YOUTH LEADERSHIP AND ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT ...Ifaki youth uniting for economic freedom!!! BEING TEXT OF A SPEECH DELIVERED BY: MR OLUSESAN OBE, MD/CEO, CENTRE BASE CONSULT LIMITED AT THE 30TH IFAKI DAY 2014 CELEBRATIONS UNDER THE WIDER AUSPICES OF IFAKI PROGRESSIVE UNION (IPU), HOLDING AT THE AGBALUDI SQUARE, IFAKI-EKITI ON THE 1ST DAY OF NOVEMBER, 2014. Kabiyesi Alayeluwa, Oba G.O. Aladegbami IV, The Olufaki of Ifaki Land; The Olori of Ifaki Land; paramount and high Chiefs of our noble Ifaki; elders and leaders of our community; invited guests; resourceful youth, our leaders of tomorrow. Sons and daughters of our dear Ifaki. Protocols, I feel highly elated for this ample opportunity to deliver this speech at the august occasion of the 30th Ifaki Day 2014 Celebrations. It is a great honour to be able to share my thoughts with the crème de la crème of our tomorrow in Ifaki-Ekiti community. I will be speaking on youth leadership and economic empowerment. Before I start discussing this topic, I would like to first define what leadership and empowerment mean to me. Leadership to me, is the ability to influence people for positive change. Empowerment is creating space or platform or entity that will enable people to obtain knowledge and skills to better their lives. So throughout this speech, please keep these definitions in mind. I will be discussing this topic from a personal point of view and share my brief story related to youth empowerment and leadership. Nigerian youth today are faced with different kinds of challenges such as access to opportunities for growth and development, unemployment and lack of good youth leadership, among others. Living in the city, I have always been exposed to different struggles of people and I have always felt and wished I could help everyone with their problems. But now, I have come to realize I cannot help and change everyones life, but I can make a difference in some peoples life, no matter how small the difference may be; the voice keeps echoing to me: you wont change the whole world, but you can make a difference in your lifetime. Focusing very primarily on youth development and empowerment, we firmly intend to project a new vision for individual success and chart a path for resourcefulness and productiveness in our younger and upcoming generation. We know our dear town can only be as promising and prosperous as our youth and younger generation. We have taken pains to draw up and deploy very basic developmental infrastructures to help them conceive or even discover, develop and drive their latent potentials and prospects in different disciplines from Academics, Information Technology, to Engineering, to Business Leadership Management and to Entrepreneurship more importantly. By Gods Special Grace, we shall be launching the Ifaki Youth Empowerment Fund (IYEFUN) today, the proceeds of which will be managed by Ifaki Progressive Union (IPU), in pursuance of the aforementioned youth spurred objectives. IYEFUN, the initiatives acronym, seeks to create an entity and space where youth can be stimulated and engaged in a special way; it will keep young people out of street and make them to be engaged in activities that will positively contribute to building their lives sustainably. Many business owners and young entrepreneur in the town do not have knowledge and skills to competitively manage and grow their business, and many of them also lack information about government. We will start assisting them with business registration, business plan writing and consulting through the IYEFUN. We are being motivated to do this because we want to use our education, exposure, and wealth of experience to contribute to the growth and sustainability of young people in our community. The initiative also aims to do something quite simple but one which is very powerful, and that is to teach you how to dream and reach your potentials. In conclusion, we as youth need a voice and a voice that would be heard. To be empowered, you can become part of already existing organizations that empower and build youth leadership, or we as the youth can create our own space and entities to address the challenges we face. We must not always wait for government or other organizations to create platforms for us. As Ifaki youth, we can unite and create entities and platforms that will enable constructive discussion and debate of issues that directly affect us. We need to believe we can make a significant difference in our lives, in our noble Ifaki-Ekiti community, in our glorious Ekiti State, and in our great country Nigeria at large. Many thanks for listening; I warmly appreciate you all; Gods Blessings! Olusesan Obe, MD/CEO, CENTRE BASE CONSULT LIMITED.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 14:45:45 +0000
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