Mrs. Precious Obadara, CEO of Popular US-based Global African Platform, iloveafrica.com, has Warned against the continued dependence on foreign aid in Africa.
She spoke on the importance of funding and developing human resource in Africa, the youths most especially, who are the primary strength of African Nations, mentioning that “A nation without active and prosperous youths is like a tree without fruits”.
She emphasized on the fact that Africa must stop depending on foreign organizations like Unicef for help and daily bread for the people saying, “Empower the youths, they’ll help to support the young and old in their lives.”
According to her, to eradicate poverty in Africa, youths must be Empowered. These are the group of people who can be supportive to both the young and old members of their families financially. This is because, the old ones are not strong enough to fend for themselves and neither can the children actively do the same. So, when African youths are incapacitated, the old people in their families and the children get to suffer along with them.
Choosing not to empower the youths will continuously bring about a rise in crime and poverty in the African community, our youths are the strength of our society and the future of our lands.
“We often focus on educating the youths without providing any means for the youths to survive in the absence of Education.” She continued, “Not every family can afford a university education for the youths.
Many struggling families who can’t send their kids to the university after secondary school education depend on these kids to somehow learn skills to help fend for their families. In most cases these youths are left on the streets to struggle in any way they can.”
As a result of this, some youths end up choosing the path of crime due to desperation, hunger and continuous search for livelihood, thereby constituting nuisance in the society.
“Everyone cannot depend on Employment. Statistics have shown that the amount of unemployed university graduates in Africa is alarming, the government has to step in and empower the youths in other to get rid of the disturbing crime and poverty rates.”
Educational Systems in Africa only teaches theoretical aspects of our fields of study, with little or no practical. They teach us to define what a fish is, and how to identify a fish but not how to catch a fish. In other words, a graduate of petroleum engineering is not able to drill oil, only foreign expatriates are employed to do so. Our Educational system in Africa is useless to our youths.
Youth Empowerment initiatives are the right step towards achieving a solution that will bring to an end the numerous problems we as a people are facing.
All African government and non-governmental organizations, Wealthy Africans, foreign companies and organizations all over the world, philanthropists, foreign Businesses benefiting from Africa, donors and all friends of Africa can associate themselves with this initiative that will bring about positive change in Africa through the youth Empowerment initiative.
Skills Acquisition Program (SAP) for secondary leaving students and above must be prioritized for the government and organizations to sponsor the acquisition of necessary skills across the continent, She said.
“Charity organizations who mean well for Africa should provide funding for these programs. Only then can we build a society where the youths can freely express their talents, create jobs for themselves, become independent, creative and innovative. Otherwise, without the youths, Africa has no future”.
The CEO and Media Entrepreneur stated that Strengthening occupational Prospects of the African youth may be the solution to eradicate crime and experience a drastic decrease in crimes often perpetrated by helpless, hungry youths in our society, which will also serve as a measure taken to help fight poverty in African countries.
She mentioned that, So far, I Love Africa Community Support Team has started campaigns on their social media platform (Facebook, Instagram, and Iloveafrica.com) and has reached out to youths who are eager to learn skills that will help them be more independent. Majority of the youths complain of being unable to afford registration into training programs.
I Love Africa organization has been fully involved in charity works on the continent like, donating to talented kids in Africa through their “Inspiring African Kids to greatness” initiative.
Shows support for the Albino Community and Albinism discrimination awareness programs and is also presently creating awareness and organizing charity fund raising concerts across the continent regarding all their initiatives, especially on the importance of Skills Acquisition. They are presently working with the NGOs, state and federal government, community leaders, organizations and Multiple training centers to facilitate Youth Empowerment and Development Programs across the continent.
This program is aimed at Equipping youths with skills right from the secondary/high school level, a program Mrs Precious Obadara says will help prepare them for a more secure and independent future after university, as skills will be very helpful to the youths before and after their university education.
