The African Regional Director, World Scout Bureau, Mr. Frederic Kama-Kama has stressed the need for the mobilisation of the youths to give them the opportunities to develop their talents.
He said, if the youths in the country had the opportunities to update their skills, they could then be useful to themselves.
Kama-Kama, from Nairobi, Kenya, who was speaking at the weekend at a seminar on Global Youth Mobilisation Initiatives of the United Nations in Abuja organised by the Scout Association of Nigeria commended the first lady, who disclosed that she was building a centre of excellence for the youths in Lagos.
“That is going to be kind of a grooming ground for people to be responsible citizens in the country”, he said, adding that he had discussion with the
Minister of Trade, on how to position young people to develop their talent, so that they could contribute to the development of the country.
The African Regional Director, World Scout Bureau also said that the Scout Movement of Nigeria had given a very good example by producing their own stuff, saying “they are now producing their own uniform. The costs of production can be enormous, but by producing it locally, they are giving jobs to young people.”
“I think we should encourage this kind of initiative and for me, this is the way of building up Africa”, he added.
Kama-Kama pointed out that Africans needed to prepare themselves and build their capacity.
“They need to support the young people in terms of education, they need to build their own local industry to make African countries producing nations”, he said.
Earlier in his remarks, the Chief Commissioner of the Scout Association of Nigeria, Hon. Dave Padopads Awunah said, the Global Youth Mobilization Initiative was designed to galvanize the teeming populations of young people across the world, so as to channel them towards a positive direction.
“You all know that young people’s issues are prevalent across the globe and the Internet today has been so crazy that a lot of damage is caused in the society. The internet has turned the world into a global village. So it is in that direction, that the UN, in alliance with a World Organization created this initiative to mobilize us towards the right direction of life”, he explained.
Awunah called on Nigerian youths to be tolerant with the current situation in the country, even as he advised the young people to learn skills on how to create good livelihood for themselves.
The programme, according to him, was intended to educate young people on how they could help themselves economically and identified lack of government support as one of the major challenges militating against the effective mobilisation of youths for nation building.
