In a bid to further entrench the core values of possibility mentality and responsibility in her students, Covenant University now has a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Youth Club. The University's Chapter will serve as a converging point for all social-developmental programmes and associations on campus, just like UNESCO collaborates with many NGOs and smaller expert networks to organize programmes and execute projects.
Speaking at the inauguration of the club, the Dean, Students' Affairs, Professor Conrad Omohinmin, said the club is expected to become a rallying point for students in the University, with the aim of evolving solutions to local and global problems, by creating local solutions right here on campus.
Professor Omohinmin said the initiative is all about innovating and capitalizing on available opportunities on campus to promote developmental enterprises, especially in the major operational areas of UNESCO, which are science, education and culture. According to him, "This will have a positive effect on other students on campus, who are eager to channel their energy and creativity to constructive programmes," he posited.
Adeolu Adegboye, a 400 level student in the Department of Computer Science, said the association would become a veritable avenue for students to be proactive in creating solutions to some of the issues facing them and maximizing the opportunities that may appear as challenges. He believed that engagement on the platform of the UNESCO Youth Club would help create a greater sense of ownership and commitment in students towards the institution. "I want my fellow students to see this as a fulcrum for taking action, and move away from passivity, to being action-driven with the ultimate goal of a more mutual beneficial Covenant University", he added.
Adegboye stated that the club's activities would be tailored towards advocacy and awareness campaigns to help raise the consciousness of the needs of the larger society and create an academic environment that drives students' educational projects toward problem-solving and assists in accessing grants for viable ones.
He said the club's leadership would ensure that its activities are centred on UNESCO's principal functions of promoting academic cooperation and mutual understanding. This, according to him, would help make the UNESCO vision a reality among students in Covenant through various means of mass communication on campus.
Adegboye said the UNESCO Youth Club plans to build strong collaborations with strategic units and centres in the University such as the Centre for Entrepreneurial Development Studies, International Office and Linkages, Hebron Start-up Lab and many more. "From these collaborations, the youth club will be able to build and lead model projects, advise student associations, and promote knowledge on peace and security within the entire student body," he stated.
He highlighted the club's plan to organize a model UNESCO Youth Forum on campus, where members of all social development and academic associations and the Chaplaincy unit will brainstorm and narrow down ideas and solutions to tackling issues faced on campus and present these refined solutions in the form of student-run projects to the student council and the school management. This programme, according to him, would serve as an action-oriented student consultative assembly.
The youth club currently consists of 116 student members who were inaugurated as the association's founding members.