Monday 8 November 2010

Students doing their dance








Students participating in the projects doing their dance and cultural thing.
It was fun

Watch out for more details and pictures on this blog

Ogaga Maxwell

Nigeria

Monday 18 October 2010

ARTS knows no culture, gender or religion











The project has been going on and the students are passionate about their ARTs work, we spent this week teaching students how to work with creative Arts materials and produce what is in their mind

And we have opened them up to the dimension of creative arts and how to communicate their minds through arts.

The students are excited and many of them are beginning to value their arts gift, a student of one of the polytechnic who saw the project banner came into the hall and volunteered to also assist us in teaching the students about the art project and how to work with paper.

Pictures we have attached are those of one of the arts class we were teaching and they were asked to do a practical work of the map of Africa and also to write about peace.

We have a little set back on the cultural dance because we now observed that most schools have not been very particular about cultural dances, so we have also as part of the project started carrying out enlighten campaign on the role of culture in peace building.

The beauty of what we are doing now is that, in the schools we also have Muslims and Christian students working together in their various arts project groups, this is aimed at passing a message that we can work together regardless of our differences and that ART truly can bring us together, because paints knows no gender, race or colour that is what we are projecting.

Thursday 7 October 2010

P.E.A.C.E. Project progresses to the next stage





Project Update

The students after going through their rounds of practicals from our peer instructors on Creative Arts, been able to express their thoughts and feelings through simple Arts and also going through the basics of Essay writing, they would this Saturday compete amongst themselves in the area of Creative Arts and also essay writing to know which of them would be able to express the best of what PEACE means to them.
Through the project funding we are making all materials free to them and the students are eager to show case what they have learnt.
The objective of teaching them this is that they can make the best of their emotions through the arts and use them as a tool for peace building and solving inter religious fights. Instead of drawing what will offend people (The case of the cartoon of Mohammed that drew wide spread criticism and almost a global case of violence) we can use arts for peace and also instead of writing stories against people in their classes or schools and other religion that can stir up strife and violence as young people we can turn that tool already.

Through the skills I learnt from the YAC course on Creative writing, I was able to also inform them on basic keys and shared with them the experience we had with the blog and also the importance of headlines and we encourage as many as have access to the internet to start blogging and they were greatly excited about the project.
A lot of school principal that their student could not participate were so angry that they have asked us if we can make it an annual event, increase the number of participating schools and also make room for more participants.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Jonathan using intimidation over Nigeria bombings: rivals

ABUJA (AFP) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's political rivals on Tuesday accused him of intimidation and witchhunting as an aide of a former military ruler was questioned over last week's bomb blasts.

Ibrahim Babangida's campaign chief for the next year's presidential elections, Raymond Dokpesi, was questioned by the state intelligence agents, as Jonathan met with former militants who assured that they had no role in Friday's attacks that killed 12 people.

More than 60 former rebel commanders and fighters from the oil rich Niger Delta went to tell Jonathan they were not involved in twin car bomb attacks in the capital as the west African country hosted 50th independence anniversary celebrations.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), in a statement claimed responsibility for the attacks.

MEND's former leader, Henry Okah was quickly arrested after the attacks in South Africa where he lives.

Four powerful politicians who are vying along with Jonathan for the ruling Peoples Democratic Party's ticket in next year's elections, said authorities' attempts to implicate Babangida's aide is a sign of intimidation.

"This latest attempt to demonise Dr Dokpesi and cast him in the mould of a terrorist is but a small part of an escalating culture of impunity, recklessness, intolerance and arbitrariness," said the politicians.

The statement was signed by Babangida and three other presidential hopefuls.

"We consider this as political witch-hunt," said Kassim Afegbua, Babangida's spokesman told AFP.

Jonathan is facing pressure from the four politicians amidst a row in the ruling party over whether to support him or a candidate from the mainly Muslim north.

The four are all Muslims while Jonathan is a southern Christian.

An unwritten PDP policy has long dictated that the party rotate its candidates between the Muslim north and predominantly Christian south every second term as a way of smoothing over ethnic, religious and social divides in the vast west African country.

Since president Umaru Yar'Adua, a Muslim, died before his first term was up, some argue another northern candidate should be chosen.

Meantime, Okah told the Qatar-based television station Al-Jazeera that he was arrested because he refused to play a part in implicating northern politicians in the bomb blast.

He said one of Jonathan's aide had called him and asked him to persuade MEND to retract its claim of responsibility for the Abuja attacks.

"They wanted to blame the attacks on northerners who are trying to fight against him (Jonathan) to come back as president. I declined to do this and a few hours later I was arrested," he said.

But Jonathan's office refuted Okah's claims as an "outright lie".

"He should face the charges and stop making frivolous claims," said Jonathan's spokesman Ima Niboro.

Jonathan has blamed the attacks on "a small terrorist group that resides outside Nigeria that was paid by some people."

On Tuesday dozens of former rebels visited Jonathan to tell him they played no role in the attacks.

"We are not part of the incident on the 1st of October," Government Ekpemupolo, popularly known as 'Tompolo', told Jonathan at a meeting that was open to journalists.

"MEND is not involved," said Tompolo, claiming to be a leader of MEND, the most prominent of several groups in Nigeria's southern oil-rich swamps.

"I'm happy that you are here as the actors and leaders of MEND, to tell Nigerians and the rest of the world that it is not MEND that did it," he told the former fighters.

Sunday 3 October 2010

P.E.A.C.E. Project commences with excitement



P.E.A.C.E PROJECT
(Peace Education, Arts and Cultural Empowerment).

The project kicked of with four schools participating and it was an awesome time as we had over 40 students in attendance.
One of the highlight of the project was the excitement in the face of the students as they came into the hall for the commencement of the project. One of the objective is to use culture and arts to foster peace and teach the message of peace.
This week the students were taught the basics of creative arts and essay writing. They were taught by Lemuel David-Ogaga a fine art student of University of Benin, Lucky Ogumah the project director of Dare 2 Dream Youth Initiative a creative gifted artist and Ese Erakpotobor a student of College of Education Warri, who taught them the basics of Essay writing. All the teachers are volunteer workers with Dare 2 Dream Youth Initiative and are fully part of the project.
The students next week would have a competition amongst themselves on how they can promote peace through their arts and the best essay writer would also be given an award.



The Cultural troupes of the school would also participate in the competition; this is to encourage the use of culture in our schools and amongst our students
FEEDBACK:
The students were excited about the project as for a long time as opposed to inter school fights they are now seeing positive competition amongst themselves and at the same time, working on their creative arts skills.
Principals of the students that attended were so happy with the project and they want us to make it an annual event, as more schools are interested in participating in the project.
Ogaga E. Maxwell
E.D Dare 2 Dream Youth Initiative
Warri, Delta State, Nigeria

Saturday 18 September 2010

P.E.A.C.E. (Peace Education, Arts and Culture Empowerment)

P.E.A.C.E. (Peace Education, Arts and Culture Empowerment)

Project description:

The project is aimed at reaching at least 200 secondary school students in the Niger delta region of Nigeria, Warri, Delta State specifically. The project seeks to use the tool of arts and culture to create awareness and the need for peaceful interreligious co-existence in the region amongst students who are emerging leaders. The project participants will be selected from seven different schools. They will have classes in Basic easy writing and also Creative arts skills. After classes a competition will be announced among the participants for a prize in the categories of the best peace essay writer and best creative art student. The project will be summarized with a one day summit where the winners will be awarded the prizes in two categories, with a cultural dance troupe competition amongst the seven schools and with three key lectures on Peace building & tolerance skills, Academics & Life building skills, Good governance and basic leadership lectures, including the importance of culture in peace building.

Week One:

The project have commenced and what we did this week was to buy the Arts materials and also contact the schools that will participant.

The schools just resumes, so activities are coming on gradually, but the students are excited about the project.

By next week we would have full details of the project.

Wednesday 1 September 2010

FD Participant uses knowledge gained from FD Course to impact peers.






When I got in contact with the Youth Action for Change I knew it was going to be a lifetime experience that will positively impact my life. The introduction of courses during the FD project was of immense benefit, one of the courses we did then was on communications and writing especially on blogging.


Since the course I have been a blogger and an author of three books, August 14th specifically, I passed on the knowledge by organizing a creative writing workshop for young people and over 21 of them came from different locations around my region.
We had three guest lecturers the prominent been a USA best selling fiction author DR Sherri Lewis who was the main resource person and other includes Mr. Alexander Ighoro and Chima Ochemba.


The participants were happy about the course and requested for more of those forum to be created and were willing to sign up for an online course.
Ogaga E. Maxwell

Dare 2 Dream Youth Initiative
Warri, Delta State, Nigeria

Wednesday 28 July 2010

FD participant attends The World Bank Global Youth Summit on Anti-Corruption in Brussels.



Background of GYAC engagement’s with Anti Corruption

On May 26th 2010 50 young people from across the globe convened in Brussels for an Anti corruption Convention. The three day convention saw the birth of Global Youth Against Corruption network.(GYAC). The group which comprised of civil society leaders, musicians and journalist sought to launch a fascinating anti corruption campaign initiative.
Throughout the convention the 50 young people without hesitation and doubts agreed on a number of things: ……..
Corruption is a complex social, political and economical phenomenon that affects all countries. How to define corruption is a bedeviling question since essentially there is no single comprehensive and universal accepted definition and secondly it’s difficult to get a definition that is devoid of the moral or normative judgment of the observer.
Corruption imposes substantial and widespread societal costs, impending economic development, limiting the Efficiency of public services and weakening political institutions by undermining trust in the government. Corruption has further ramifications, when corrupts leaders waste aid money, siphon national resources and build up foreign debt development is hindered and common people are deprived of basic services and any economic strategy geared to lifting them from the yokes of poverty lives them in an even worse state.
Far from being a Victimless crime corruption infringes the fundamental human right to fair treatment. All persons are entitled to be treated equally and when one person bribes a public official he acquires a privileges status in relation to others that person denies the others the right to equal treatment. Furthermore Corruption leads to infringement of civil and political Rights this happens when electoral process is interfered with and when leaders are perceived as being corrupt become afraid to involve the people in decision making process thus denying them space to participate in governance.
They also agreed that cannot be tackled in isolation from other issues and this lead to the formation of five thematic scopes:

Thematic Scope and FOCUS of GYAC
Fighting Corruption in Resource-Rich Countries
Promoting Youth Participation in Governance
Monitoring Elections and Protecting Human Rights
Building Ethics and Integrity of the Next Generation
Fighting Corruption in Service Deliveries

And since corruption is a joint problem for the developed and developing counties the Geographical focus of GYAC covers 6 regions:
The Geographical Scope and Focus of GYAC
• Africa
• East Asia
• Asia Pacific
• Middle East
• Latin America
• Europe

Output and outcomes expected from GYAC
• Increased networking and collaboration with other youth groups championing a similar cause
• Extensive use of ICT in anti Corruption campaign
• Coordination of Anti corruption initiative in the 6 geographical areas
• Employment of culture in ant Corruption campaigns

Friday 30 April 2010

COMMUNIQUÉ YOUTH SUMMIT ON THE 2011 GENERAL ELECTIONS

COMMUNIQUÉ

YOUTH SUMMIT ON THE 2011 GENERAL ELECTIONS

Preamble:

On April 28, 2010; youth organizations from the 36 states of the federation held a one-day summit on the 2011 elections with support from the International Republican Institute (IRI). The summit took place at the Asaa Pyramid Hotel, Kaduna. The event provided an opportunity for us, the Nigerian youth, to acquire knowledge on the rights and privileges we have to responsibly participate in the 2011 elections. The presentations and discussions at the workshop enriched our understanding of the responsibility we have as the future leaders of our country to positively contribute our quota towards achieving peaceful and credible elections in 2011. In addition to this were able to identify a number of things we can do, like civic education, to improve the participation of our peers in the up general elections.

The summit facilitated group discussions which focused on why and how Nigerian youth can get involved with political parties, what we can do about civic education, how we can contribute to peaceful elections in 2011 and how to monitor the entire 2011 electoral process and ensure its credibility. Our discussions were guided by some local, regional and international legal instruments, like the 1999 constitution, the African Youth Charter, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1976), the United Nations World Program of Action Youth to the Year 2000 and beyond.

Observations

Youth at the summit made the following observations:

1. Participants noted, discussed and identified the participatory right of youths in the general elections in Nigeria as provided by enabling laws.

2. Participants also identified, discussed and established the responsibilities of the youths to the state.

3. The participants noted that the leaders of Nigeria have failed to pass on to the youth good legacies, standards, and morals that will serve as a foundations for them to build better leadership; whereas youths are meant to be a vanguard of trust for elections not just in Nigeria but in all the countries of the world.

4. Participants admitted that there has been a great reluctance by the youth to take actions to ensure that they make concrete inputs in the electoral and leadership processes of the country.

5. The summit observed that there is a low appreciation of the need to embrace networking as a means of engineering lasting change in the Nigeria’s political processes.

6. Participants observed that a high percentage of Nigerian youth did not have valid voters cards, and stood the risk of not being able to vote in the 2011 general elections

7. Participating youth at the summit also observed that quite a number youth were not registered members of political parties and could not exploit the platform of any Nigeria’s 57 political parties to contest elections.


8. Summit participants noted that Nigerian youth have so far failed to utilize the knowledge and skills gained at workshops in the development and implementation strategy-based interventions in the electoral process.

9. During the discussions, it was clearly highlighted that there exist an absence of local structures of political relevance in Nigeria.

10. Participants lamented the low publicity and visibility of youth programmes and called on youth organizations to seek the assistance of development agencies like IRI to correct the anomalies

11. The participants observed that contrary to the request of the youth that the age benchmark for qualification to run for elective positions be reduced, the National Assembly passed the opposite by increasing the age benchmark. The youth’s request on this matter was contained in a memorandum they presented at the National Assembly public hearings on constitutional reform.

Recommendations

Having considered our discussions at the summit and stating necessary observations, we the Nigerian youth from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory resolve as follows:

1. There is an immediate need to further sensitize the youths on their rights in the 2011 general elections as provided by the enabling laws.

2. The Nigerian youth must answer the clarion call of dutifully exercising the responsibilities of a citizen to the state.

3. The youth must assume a leading role and serve as the vanguard of trust for every phase of elections in Nigeria

4. The youth should make emphatic inputs into the electoral and leadership processes of the country.

5. Measures should be put in place to ensure that the youth embrace participatory networking

6. That all youths should get registered to vote during elections to be directly involved in the election of their leaders.

7. We resolve also that youths should join political parties i.e. become card-carrying members of the parties to have a stronger influence on the political process.


8. That youth; especially youth leaders should make maximum use of workshops and seminars deploying strategy-based interventions to promote active youth participation in the electoral process.

9. That local structure of political relevance should be put in place in Nigeria by the government and the development agencies.

10. That youth organizations should engage more time and energy to liaise with development agencies and bodies like IRI, NED and NDI e.t.c to promote their activities

11. The youth should mobilize themselves to lobby their representatives in the state Houses of Assembly as well as trying other available options permissible under our law to ensure that the age limit for contestants into elective offices is reduced

Motion for Adoption of Communiqué

Moved by Nentawe Gomiyar of the Youth Advancement Initiative, Nassarawa road, Kaduna

Seconded by Ogaga Maxwell of the Dare 2 Dream Youth Initiative, Warri, Delta state.

Communiqué put to vote and unanimously adopted by 4:30 pm on April 28, 2010.

Thursday 29 April 2010

YOUTH SUMMIT ON THE 2011 ELECTIONS

YOUTH SUMMIT ON THE 2011 ELECTIONS
@ Asaa Pyramid Hotel, Kaduna

Had a great time in Kaduna, connected with some old great friends and the DESPLAY family guys and also made new friends and expanded my network.
The Ancient city of Kaduna is a great city and I really enjoyed my stay.
The summit focused on 2011 elections, had an awesome opening speech by Bola Abimbola- Youngstars Jos. And Dr Mourtada Deme-IRI Country Director
The issue surrounding Youth and Elections was the high point of the one day summit, Dr Sadeeque Abba of the University of Abuja, set fire in our bones.
He said “the Nigerian youth have come to a point of frustration and compromise” but we have the opportunity to take 2011 in our hands. Gowon at 29 became a leader; Murtala Mohammed at 35 became a leader.
There are no elections without youths he said. Societies, nations and organizations are transformed by youths.
The way forward we need to Educate ad Enlighten ourselves as young people and then collaborate to set up platforms for youth engagement, because you would always need a platform.
The last quote was food for thought “There wise will suffer the rules of the fools if they cannot stand” Aristotle.
It is time for Nigerian youths to stand u, we cannot suffer the rules of any one who is not passionate about youth development and sustainable development.
The rights and responsibilities of the youths in 2011 elections was the focal point of discussion, and strategies were developed by various groups.
Nigeria Youths! Arise O Compatriot.


Ogaga E. Maxwell
Delta State Delegate
IRI Youth Summit on 2011 Elections,