The #action2015 International Youth Day Meet-Up was put together to commemorate the International Youth day. The Meet-up Event took place at The Media Place, No 1. Bria Street, off Adetokunbo Ademola Crescent, Wuse 2.
The gate was opened with a red carpet welcome and photo session for participants at exactly 5:40pm and at exactly 6:05pm the event was declared open by Medupin Olusegun (The compare for the event).
Introduction and welcome address followed immediately and all attendee had to move out of the hall for the “Spin and Kick for a goal”. The “Spin and Kick for a goal” is a game that combines fun, energy and endurance. A participant will have to keep on spinning the ball while turning round and round to the general chorus and recitation of the 17 SDG goals. The player keep turning while spinning the ball on the ground and at the end of the 17th goal, he or she must kick the ball into a goal post. It was fun and not many participants could go more than just 4 SDGs before getting tired. The game ended at exactly 6:45 pm and the participants apparently tired moved back into the hall. At this time, many people already had started raising their hands for questions pertaining to the SDGs.
The UN Millennium Campaign Acting Regional Coordinator, Africa, Hilary Ogbonna was ably represented by Ojonwa Miachi to give a 5 minutes talk on the UN Millennium campaign, the SDGs and My World Survey.
Aisha Yesufu of Bring Back our Girls also made a clarion call to the youths charging the participants to stand up and secure the future by seizing the moment. She was down to earth and one would have wished there was more time to accommodate all she has to say.
The discussion started thereafter and participants could not hold back their questions. Questions during the discussion ranges from “why 17 goals and not just a few?”, “why was it that youth was not mentioned specifically in the goals?” why should there be another MDG in the Name Of SDGs even when the former is already considered a failure?” These and many other questions were asked and satisfactory answers where all given. Due to constraint of time, other questions of important interest to the youths could not be answered sufficiently, such questions that bothers around how a youth can build his dream, how to grow in the face of distractions and many other life questions that emanated during the discussions. By and large, the youths vowed to get their leaders to commit to the SDGs and to make it work.
Later on in the evening, Emmy Duru, the Manager of The Media Place who has been part of the sitting from the start took the center stage to declare her support for the youth and Youthhubafrica for (according to her) daring to put up such an innovative event which is not just a show, jamboree or noise. She introduced “the Media Place” brand, their services and available opportunities for the youths- which include a free sit-in-and-read book collection point.
Dalton Shamaki came up to give the closing remarks while also coordinating the My World Survey voting exercise.
By and large one must agree that the meet-up did met up to expectations and both by content and quality, it has made its own mark and for the International Youth Day.
Action/2015 meet-up event
Posted by YouthhubAfrica on Thursday, August 13, 2015
