ABC capacitates youths
For widespread acceptance of ABC messages and campaign nationwide, the Attitudinal & Behavioural Change (ABC) Secretariat has ended a two day training programme for one hundred and fifty youths at the Makeni Town Hall, Station Road, Makeni City, Northern Region, from 23rd to 24th June, 2014. Thirty participants were selected from each of the thematic areas of the project; Music production, Drama/Filming production, Drawing/ Graphic Design (Functional Arts), Gara-Tie-Dyeing and Cultural performance with the objective of importing messages of positive attitude taught at the training in their God given talents and also to showcase the talents of these youths. It is expected that community stakeholders in the location of the project will sponsor the finish products to enable the Secretariat use them in the propagation of its messages and campaigns. (Photo: Cross Section of the Participants)
The training was launched by the Vice Chancellor of UNIMAK, Rev. Father Dr. Joe Turay. In his keynote address he told the gathering that youths play an integral role in society and have the opportunity to grow as this same people will one day take the mantle of leadership at community and state levels.
The Executive Director ABC Secretariat Dr. Ivan Ajibola Thomas, during the artisanal teaching, lectured the youths on the topic ”Striving for Success Leading to Prosperity. ” In his presentation he carefully explained the key words of the topic to the understanding of the participants. He explicated that, to strive means to fight for, pursue or go in, whilst success is the achievement one makes after pursuing his desire. He went further to say that in striving for success, there are three things involved; ego, Id and super-ego. Ego he said is ones sense of worth, Super-ego is the sense of what is right or wrong and Id is the basic instinct, desire, wants or needs. He went on to teach about the five personality traits for success which are; Openness (inventive Vs consistence), Consciousness (efficient Vs carelessness), Extroversion (outgoing Vs reserved), Agreeableness (Friendly Vs detached), Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous Vs confidence/secure). He stressed to the youths that there are three personality traits these are, extrovert, introvert and Sanguine. Extrovert are open minded, active and outward. Sanguine are cheerful and confident while introverts are quiet, shy and find it difficult to mix with people. The introvert type of human is very difficult to learn and adapt to changes. He encouraged the youths to make a paradigm shift to join the unstoppable forward match on the road leading to prosperity. He reminded them that prosperity doesn’t come over night but one need to go in search of it and earnestly work for it.
The Programme Manager ABC Secretariat ,Mr. Ishmael Cole educated the participants about the Mission, Vision, Goal, Objectives and Core Values of the Secretariat. He highlighted that the ABC Secretariat is the institution charged by the Government and People of Sierra Leone to take the lead in influencing positive attitude and behaviour through persuasive information and communication for the cultivation and refinement of hearts and minds in our society through its institutional and community based approaches; reaching out to various institutions and community nationwide for the rapid transformation of ‘Mama Salone’. The mission of the Secretariat he stressed is to influence positive attitudes and behaviours by informing and educating the citizens of Sierra Leone from a negative mind-set that impedes development. In the area of the Objectives, he stressed that one of the objectives of the Secretariat is to encourage the youths to circumvent negative attitude and the sub-culture of violence and embrace positive behaviour . He expressed the core values ; Integrity, Transparency, Honesty and Accountability. To the youths,” is time for development, Sierra Leone is the only land we have, so let us put all our effort to transform our people for a better country”.
Mr. Ezekiel Thulla Jr, Teacher & Lecturer at UNIMAK in his presentation on the topic “Identifying Negative Attitudes of Youths in Sierra Leone and Restitution “in his lecture explained to participant who a youth is, according to him, the term youth refers to young people (ranging from childhood to …), it can also identifies a particular mindset of attitude as in the expression, ‘he is very youthful’. He stressed that since the end of the civil war, youth problems have been an important issue affecting the country as they were the major set of people who fought the war. And that today, youths are very selfish and don’t want to work hard but expect to have the best for themselves. This is said to be one of the main reasons why majority of the youths are putting on negative attitudes in society.
Mr. Thulla went further to state seven Negative Attitudes portrayed by Youths in Makeni and categorised them under the following; 1. Aggression, Anger and Betrayal- Youths are quick to rain abusive languages at each other and are capable of threatening or killing each other. 2. Intolerance- He pointed out that Makeni City is hosting a large number of youth who are busy frustrating others belonging to different political parties, to them every one must belong to the same party and the saddest mistake a youths can do is to accept a symbol from the other party, they will not vote for him even if he is the best. 3. Greed and Selfishness- the value for money is almost destroying the future of some youths, for money they engage in the following: fuel hoarding, gambling, trading cheating and stealing. 4. Cynical- there are youths who are hopeless about the future ,for them they think everything is lost so as a result, they are not ready to make any effort but to sit down and depend on others fortune. 5. Prejudice and Stereo-type thinking; some youths have fixed negative concept about gender to them, women must behave like women, they must not challenge issues, must stay in the kitchen to cook for their despotic husbands. 6. Revenge and Pride- for some youths in Makeni, nothing goes free, they hang on to many negative philosophies such as ‘eye for an eye’, ‘do me ar do you’ ”norrr su fee gboo”.7. Jealousy- some youth in Makeni are lazy and are ready to confront the serious minded ones in many ways and form. He appealed to youths to change from these negative mindset if they want Sierra Leone to be a better place, we should work hand in hand with each other.
Mr Alex Bangura, Dean Education Faculty UNIMAK lectured on the topic ‘Building Self-Confidence ,self-actualization according to him when building self-confidence, one has to say to yourself yes I can, always have the strong feelings that you can perform whatever task you are faced with. If you don’t have confidence, you can’t achieve easily because you will be always looking low on yourself .Self-Confidence takes away total shyness and it gives confidence to one’s ability.
Self-actualization is the realisation of your ability, in order words it fulfils ones destiny, put your dream to reality and manifest of one’s work in to reality.
ABC Communication Unit
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