Youth Development Training Programme (YDTP)

A generation is phasing out and a new one is coming in, were the words of Mrs. Ajayi, the representative for the Tutor General, Lagos State Education District at the launch of a community borehole project for a Primary school complex containing four schools, a Home Economics Laboratory and a Computer Lab.

Mrs. Ajayi could not have expressed her thoughts any better than that, as we listened intently to her congratulatory message to the young girls from Clegg Senior High, Surulere who had just completed the final stage of LEAP’s Youth Development Training Programme (YDTP); the Change Project implementation.

The water borehole will serve the school community of more than 4,200 students. Prior to this intervention, the students would have taken long trips to neighboring schools and private residences to fetch water for their daily needs in the school complex. But with this project completed, the students can access clean drinking water within the school compound. The school authorities could not contain their excitement, explaining how relieved they were to welcome the new development.

Clegg Senior High is among six beneficiaries of the YDTP sponsored by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China. Other schools include Army Children Senior High School, Military Cantonment, Ikeja, Government Senior College, Ikoyi, Mushin Community Senior High School, Mushin, Birch-Freeman Senior High School, Surulere.

A total number of ten teachers in August 2015 were selected to participate in the Training-of-Trainers (ToT) programme, designed to train teachers on the YDTP curriculum. The leadership based training was completed in July 2016.

Some of these schools have completed ambitious projects, which none envisaged would be possible at the start of the programme. For many of these teachers, training the students has been both challenging and rewarding as they have learned to develop skills that would have been lost to them had they not embarked on this journey. Mr. Adediran, a teacher at Clegg Senior High expressed this succinctly, saying “Teaching the curriculum at first was quite frustrating because the students had already imbibed certain cultures and habits which you are trying to change but I realized soon enough that it was a matter of choice. Engaging in what I believed in; that these students could be better and that they could excel if they were given the tools they needed to climb, has made it a wonderful year for me.”

LEAP was proud to speak with Mary, a beneficiary of the programme, who was appointed the head girl of her school, along with nine prefects who exhibited excellent leadership qualities. Mary says she improved remarkably in her communication and time management skills, and candidly believes she wouldn’t have been better without these lessons. "The training has been really good. And I have improved a lot in my academics. My time management skills especially, is helping me prioritize my studies and do things at the appropriate time. I thank LEAP for coming to my school."