The Covenant University Community Development Impact Initiative Committee (CDIIC), the Centre for Entrepreneurial Development Studies (CEDS) and the Prison Ministry of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, the proprietor-base of the University, have restated their commitment to helping the young ones discover their innate capabilities and career choice decision-making.
The commitment was made at a one-day seminar targeted at helping children and wards of officers at the Nigerian Correctional Service, Kirikiri, Lagos, in the quest for talent discovery and self-awareness.
In his welcome remarks at the event held recently at the correctional service training school, Pastor Yemi Odude of the Prison Ministry of the Living Faith Church Worldwide said the primary purpose of the initiative was to thank the men and women of the correctional service. According to him, the programme was about influencing the lives of children of officers of the Service, intending to help shape them to develop their leadership mindset, and see themselves as leaders.
In her opening remarks, the Chair, Covenant University Community Development Impact Initiative Committee (CDIIC), Dr Tayo George, appreciated the Proprietor-base for the opportunity to reach out to children and wards of the staff of the nation’s correctional service.
She told the audience that the University’s Management was passionate about the initiative thus the commitment of resources and personnel of Covenant to the programme. She said the University’s interest in the programme was in recognition of the great work by men and women of the service and assured participants that Covenant would work with her partners to ensure that participants were given the best opportunities to develop a new revenue-generating skill set that would help complement their academic prowess.
The seminar featured four presentations that touched on key issues ranging from self-awareness and self-identity; potentials and opportunities in today’s small-scale business to entrepreneurship; talents and potentials discovery; and time management and character building for success.
Mrs Stella Komolafe, a wife to one of the officers in the Service, commended Covenant University and partner organisers for putting up the event. She noted that in her part 10 years of residing in the community, nothing educative and impacting had been done for the children in the neighbourhood. She appealed for more similar programmes towards reshaping the mindset and aid attitude of young people.
An officer in the Service, ASC Augustine Eneimoh, challenged participants to make the most of the opportunity that the seminar was availing them. He said that his generation was not fortunate to be exposed to the realities of the industrial revolution, hence the struggle to make the most of life, based on assumption and intuition. He appreciated the organisers’ investment in the children of personnel of the Service and prayed for the relationship to be strengthened as time progresses.
The one-day seminar was a precursor to the second phase that would involve hands-on and practical session in diverse skills and trade interest of the participants, which would be held at the University campus in Ota, at a date to be determined.