KOK ON YOUTH MENTORING

KANAYO O. KANAYO ON WHY HE  WENT INTO YOUTH MENTORING  

Nigerian popular actor Mr. Kanayo Onyekwere Kanayo has launched a mentoring academy to help young Nigerians to discover themselves and rise to greatness. The academy is known as Kanayo O. Kanayo Mentoring Academy (KOKMA)

Speaking at the formal launch of the academy in Lagos , Kanayo said Nigerian youths are faced with many societal problems which pose danger to their dreams and aspirations. He said the academy would provide a platform for the youths to be shown direction and taught proper values

In his words, “Kanayo O. Kanayo Mentoring Academy is about mentoring the young ones. It is a way of giving back to the society. The key message of KOKMA is to let the young ones know that they can be whatever they desire to be in life. Therefore, they must be guided in order not to allow any circumstances to limit their desire to excel in life”

“The academy is coming to give hope to our youths, realizing that Nigeria and indeed Africa’s future lies with the youths. We will try to do so by building attitudes for greatness. Attitudinal change is key and we can do that by inculcating in them the sense of self-worth and I-can-do-spirit

“KOKMA shall build a crop of youths who can predict their future by creating it, discover their in-born potentials and harvest them; youths who will realize that success begins with them and who will love their society and the environment and consequently impact the world”

While lamenting the continuously poor students’ performance especially in WAEC examination, he assured that the new academy will constantly work to equip students in various institutions with life tools and opportunities that will make them rise above different situations and challenges

According to him, “The standard of education, which is the bedrock of youths development is dangerously dwindling, school drop-out ratio is in the increase.  Students’ performance in WAEC examinations is continuously falling. With the nose-diving national economy and the society’s value system perilously tilting to the negative, our youths truly need a sense of direction via mentoring” He stressed.

He also noted that the youths, the young adults, the generation x and Y who constitute about 40 per cent of our population, who unfortunately are under-privileged or have been negatively influenced with wrong orientation may have lost hope in themselves and the future.

 “We want to change their orientation to life through moulding, give free education materials and make them better citizens for the future.” On what inspired him to establish the academy, Kanayo said there are many things Nigerian youths did not experience which the older ones did. Through mentoring, he said the youths would know about this and therefore know how to be focused in order to succeed

He said that the academy is not a formal school where people will sit in classroom to be taught, but a project which would take him and other members of the Board to schools, where they would talk to students, share their experiences and encourage them to inculcate good values which will help them in life

He said that the visit to schools will not be concentrated on elite cities or neighbourhood but to public schools  in urban and remote villages

“What we want to do is to influence, train and affect people. We will not target going to elite schools, but schools in the remotest areas across the states in Nigeria. We need to identify needs and call attention to them while building strength and equipping the students,” he said.

According to him, when members of the academy go to school in remote villages to talk with students, national attention will be brought to such institution and area, which could then serve as an opportunity for government to know the problems and therefore move in to help.

Kanayo said that the Board of KOKMA has Mr Tim Akano, Managing Director, New Horizons; Ms Sienne Allwell-Brown, Dr. Maxwell Ubah, Charles Okafor, Mr Alozie Nwokoro and himself as members

Mr Akano, who was the chairman of the event, eulogized Kanayo for the lofty vision of seeking to mentor youths with the view to adding value to their lives

OUR YOUTHS NEED MENTORSHIP

Most times the term “Youth” is defined in terms of developmental period – an age group, often those that fall in the age bracket 15 to 24 years. But defining youths as a social group and a transition stage tends to bring out more vividly the identity of youths. Youths are humans transiting from the stage of dependency to stage of freedom, from the stage of sexual immaturity to sexual activity, from economic dependency to economic responsibility. It is a period of liberation from direct control to a period of “all things are possible”. It is period of testing new fits and daring the “don’ts” of the society; a period to prove strength and express courage.

These youthful tendencies and exuberances lead to the social vulnerability of the youths. In their quest to exercise their assumed freedom, they tend to throw caution to the wind and sway, sometimes uncontrollably, to their newly found fantasies, believing they are enjoying life. Such social vices like smoking, drug abuse, stealing, robbery, kidnapping, prostitution, thugry, etc are illicit social tendencies which they are vulnerable to.

But it is important to point out that certain societal factors promote youth vulnerability to social vices. Chief among them are illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, poor parental care, war, unhealthy political rivalries, religious strife, etc. Most of these debilitating factors can be traced to the failure of the various administrators of the society who have shown negligence to their primary roles to the society.

Though the youths must take responsibility for getting involved in social vices, the drivers of the society – those in the sit of governance – have their full share of the blame. For example, politicians that employ youths as thugs to achieve their personal interests are certainly the architects of this social malady. So are the religious leaders who, in order to win followership, preach hate messages against the other groups and inadvertently incite the youths into unhealthy rivalries, often resulting in physical attack. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom puts total death in Nigeria due to sectarian violence at 14,000 between 1999 and 2014. This is exclusive of deaths resulting from the Boko Haram Insurgence.

Perhaps the greatest culprits of youth vulnerability is the government whose primary role is the maintenance of law and order, and ensuring equity in the society. Their failure in exercising this role as well as providing the enabling environment for socio-economic development has contributed immensely in the heinous crimes committed on the society by the youths. Most of the youths have lost faith in the government and therefore move like sheep without shepherd. The Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics reported that out of the 64 million youth population in Nigeria in 2012, 54% was unemployed. Out of this population, 46,836 youths were caught involved in one crime or the other. The same report shows that 15.7% of the crime committed was smoking of hard drugs, 8.1% were involved in theft, 7.4% were involved in murder.

Youths have indeed been driven to criminal activities by the actions and inactions of both the government and the society. So many youths caught in such crimes like armed robbery, kidnapping, prostitution, cybercrime, etc attribute unemployment to the cause of their involvement. Working cooperatively with unemployment is the issue of illiteracy or poor education. Survey has shown that over 70% of youths involved in crime do not have their secondary school certificate.

T

ruth is that nobody opts for crime while growing up. Recall that as a child in the primary school when pupils are asked what they want to be in future nobody ever wanted to be a thief, a harlot, a street urchin (an area boy), a drug peddler and the likes. You will hear them wanting to take to such noble professions like law, engineering, music, medicine, piloting, mass communication, teaching, etc. Taking to criminal professions by the youths definitely is an afterthought. This is where mentorship comes in. Proper mentorship works towards making the youths realise that they can be what they want to be. In the Kanayo O. Kanayo Mentoring Academy, the mission is to provide today’s youths with guidance, direction, critical thinking, motivational and entrepreneurial skills to overcome limiting circumstances in the pursuit of their dreams.

It is the limiting circumstances that steer the youths off the course of their career drive. Somebody needs to spur and prop them up – that they can make it. Youths should be made to look at those shining stars – world class citizens – who attained their careers from grass to grace. That is mentorship. Like a tender stem wanting to reach the sky, mentorship shall serve as the stake for the tendril to keep to the upward climb to the sky. Mentorship should encourage the youths to pull their youthful energy in the positive direction towards their career accomplishment. It shall help them to predict their future by creating it; realise that their future and success begins with them; discover their in-born potentials and harvest them; help to develop the I-Can-Do spirit in them; and ultimately make them love their society and environment.

This is what we are set to do at Kanayo O. Kanayo Mentoring Academy. We shall work cooperatively with the key stakeholders in youths development – including those in the government, industry, opinion moulders as well as the society’s role models.

10 REASONS A STUDENT NEEDS MENTORSHIP

1.                        MENTORSHIP IMPROVES THE STUDENT’S BASIC LEARNING SKILL

Three major types of study skills are needed in the student’s educational learning process:

           a.     The calculation (or math) skill

           b.     The reading skill

           c.      The creative expression skill.

Every student requires a certain dose of these skills to excel in a particular field of study. For example, while the science student requires much of the calculation (math) skill, his counterpart in the arts and social sciences requires much of the reading skill. The creative skill which stems from the power of imagery is the key requirement of the student of the creative arts such as fine art and creative writing.

A mentor identifies the student’s major skill requirement and assists him/her in developing this skill. He adopts certain measures which provides enabling environment for the student to consciously or unconsciously crave to acquire the skill. A long exposure to a mathematical game, for example, can go a long way in developing the math skill in the child. Tours and picnics will enhance a child’s power of imagery and thus build his creative skill.

2.                        MENTORSHIP IMPROVES STUDENTS SELF ACCESSMENT POWER

Mentorship activities help the student to access himself and expose his weak and strong skills. Based on career interest, the student can work hard on himself, to improve on the areas of weakness. Great men who have excelled in their careers have told their story of how they went the extra mile improving themselves in some subject areas. Those who ended up being a lawyer, for example, will tell you how they developed interest in reading so many books especially novels. They may be doing this unconsciously – sometimes being motivated by their role models. Mentorship programmes are designed to consciously help students assess themselves and improve their skills.

3.                        MENTORSHIP HELPS STUDENTS IN MATCHING THEIR CAREER WITH THEIR TALENT

Each person born on earth comes with a mission to the world. The creator has imbued him from the point of creation with some talents required to fulfil his mission successfully. Scholarship is about giving a person the formal training required to excel in his life-given mission. Education planners have designed academic training in such a way that for whatever mission (or career) one is set out to pursue, certain school subjects are essential in assisting him in the pursuit of his career. So at a point in his scholarly quest, a student is required to choose his subjects. It is expected that a student’s choice of subjects depends on his career mission. However, experience has shown that most students choose their subjects not based on their career choice but on how easy they are finding the subjects. As a matter of fact, most students know very little about their life mission or what some call career mission (where they have strong potentials or interest). Some follow their peers, others follow the detect of their parents/guardians. The result is what we have today – engineers ending up as broadcasters, medical doctors ending up as musicians, biochemists ending up as creative writers, political scientists ending up as traders, etc. These are somewhat lucky ones who discovered their talents some years after graduation. So many could not discover their talents and end up in frustrating careers all through their lives. Mentorship would help a student avoid this long search of one’s mission or life career.

4.                        MENTORSHIP HELPS STUDENTS ACCESS NECESSARY STUDY OPPORTUNITY

Several opportunities are created by the government and non-governmental organisations to assist students seamlessly in their academic pursuit. Unfortunately, so many students are ignorant of these opportunities. Not many students are aware of some scholarship schemes provided by government organisations and NGOs. Not many students know that they can freely access the various national and state libraries provided for their use. Not many know about the alternative learning platforms provided by the federal government to assist students in advancing their studies – the Open University system, the e-learning system, etc. Not many are aware that several foreign countries have scholarship opportunities for developing countries. The mentorship programme would avail the benefitting students of these opportunities, and several others.

5.                        PROVIDING STUDY AIDS TO ENHANCE STUDENTS’ LEARNING PROCESS

Mentorship programmes recognise the huge advantage of student-centred learning process over the teacher-centred learning process. In the student-centred learning process, the student takes the lead while the teacher provides the guide. On the contrary, teacher-centred process makes the teacher the lead while students play more of observatory role. The former has the advantage of making the student take responsibility of the learning process. It is a kind of role-play for the student which makes learning fun.

Mentoring programmes provide various opportunities for students to benefit from this Learning As Fun process. This process makes copious use of study aids such as educational games and other instructional materials.

6.                        LOCATING RELEVANT PREPARATION COURSES

Students no doubt need certain examination preparation courses in the pursuit of their career. Certain foreign examinations such as ACT, SAT, GED and even our local examinations like UME and SSCE need special preparations. Mentorship programmes not only encourage students to participate in such examinations but also assist them to be successful in those exams. Members are given study and success tips that encourage them to get adequately prepared. Again, other motivational gifts are given to them.

7.                        MENTORSHIP DEVELOPS READING CULTURE IN STUDENTS

Nigeria and other African countries are rated very low in the reading culture. Several mentorship programmes are planned to support improved reading culture among the mentees. Programmes like essay and spelling bee competitions encourage students to read. Motivations like gift of books and award of scholarships are found very useful in this bid.

8.                        PROVIDES NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES AMONG STUDENTS

Mentorship activities targeted at students involve programmes that encourage positive peer and group events that build camaraderie, teamwork and a sense of belonging. Membership often comes across states, regions, tribes and nationalities. Positive exchange of cultures and values are encouraged and unity and oneness is the watchword. Invaluable benefits accrue from this and members end up building better global community. Mentees also turn out to become mentors and role models among one another. Mutual benefits are the end result.

9.                        HELP STUDENTS TO OVERCOME VICES ASSOCIATED WITH NEGATIVE LEARNING

Examination malpractice, cultism, drug abuse, truancy, school dropout syndrome, etc are some vices which mentorship discourages. These are negative psychological influences resulting from complexes – inferiority or superiority complex.

Mentorship entails building of positive attitudes for greatness. Thus, students’ mentorship works towards discouraging such negative vices as students are trained to discover their inborn virtues and explore them to become world class citizens who will be useful to themselves, their society and country, and positively impact the world at large.

10.                HELP STUDENTS DISCOVER USEFUL TECHNOLOGIES FOR THEIR DEVELOPMENT

Technologies impact on the society in two ways – negatively or positively. Mentorship encourages positive exploitation of the gains of technology. Telecommunication and the internet are modern communication systems that are very useful in diverse human endeavours. Mentorship programme shall avail members the opportunity of exploiting these technologies maximally.