After a
long process of writing, rewriting, adjusting and readjusting the country
strategy plan one thing stayed the same. One focus area never changed: Nigerian
Youth. This is not strange and surprising as in ‘People First’ VSO
internationals new strategy youth also gets a big role to play in development.
The
youth position paper ‘VSO and Youth’ is written in addition to the strategy to
explain the important role youth fulfills in global development.
According to the UN Population Division young people form the largest demographic
group globally. Some figures to give an impression; in 2010 29% of the
population in more developed was younger than 25 and this was 60% in least
developed countries in the world. With these figures in the back of our minds
VSO International recognises three core principles governing their work with
young people. The first is applying an integrated approach to youth work. VSO
recognises young people as actors, leaders and collaborators in development as
well as targets or recipients of development programmes. Also participation of
young people is essential, moving young people from targets to actors. Involving and taking on greater
responsibilities and agency in the designing, planning and implementation of
development work. Final core principles of youth work, such as: learning by
doing, supporting young people to be able to make the contributions they want
and develop in ways they see as critical.
When you
look around you in Nigeria, or maybe a bit broader West Africa, you see a huge
group of young people; most of them un(der)employed or even unemployable. No
wonder more and more funders are starting to focus on the youth as a tool to
development. VSO Nigeria has now several programmes, in past and present,
especially designed to involve Nigerian youth in community development. We have
Nigerian Graduate Volunteering Programme (NGVP), to enable personal growth for
young graduates by supporting rural communities as teachers in schools. We also
have had experience with Global Xchange and Youth Action as programmes with the
British Council. For these programmes young people (18 – 25) from the UK and
Nigeria worked together in communities for 3 months in a row. As the name
Global Xchange is already suggesting, the young Nigerians also went to the UK.
The focus in all these programmes is on personal development and understanding
of under-development of rural communities in all contexts.
Now VSO Nigeria renamed the Youth
Action into VSO International Citizen Service (VSO ICS), this was in
collaboration with the Department for International Development (DFID). Young
Nigerians from all backgrounds will be recruited to work together in rural
communities with similar UK youth. They will work in communities in Oyo, Kwara,
Osun, Kaduna and Cross River State. The outcomes VSO Nigeria aims for with this
programme are clear. First of all it aims for personal and social development
for participating youth. Youth from all backgrounds are encouraged to take part
in ICS, with this VSO Nigeria hopes to anticipate on interaction between
different levels in society. As well as building confidence based on positive
experience. Secondly there is focus on
community development. The groups will work closely together on projects within
one community. This way VSO wants to make bigger impact in that community. The
last, but not least, aim is to build a global network in which the youth will
be acting as advocates for international development and agents for social
change in their own communities and beyond.
As VSO ICS will start in July 2012,
most partners came to Abuja for a participatory workshop on how to shape and
build the programme for the different states we will be working with. Hope
World Wide in Osun and Kwara state will kick off the programme. They did get a
lot of support from all the other partners that will step in at a later date
during 2012.
No comments:
Post a Comment