INTRODUCTION
A youth, according to National Youth
Policy of 2009, is someone between the ages of 18 and 35 and this class of people
constitutes more than 50% of the total population in Nigeria.
Despite the teeming population of
youth as reported by National Population Census, 2006, their qualitative impact
has not been fully unveiled and thereby slowing down the pace of development
and transformation.
An ideal youth is a person with
strong penchant for adventure, development and transformation; passionate,
energetic, innovative, creative, mobile, versatile, agile, eager to make
positive change and ready to champion positive movement.
With great potentials yet untapped,
Nigerian youths have suffered from years of mis-governance and this has not only
paralyzed their creative and innovative power but largely incapacitated their youthfulness
and usefulness.
Against this background, MINDPOWER, a project symposium with
focus on Innovation, Creativity, Youth
Emancipation, Development and Transformation was envisioned to empower
youths so as to proffer solutions to societal, national and global problems.
THE NEED
Youth are the real wealth of a nation but this
will remain abstract without a well-functioning mind. There can never be
significant structural development or transformation without first and foremost
mind development. A mind in fresh
bloom is poised to see the world anew and come up with fresh innovations -
solutions to problems that have sometimes eluded others for ages. In the
words of Robert Kennedy, “This world demands the qualities of youth: not a time
of life, but a state of mind, a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a
predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the
life of ease.”
OBJECTIVES
* Emancipating the youth from mental
servitude and charting a new path for paradigm shift;
* Empowering the youth and showing them
their place in development, leadership, peace and good governance;
* Engaging the youth in solving
problems through their skills, innovation and creativity;
* Shaping and sharpening youth
vocational skills in a bid to reduce unemployment and promote self-reliance;
* Raising 21st century young CEOs who
will give birth to community integration and national transformation;
FOCUS
In order to achieve the symposium objectives, five thematic
areas will be considered and these shall be the focus of this symposium. They
are;
* Innovation
* Creativity
* Youth Emancipation
* Development
* Transformation
RESOURCE PERSONS
Our resource persons are carefully
selected experts with prompt and pragmatic response to youth and community
development as well as contributing to knowledge, insight, exposition and innovation.
