Leap Africa reiterates commitment to equip youths in SDGs actualisation
In efforts to commemorate the International Youth Day (IYD), Leap Africa has reiterated its commitment to building the capacity of young people as ready talents in the actualisation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
With only a decade to reach the global goals, the group said it has commenced plans with “Youth Day of Service” (Y-DoS), an annual action-driven social impact campaign.
The campaign called on young people and youth-focused organisations across sectors and locations around Nigeria, to participate in social change projects that are targeted towards one of the SDGs.
At a press conference, Executive Director, LEAP Africa, Femi Taiwo, said the Y-DoS presented the group with a unique opportunity to mobilise the efforts, energies, creativity and agency of young people across board; and to rally an ecosystem of like-minded organisations to support and advance efforts towards localising and achieving the SDGs.
He maintained that enabling prosperity for young minds had become a priority for global policies, recognising organisations as important partners in realising such aspirations.
The initiative, Taiwo affirmed, would foster strong collaborations for like-minded individuals and organisations. He said that participants would carry out physical projects or active virtual advocacy in different locations as either project initiators or volunteers on existing projects listed on the Y-DoS online portal.
“The campaign will attract change agents from across Africa who would share their positive change projects from their respective locations via social media using the hashtag #YouthDayofService and #Youth4SDGs. The objective is to spur young people to champion social change in communities and demonstrate by doing; influence others to take on personal leadership and be the change they want to see in society,” he said
For today’s youth to achieve transformation, Taiwo harped on 5Ts – Time, Talents, Thought, Treasure, and Tools
Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Sunday Dare, who was represented by an official, gave a breakdown of what the Ministry had done so far in the actualisation of the SDGs.He spoke about how the Ministry is collaborating with organisations to collectively create an enabling environment for Nigerian youth.
He mentioned lack of funds and shortage of skills as some of the challenges facing today’s youth, noting that despite the schemes and projects put in place by the Federal Government, the majority of them don’t get to those who needed them.
To tackle this, he said the Ministry initiated the Nigerian Youth Investment Fund (NYIF), which will kick off in October, while application commences in September.
He said: “We are working to ensure solutions and an enabling environment is created for our youth to thrive. We ensure we create the right framework to tackle all these. Our vision is to ensure that no youth is left behind. We need to create jobs and wealth for Nigerians to survive. We need to come together to have a proud future for our youth.”Some organisations at the briefing spoke on the need to reach out to every youth to galvanise and make the world a better place.
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