Proud

After all those stories of ritual killings in Ilorin I was not so keen on going there,  but now I am back I am so glad I visited that place.

It is a nice quiet, big city. It is even clean if you compare it to Lafia. People are friendly and seem to be hard working. It was so different from what I know from my side of Nigeria.

I did go to Ilorin to get a clear view on the National Graduate Volunteering Program, the program I am working for as a teacher trainer and now also as a national coordinator. Through this program we want to encourage young Nigerians to help developing their country through education and community work. Right now we work with 7 NGV’s in Nassarawa, 9 in Kwara, 11 in Kano and 2 in the Demonstration School for Deaf Children in Kaduna. In each state there was supposed to be an international volunteer working as a teacher trainer, but only Lea and I were there. Now Lea has left Nigeria I am the only one working in all states. It is a busy future for me but that’s better than doing not much.

My visit to Kwara was to see if and how I can get new life into the program there. The former government neglected it and NYSC and VSO didn’t pull any strings to get it moving. So now I am the one trying and to be honest I am hopeful. The commissioner of the Ministry of Education made some promises that were really promising. Also CSACEFA was positive about their support for this program. It were nice first meetings with these parties.

On the last day I had organized, with great help from Matthew and Micheal, a meeting with the NGV’s in Kwara. They all came down for this meeting and they were so full of energy!

During the meeting we did a SWOT-analyses. Interesting statements came out of that. Very useful for further exploration. Some things like: using old national volunteers to monitor the new volunteers or during the send forth event in the end there should be a major item about CV writing and job hunting. Maybe even invite possible employers so the volunteers can present themselves.

Also a more urgent and more important item came up; there should be a solid framework around the NGVP in every state, a good job description for volunteers and a good memorandum of understanding for all partners in each state. All roles and responsibilities should be clear and monitored. It would be nice if the monitoring and evaluation would be imbedded in this all.

Very helpful and promising as I may say. Thank you guys!