Y4GG Blog Report

Executive Summary

The Youth 4 Global Goals campaign 2017 finally came to an end on the 28^th July 2017 with the climax event; the Youth Speak Forum which also featured the Global Goals Model Challenge finale at the Afe Babalola auditorium in the University of Lagos. It had been a long two months of hard work for Mojolaoluwa Keshiro and Praise Mbanali; charismatic co-ordinators being guided by AIESEC Lagos's wonderful Staff Adviser (Dr. Ekwoaba), the current President of AIESEC Lagos and a very wonderful, experienced and highly resourceful member of AIESEC, Ugochukwu Modum, who was also president of previous term. With all the beautiful colours, two course meals, photography flashes and happy smiles, you would think the campaign was easier than lifting your left ear (Don’t tell me you just tried it -__-). Fulfilling AIESEC’s partnership with the Un to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to the youth in world, they did their part in Lagos in three stages:

·       Visit to two schools (Two) which they did in Wuraville secondary school and Lagos Model  School, Badore.

·       Global Goals Model Challenege which was to challenege students of University of Lagos to model (either through writing or a physical model) a solution which will help achieve any of the goals that they are passionate about in Nigeria.

·       Youth Speak Forum which was to be an event to bring experienced people in the industry to the same space with the youth so that ideas can be exchanged about how we can achieve any of the seventeen SDGs in Nigeria.

Upon asking the co-ordinators, team selection started 4^th of May, 2017. They selected some wonderful head of teams that they dubbed as captains; Idris Oyebanji (Partnerships), Temilorun Adebayo (Logistics), Kenny Oni (corporate communications), Chiamaka Anyanwu (Media Partnerships), Adejoke Marquis (Publicity) and Abdul-Malik Oladimeji Edu (Creative content & Graphics). With these people and their respective teams, they started work two weeks after their first meeting on the hot afternoon of 8^th May. A lot of hard work, determined efforts, late nights, creative thinking, stepping on toes, stepping on feelings, pure passion, planning, scrapping, then re-planning went into sculpting that seemingly perfect day according to this wonderful team. One of the coordinators (Mojola) said “When I went to our first drafted plans on our group chat and I look at what we have in front of us today, I deeply believe, we can never underestimate planning and at the same time, we can’t underestimate the power of the Supreme plan. I also laugh because we underestimated our capacity in some things and overestimated it in other things”.

Mojola Keshiro

L-R Praise Mbanali, Idongesit Uko (VP Talent Management), Hassan Nurudeen (Local committee President) and Dr. Ekwoaba (Our lovely and indispensable Staff Adviser)

The Event

One of the hosts for the day: Mayowa Olarinmoye

Ready delegates

Ready Delegates

Down to the juice of the day. The event was hosted and guided to achievement by three highly charismatic persons; Ugochukwu Modum, Suzanne Ebnang and Mayowa Olarinmoye. With over 250 delegates in registered attendance; although the hall was averaging about 160 at a time (with people stepping out at different times to attend to different personal things), two highly engaging Key Note Speakers, eight panellists, eight finalists and three comperes, the hall never lacked for engagement. From electrifying discourses to playful bantering to inspirational and eureka moments of speeches to powerful and passionate spoken presentations by the participants (notice the play on Ps (Pun intended…. And still intending; Ohmigawd someone give me an Oscar) the Y4GG event was set up to be slightly below phenomenal and highly above fantastic.

The Panelists and Hosts

And it was. The event started at 10am and ran for six hours. The forum took up Three and a half hours and the Model Challenge occupied the rest. Mrs. Oluwatoyin Oguntuyi, Assistant General Manager, Access Bank Nigeria gave the first presentation, talking about Skill and Competency Acquisition and how it will benefit the young school leaver; also incorporating how we could work on the SDGs with any of our chosen skill set.

Toyin Oguntuyi

Then, the Panel Discussions followed; there were two of them. The first one centered on equality and fairness. The second one focused on the theme for the day “The SDGs – our role to perform as youths”. Different ideas were thrown around and contemplated upon. Thought-provoking questions were raised and in the end, you should not have missed it for the world. The panelists consisted of Mrs. Tracy Ubeku of the ECOWAS Lagos Office, Sonia Nelson founder of Project ’17, Olumide Idowu of Climate foundation, Jennifer Uchendu of Susty Vibes, Olasoji Fagbola of Sahara Group, Dr. Jacob Nwachukwu of Elyon Synergy and Ifeanyi Edeh of National Economic Summit group.

L-R Dr. Nwachukwu Ifeanyi Edeh

L-R Tracy Ubeku, Olumide Idowu, Sonia Nelso and Olasoji Fagbola

Jennifer Uchendu

GGMC Final

The second event of the day Kicked off at exactly 2:17pm. Eight Finalists in no particular order:

Moyinoluwa Jemiriye  -  Goal Six Clean water and sanitation – Written model

Nina Bot Timothy         -  Goal Six, Clean water and sanitation – Written Model

Divine Kingsley-Ediale  -  Goal Two, Zero hunger                        - Written Model

Ibrahim Anifowose       -  Goal Four, Quality Education              - Written Model

Elegonye Linda              -  Goal Five, Gender Equality                  - Written Model

Richard Nimeh               -  Goal Ten, Reduced Inequalities         -  Physical Model

Segun Ibiyemi                 - Goal Nine, Industry, Innovation         - Written Model

Simisola Keye                  - Goal Four, Quality Education             - Written Model

Elegonye Linda

Ibrahim Anifowose

Richard Niameh with his painting

Nina Bot Timothy

Kingsley-Ediale Divine

Simisola Keye

Moyinoluwa Jemiriye

Segun Ibiyemi

From the above, we ended up with Top three winners and prizes as follows:

Simisola Keye in first place with 250,000-naira worth scholarship to travel anywhere within Kenya Airways network.

Ibrahim Anifowose in second place with 200,000-naira scholarship to travel anywhere within Kenya Airways network.

Nina Bot Timothy in third place with 20,000 naira knocked off the admin fee, 10,000-naira cash prize and mentorship by an SDG enthusiast.

Winner of GGMC Final

Congratulations to the winners above and I wish for them, perseverance in the line of the SDGs. Congratulations also to the coordinators, organisers, volunteers and everyone who sowed a seed into the dream of a successful Y4GG event as it has germinated. Now, It’s time for them to harvest the fruits, and save some to plant again so they can harvest more. Congratulations to AIESEC Lagos.

Yours Truly,

Mojolaoluwa Keshiro

Y4GG Project Co-Coordinator

Alumni Manager

(LC motivator, 😊)

*Disclaimer, all characters in parentheses are side comments to not be taken out of context or seriously. They are just to lighten the mood and should be ignored if found offensive