Parents and other stakeholders in public and private sectors have been tasked to profitably engage young people in order to raise responsible leaders within the school system.
In the quest to achieving the aforementioned objectives, LEAP Africa through its ILEAD programme has once again in Lagos, equipped teachers and other key stakeholders with the necessary skills.
Speaking during the stakeholders’ engagement meeting, the Executive Director, LEAP Africa, Femi Taiwo said the essences of the workshop for stakeholders was to deliberate on how to raise youth leaders in Africa who can contribute to problem-solving.
He said: ‘’Youth form 60 per cent of Africa’s population, and they are 100 per cent its future. Now is that time to prioritize youth issues and support them in channelling their agency towards social change. We must see them as part of solutions.’’
He told the stakeholders that expanding youths’ capacity to own and change the future of the continent should be their priority starting now.
According to Taiwo, one way of doing this is to start early by getting them to participate in community and peace initiatives.
Parents and teachers should help youths connect classroom learning with real-world situations in their communities.
This, he noted, holds the potential of broadening their horizon to see the world from a holistic perspective. It will activate youths to also begin to think about ways to initiate change and support the realization of the global goals.
Taiwo said: ‘’We want to raise young people who are contributors to the developmental agenda. We want to raise people who are not just young people that see problem that should be solved, but young people who can contribute to problem-solving.
‘’In a forum like this, we share the evidence of our impact on the lives of young people in the society. We also share challenges encountered in the field.
Parents should not leave youths training to teachers alone; they must participate in engaging the youth at home in contributing their quota to the society.
In order to equip parents and teachers with the necessary skills, we periodically organize training for them.
‘’For any aspect of our society to work, we need everyone’s involvement. All hands and hearts must be on deck for our society to work.
‘’We need to hold ourselves and the government accountable. We need to join hands with government to get problems solved. The society will get what we make of it. Private sector, public sector, every one of us must participate.’’
