By Yakubu Sani Wudil, Ph.D.
The establishment of the Arewa Youth Mentorship Program (AYMP) is long overdue. The act of mentorship becomes indispensable for any society willing to thrive and achieve its developmental goals. The inception of such voluntary organization in Arewa, being the most populous region of Nigeria and whose population is predominantly youth, is timely.
AYMP is an initiative created by concerned Northern Nigeria academics and entrepreneurs residing in different parts of the world to provide free career guidance, academic mentorship, leadership training, and entrepreneurship skills to our teeming young populace.
Some of the topics to be delivered would include exploration of scholarship opportunities globally, mechanisms of hunting job positions globally, and instruction on how to prepare for professional examinations like the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), Test of English as Foreign Language (TOEFL), Graduate record exams (GRE) and Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).
Under the diligent supervision of Professor Rabi’a Salihu Said of Physics Department, Bayero University, Kano, the program welcomes all interested persons willing to offer their contributions to human capacity development in the northern region. The mentors are typically renowned and accomplished individuals with a record of excellence in their respective fields.
The establishment of such an organization was prompted by the obvious multiple socioeconomic challenges facing the Northern region as well as inadequate awareness among our youths. We believe that investing in human capital is indeed central to the development of any society. The initiative is a form of giving-back strategy to our locality considering the enormous support given to us during our growth phase. It is, therefore, imperative to equip our younger ones too with the requisite tools needed to pursue excellence in all fields of endeavor.
The target populations are recent graduates, undergraduate students, and secondary school students. The current undergraduate students, as well as graduates, would be trained on how to start their journeys to postgraduate programs and the necessary preparation mechanism to observe in order to secure opportunities both within and outside the country.
Furthermore, our accomplished entrepreneurs would guide them on how to build and sustain successful business ventures to reduce the existing over-dependence on government jobs. On the other hand, the secondary school students would be majorly introduced to carrier guidance and course selection process to harness their maximum potential and to reshape their traditional mentality of seeking only a few presumed juicy courses.
At present, the program is administered through online media. The main platform is on telegram with the name; “Arewa mentorship program”. All interested persons can join the public group and register their interests. However, it is in our plan to start the physical mentorship exercise.
The presentations are usually organized on a bi-weekly basis from the different areas of interest via either the telegram page or other online teleconferencing tools depending on the situation assessment, the information of which is normally shared on our social media pages before the presentation date. Moreover, all our past and upcoming presentations are documented on our YouTube page which can be accessed anytime.
We often share invaluable information regarding current scholarships, job openings, and skill acquisition opportunities on our social media pages (Facebook, Youtube, Instagram, Twitter) with the name “Arewa Youth Mentorship program”.
More elaborate explanations about the program and the profile of our mentors can be found on our website (www.arewamentorship.com) and any interested person willing to join us as a mentor or mentee may kindly join the telegram page or send an email directly to the organizing committee at arewamentorship2020@gmail.com.
Below are the links to the various social media handles:
Telegram page link: t.me/youth_mentorship_program
Facebook: www.facebook.com/arewamentorship
Instagram: www.instagram.com/arewamentorship
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ArewaYouthMentorshipProgram
Dr. Yakubu Wudil writes from King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dammam, Saudi Arabia can be reached via yswudil@yahoo.com
