By Angela Ijeoma Ekwowusi
To bridge the gap in acquiring accessible and innovative educational development in Nigeria with other climes, an empowerment foundation, GENACH Incorporation has unveiled her maiden edition of educational empowerment programmes among school children and university graduates in Benin City, Edo State.
The programmes which amongst others was intended to have a global perspective with a goal to provide educational resources, skills training and opportunities for personal and professional development to individuals world wide.
The event which was held recently at the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub had participants drawn from selected government schools in the state capital and notable speakers from the literal and educational field to groom the youngsters.
The founder of the organisation cum the convener of the programme, Chukwuka Eneogwe enthused on the vision of the body as in creating value and offering it to the world while the mission is to educate and empower the right resources for the right results.
His words: “We are a non-profit organisation who is into skill development, job creation and empowerment programmes. We want to see how we can contribute to the society in our own way. We have found out that there’s a gap. The government can’t do all of it prompting us to come out as a body to see how to impart and give our quota to the society as well.
“This is the first edition of our empowerment programme and we are believing and trusting God that it will go very well. We are looking at our target audience to be between age 14 to 52. We have three vehicles to actualise our goal: through education, through training and through empowerment.
“GENACH has a vision which is to create value and offer it to the world then our mission is to educate and empower the right resources for the right results.”
Continuing he said, “we want to reach to people through two tools: education and empowerment. That’s why we are having this kind of programme. Bringing children from different schools to come and teach them one aspect of life that will help them in writing.
“That’s one essence of writing symposium and thank God for the fantastic speakers, they came and gave themselves to the students. We intend to take it up from here. We have created a platform were we are going to mentor these young ones and follow up their progress,” he said.
On collaborations with the state government he offered, “yes we have reach out to the Ministry of Education because we can’t do it on our own. We have reach out to the Ministry of Social Development and Gender Issues to see how we can incorporate people who need these skills.
The writing symposium is actually for students and University graduates. We want to show them how they can eke out a living legally through writing. We want to see how we can help them to get the tools for writing.
Currently, the likes of Chimamanda Adichie, Rachel Fredrick and Emmanuel Apki who are fantastic writers are making money for themselves through writing. The goal is to remove them from vices to virtue that’s why we titled the poetry, ‘vices to virtue’.
On the plan to sustain the programme he averred, ” we want to use this opportunity to reach out to big stakeholders. We want a collaboration with them. One of the core values of GENACH is collaboration. We want to see how we can help, support and connect. That’s what we want to do. We are seeking out for partners. We are seeking for sponsors.”
The programme also featured best poetry from the schools were winners were awarded with educational aids, among others. While other participants were given educational materials.
“We had special offers for the children like the scholarships especially for those who came out for the poetry competition. The students were given books donated by Mindex Publishers to help them achieve exam success. We also gave the winners mobile gifts from KCEE device to aid them in their educational pursuit. Then we have a platform were we will empower them”, he said.
The highlights of the event included the cutting of the maiden cake, award and recognition to collaborators as well as the unveiling of a book titled, ‘Atinuke’ authored by a renowned novelist and poet, Rachel Fredrick.
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