The Life Skills and Leadership Development program was sponsored by Strategy and Innovation for Development Initiative and has given over 500 students in Nigeria access to very educative modules aimed at enhancing their livelihood support skills. The project taught the participants skills to aid their decision-making when choosing a career, giving them vital information on how to make better financial decisions, enhance communication whilst understanding their selves better.
As the project lead, it has really been a rewarding experience for me. This project gave me the opportunity to meet and train enablers, their contributions and energy they brought into play while coaching the students really made us understand the importance of the project and we felt its impact.
The project took place concurrently in four states across Nigeria – Makurdi in Benue state, Jos in Plateau state, Lokoja in Kogi state, and Abuja Municipal in the Federal Capital Territory. I traveled to all these locations where I trained over 40 SI4DEV volunteers and partners as enablers of the Life Skills project. They were trained to facilitate the modules in the project manual for the student participants, and also learned skills in peer group support, public speaking, community and stakeholder engagement among others.
Over the last one year, we have had students make informed decisions about who they want to become and why. Many of them are more certain of the courses they want to study in the University as a result of this program.
We have students who are now very proud of who they are because they now understand their temperaments, they know their strengths and weaknesses. Most importantly, we have created a safe space in these schools for students to be free, share their challenges and receive good counsel as a result of the Life Skills Project.
Enjoy some of these pictures below from the Enabler’s training.
More pictures from the school rollout..