Tiny Drops of Rain Make a Mighty Ocean – GYSD in Retrospect

Not many of us are privileged to know what goes on in the Whatsapp platform for Group Admins. It’s sort of a House of Representatives. The platform comprises Administrators of Focus and Location Groups. When the GYSD notification began to be published on our various groups, I could see that many needed clarification on what it was. It felt different from our normal kind of activities. The decision to join Youth Service America had been taken in the Admin Group. It wasn’t until we had it published on our website and sent to our emails that we, the Admins, could clearly explain what it was about to our group members, because we had them read the link or get more understanding from the mails.

But of a truth, Admins who weren’t present at the time we were deliberating on signing up even had to do a back-reading of posts to comprehend what we had begun. The truth is that our decision was ignited like fire and that fire continued to burn until the very last day. Truly, GYSD has been the greatest achievement since the 2018 Partners signed up. The outcome was impressive and you can see that we became the news. But how did it all begin? I will tell you how little drops of rain can make a mighty ocean.

Emmanuella Ikommon aka Mansy one day posted a link on the Admin Group. The link was a UN Youth Envoy’s tweet on GYSD. Hours later, our Program Manager , Nkem Akinsoto came online, liked the post, saying “this is good but time is short… anyone interested in working with us?” I can remember me- alias Opeyemi being the first to raise my hand, while four others subsequently joined. Then Grace Jimbo aka Gracefirstlady came on board to explain that her understanding of the document attached to the tweet was that we needed to reach at least 1000 youth; but I quickly added that if 10 groups could target 100 youths each, that would do. She then asked me to take note of the groups indicating interest, and that is when it truly began!

I took it as a point of duty to update the list at every indication of group interest, to a point that someone told me the next day that I did not let her sleep because of the incessant beeping of her phone. However, she admitted that I was too committed to what I set my mind to do. The truth is that I had learnt updating of lists from other Whatsapp groups, that I was so certain that it would work on people and their psychic. The passion and energy came from updates, as groups who saw the growing list without their names felt left out and decided to join. In total, after a day, we were able to get about 14 groups on sign up list.

One other thing that boosted the moral of groups and members was the release of cash for the production of T-shirt within this time and a bell that sounded like if you are not in GYSD, you’re not in anything. But of all, I want to say that what made GYSD a great success was the commitment we engaged in doing what we had to do diligently.

Individually, investing our time, energy, money and other resources were the tiny drops of rain that made the mighty ocean. Synergy was the winning ticket. Imagine if we hadn’t been committed to or passionate about GYSD, we would never had accomplished what we achieved. You know, Nkem had feared that time was short, but throughout the journey we never thought or spoke of that, all we knew was that it was going to be a success and so it eventually was.

When next we have a task to accomplish, let’s not be bothered by the probability of possibility, if we put our mind to it, then certainly, our little drops of rain will make a mighty ocean.