13th December, 2011
The Lagos State government in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund, UNFPA, has held a two-day workshop on youth friendly services and data collection for Youth Development Officers of the Lagos office of Youth and Social Development.
The programme is part of the 6th Lagos State Government/UNFPA Country Assisted Programme aimed at developing officers to impact on youths in Lagos, southwest Nigeria.
Declaring the workshop open, the Director Finance and Administration, Office of Youth and Social Development, OYSD, Mr Fariudeen Akodu said the state had benefitted from the partnership with the UNFPA in recent times.
He commended the Youth Department for seeing it worthy to train its officers on data collection, developing youth friendly programmes and report writing, among others, while enjoining every Officer present to make judicious use of the opportunity and knowledge to be derived from the workshop to enhance their job performance and delivery.
Delivering a lecture on Developing Youth Friendly Programmes and Activities, Mrs. Ibidunni Alakija, the Coordinator of Hello Lagos, Lagos University Teaching Hospital enumerated various ways the participants could organise and run effectively youth programmes and activities.
She also advised officers to study the attitudes of young people and work with it in attending to their situations, adding that they should learn how to make use of the youths in their community.
Mr Kola Amusa, Director, Community and Integration Services Department, Office of Youth and Social Development spoke on Harnessing the Potentials in the Community for Youth Development.
He stressed on how the potentials of youths in the community could be tapped into to develop the youths of the state, stressing that development was not just an assortment of benefit and opportunities given to a population or a group of people but a process by which people attained or acquired mastery
— Kazeem Ugbodaga