By Rianat Wahab
“Never wait for the government to provide everything you want, you too can be a part of the change we desire by doing the little things you can in your safe space.”- Valentine Bassey.
Valentine is a social worker and the founder of Changing Lives Initiative. He has an academic background in Law. He has been a three-time mentor for the Hult Prize campus competition across different institutions.
Valentine is currently the United Nations Population Fund Youth Social Media Advocate (UNFPA-YSMANG). He is also an author of the book ´Fearless and Lost sight of Purpose´. With his work at Changing Lives Initiative, he has carried out several community outreach, in various local government area of Cross River State, including Bakassi resettlement camp, hosted the first-ever Leadership Conference for Student Union leaders in all the tertiary institutions in Cross River State, workshop training for female law student forum of Nigeria, University of Calabar Chapter and various online event for youths across nine countries in Africa.
Rianat: HOW ARE YOU LOCALIZING THE SDGS IN NIGERIA?
Valentine: Our duty in Changing Lives Initiative is to see how every young person could understand the true meaning of what each of the SDGs stands for and how they can be a part of this great agenda in contributing their ideas and skills towards nation-building. We teach the SDGs in secondary schools and also encourage them to be a part of the sustainable development goals.
Rianat: PLEASE TELL US MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT YOU ARE WORKING ON
Valentine: The main project we are currently working on is tag: RISE for SDG4 which means Right Initiative For Sustainable Education. The objective of this project is to revive back the reading culture of the student in public school by hosting annual reading competition across the state from one local government area to another. The competition will come with setting up reading clubs, rebranding of schools libraries, scholarship awarded to winners of the competition from 1st position to 3rd, a one-year mentorship program for the winners and free soft skill acquisition for the winners. For this, we are hosting ten (10) schools and the event is set to take place on the 19th of March 2021.
Rianat: PLEASE SHARE SOME OF THE IMPACT STORIES
Valentine: So far we have been able to award scholarships to 48 students within one year and hosted several mentorships to a student in secondary schools and the test testimony gotten so far has been amazing.
Rainat: HOW IS THE PROJECT ENSURING THAT NIGERIA ACHIEVES THE SDGS BY 2030?
Valentine: We are trying our best to see that we can also measure success come 2030 when other nations of the world will be giving their reports with what we are doing. I am very sure Nigeria will be able to achieve at least 85% of the goals come 2030.
Rianat: WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES OR CONSTRAINTS AFFECTING THE SUCCESS OF THIS PROJECT AND WHAT ARE THE SUPPORT YOU NEED?
Valentine: One of the basic challenges faced by every youth-led organization is access to funding. If its about the man power we have it. The team members and volunteers are always doing their best but we can’t do everything if we don’t have the required resources. If we have access to grants we will do more that what we have today. For any project to fly we need first the good idea and the money to run it.
Rianat: YOUR ADVICE TO YOUNG PEOPLE
Valentine: My advice to every young person in Nigeria and beyond is never wait for the government to provide everything you want, you too can be a part of the change we desire by doing the little things you can in your safe space. Let’s not give up in Nigeria, let’s not give up also in our dear continent Africa. We can make the world a better place by starting today to create the change we want to see tomorrow, today.
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To connect with Valentine, you can find him on Instagram and Twitter.
