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ISIKWENU OGHENEFEGO's Blog
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LEAP Africa Change Project by Isikwenu Oghenefego
Related to country: Nigeria

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

REPORT ON THE CHANGE PROJECT CARRIED OUT BY ISIKWENU OGHENEFEGO IN FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE YOUTH LEADERSHIP PROGRAMME (YLP).

PROJECT TITLE: LET’S LIVE TOGETHER



Sometime in January/February 2007 I applied to participate in the LEAP Africa Youth Leadership Programme (YLP) and was selected. According to the programme design, I will have to carryout a change project in my community in line with the Millennium Development Goals. So, this project was implemented as part of my YLP focusing on the 7th goal in the MDGs which is “to ensure environmental sustainability”.

The project was to organize a meeting of all my neighbours and equip them with useful information on our role in achieving the MDGs concentrating on practical steps to be taken to ensure our environment is clean and secure. It was planned to be participatory in the form of a discussion forum with resource persons to facilitate sessions. To promote participation and community ownership of the project, I conducted a pre-project survey using a questionnaire to serve as information dissemination and study the attitude of my neighbours to the idea.
I got very positive responses from them; it was obvious they would support the project since some indicated they had always wished for such an activity to bring them all together in the neighbourhood. This motivated me to go on with plans to implement my project in my community.

Project “Let’s Live Together” was proposed to cover five (5) streets in my community (Direct Labour Area at Asaba in Delta state). A meeting date which was convenient for most of them but for a few according to their response to the questionnaire was fixed for Sunday, 25th November, 2007 and communicated to all intended participants. One of my neighbours a Pastor, volunteered to provide his church hall as the venue for the meeting and provide light in the case of PHCN failure.
A week before the meeting date, there was an event organized by a neighbour so I used this opportunity to remind them of the program coming up the upper week.
The meeting was designed to hold in the five different streets to attain the effect and impact and for population control considering the fact that I was to be in all the meetings.

The meetings held as scheduled and neighbours participated as planned, the facilitators were available and all went well at the end of the day.
The agenda for the meeting was as shown below:
• Opening prayer
• Introduction by participants
• Why we are gathered-the project
• Our role in achieving the MDGs (Talk)
• How we can keep our environment clean and secure (group discussion)
• Fulfillment in life; the role of parents (talk show)
• Practical steps and comments
• Refreshment
• Vote of thanks
• Closing Prayer.

Each item was followed accordingly with a neighbour volunteering as the moderator, another to coordinate the children and youths forum.
At the end of each meeting, evaluation forms were filled out by participants and suggestions made for more of such initiatives in the community.
During the group discussion, one group came up with an idea to dig a composite pit for dumping refuse in the neighbourhood which could be covered up at interval; this was new to most participants and they decided to implement that strategy. The young people were not left out since they had their own forum and made a commitment to come out every environmental sanitation day for street clean up.

CHALLENGES
- It was not all roses for me especially because of the GRA setting of my neighbourhood where I had to knock on big gates, be barked at by dogs, walk round and sell the idea to people who can help in the project implementation.
- Most of my adult neighbours did not come because they felt it was just for young people since I fall into that category.
- I also had financial challenges especially due to the fact that I did not get the first half of the financial support from LEAP Africa early enough. This made me change my plan of having one meeting for all neighbours to splitting meetings by streets.
- Power failure increased my expenses on printing and photocopying materials needed for the project like questionnaires, invitation letters, agenda and letters of appreciation.
- Due to fear and insecurity most participants did not write their names on the participant’s list only those who were my immediate neighbours (on the same street).
- I fell ill after the project so I could not take part in the street cleaning or take photographs of the event.

LESSONS LEARNT
- I learnt that strategies to make the community own the project are very important for the success of any project.
- I observed that people have ideas to share and will support opportunities to share them.

CONCLUSION
It will be a lie of the century to say this project was not profitable and timely for my community because the comments on the evaluation and actions taken after the project attest to its success and impact. Neighbours exchanged phone numbers and got to interact on a one-on-one level most of them for the very first time and most bushes have been cleared off in the area. They also decided to restart the street meetings which had stopped for sometime.

I am very happy to say it feels good to bring about change in your community; it makes others respect and build a level of confidence in you. I appreciate the initiative by LEAP Africa and hope it be sustained for younger generations. I believe that with our local contributions to development we are making global impact, together we can make this world a better place.



December 18, 2007 | 5:46 AM Comments  1 comments

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blakeobik Don blake
December 18, 2007 | 7:20 AM
keep it up
just want throu ur write up, and my word for u is to keep up the good work..
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