that it was gratifying to note that the organisation has significantly played its role in creating a better society for the youth given the number of programmes that have been held to enhance their capacity since it came into being.
Also, the Executive Secretary, JCI Nigeria, Adeyemo Adeonipekun, noted that the ‘advocacy programme ’ as well as the ‘JCI story’ embarked on by the organisation are classic examples of projects, which have had a far-reaching impact on the youth for a positive cause.
“We are planning to host International Youth Day which has been fixed for August 20, 2019. There is also the Lady Mechanic initiative where we are expected to train as many members as possible. For us, we will continue to initiate programmes that cater to the need of the youth just as we have done on past projects,” he disclosed.
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