Seun Onigbinde Visits the Global Goals Community Center.

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The Global Goals Community Center yesterday welcomed the Executive Director of BudgIT and CivicHive, Oluseun Onigbinde on a congratulatory visit to DEAN Initiative for the work well done during the election period.

The Global Goals community center is a space of art facility center, where young people in marginalized communities can connect, learn and collaborate to create community-based solutions and other development ideas. Over the years we have had lots of people who have visited the center.

Seeing that DEAN Initiative consistently devise means of working with young people to enhance their skills as well as build them for global opportunities, we invited young persons from our community level youths and engage them in a conversation tagged: Young People and the Nigerian Election. The conversation availed the selected young persons the opportunity to share their experiences and observation from the just concluded election and also learn from Mr. Seun’s wealth of knowledge and life experience.

“I am delighted to be here today and I want to say thank you to my friend and brother Semiye Michael for the excellent work he is doing here at DEAN Initiative and to his amazing network of young people spread across the country” Seun Onigbinde.

(L-R Executive Director DEAN Initiative, Semiye Michael And The Executive Director BudgIT, Oluseun Onigbinde)

Each participant shared their experience on the election without mincing words, Mr. Usman from Dobi community who served as an ADHOC staff during the presidential election lamented about the defectiveness of INEC election materials at his Polling Unit, how the trained ADHOC staff were switched overnight for some untrained staff who did not understand the rudiment of the process and ended up causing problem at the Polling Unit. Mr. Usman further stated how he and other ADHOC staff were beaten at his Polling Unit and the election results were carted away. He also added that Commission’s budget should be reviewed and questioned as to why they make use of defective materials despite budgets raised for every election.

Olaleru Fisayo of DEAN Initiative who led and conducted several Pre and Post-Election Community Town Hall sessions shared feedback from the field. She raised a salient issue from the angle of People Living with Disability (PWDs) who could not exercise their franchise because they couldn’t reach the election boxes on their own without aid, INEC didn’t make adequate provisions for them to be aided. She leveraged this opportunity to urge Mr Seun and other CSOs in the civic space to continue to lend their voices towards this course on one hand, and the Commission to follow strictly the words of the Electoral Act as well as Guideline and Procedures for election on the other hand.

In his closing remark, Seun Onigbinde encouraged young people to not allow the outcome of this election to weigh them down but should be more committed to the process for the benefit of all, as this is what we must do to make the country great again.

(L-R Executive Director DEAN Initiative, Semiye Michael And The Executive Director BudgIT, Oluseun Onigbinde)

Before the goodbyes, Mr Seun was taken on a tour round the center from the Goal keepers’ hub which is a workstation for young people and techpreneurs to bridge the gap of work space

Next to the Hajia Amina Mohammed resorce library which is a mini library that collect and store development focus books to support research and academic works.

SDGs Community Studio which is an inhouse studio that document and amplify the SDGs action drive by young people in video and photo documentaries.

(L-R Executive Director BudgIT, Oluseun Onigbinde, Rebbeca Odugbose, GGCC Manager And The Executive Director DEAN Initiative, Semiye Michael)

Zero Hunger Kitchen which promotes zero hunger and responsible consumption.

Ideation room which provides opportunities for hub users to host business meetings strategy and design sessions for brighter innovation project.

We had a group picture at the SDGS Art Wall aimed for beautification of the center that uses art to describe and express the connectivity of the SDGs to our being.

The OGP Local is set to welcome all six Area Council Chairmen in FCT-Abuja as its members.

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After several meetings with the ALGON FCT Chairman on partnering with his office as the ALGON chair to invite the other 5 chairman in FCT under his leadership to a one day OGP Onboarding session. The ALGON Chairman, Hon. Danladi Chiya finally conveyed the long awaited onboarding session with all the 5 Area Council chairman in FCT, letters from his office were dispatched to the other 5 Area Councils ahead of the event for proper documentation. DEAN Initiative in Collaboration with Center LSD hosted the Six FCT Area Councils on the 8th of May 2023 brings together all Area Council Chairman, their Council Secretary and speakers of their parliaments for the OGP Local Onboarding session. 

Cross photo session of the Chairmen(L-R Hon. Abu Giri Chairman Gwagwalada Area council, Hon. John Gabaya Chairman Bwari Area Council and Hon. Danladi Chiya Chairman Kwali Area council.)

The Executive Director Center LSD, Mr Monday Osasah applauded the political bigwigs and representatives in the 6 Area Council to join the OGPLocal. In his speech recognised that the Center has supported other states in the aspect of mentoring and training to enhance their understanding about Open Government Partnership. He hinted that 25 states have signed up for the Open Government Partnership and called on the remaining five local governments in the Federal Capital Territory to join the OGP as AMAC had joined in 2020, if they want to promote good governance. 

The Kwali Area Council Chairman Hon. Danladi Chiya who also doubles as the ALGON Chairman in his keynote speech acknowledge the impact of OGP in AMAC  as to this he  showed readiness towards joining OGP and  assured partners and citizens that he will use his position as the ALGON Chair to mobilize all other Area Councils to Sign up for the Open Government Partnership.

Hon. Danladi Chiya ALGON Chairman FCT/ Kwali Area Council Chairman.

During her Goodwill Message the National Coordinator, Dr Gloria Ahmed summarized the achievements of OGP at the National Level and how many states have joined. She reiterated the need to target the grassroot in the National development plan.  Dr. Gloria used the opportunity to invite the Chairmen to the Annual Global Summit in Estonia, where their ideas and experience can be shared and celebrated. 

Dr Naomi Ahmed, National Coordinator OGP .

The Executive Director DEAN Initiative, Semiye Michael notion that while the organization is aimed at increasing citizens participation in politics, OGP is bringing governance and civil society together to co-create good governance, through which it platform has coordinated the onboarding of the 6 Area Council Chairmen with their Council Secretary and the speakers of their parliament.

Semiye Michael, Executive Director DEAN Initiative.

Hon. Abubakar Umar Abdullahi of Abaji Local Government Area Council asserted his fear on how OGP works and what they stand to achieve? An expert on public governance, Abayomi Akinbo said OGP is a broad partnership that includes members at the national and local level and thousands of civil society organizations. There is a lot to gain from OGP only if they allow Co-creation in governance and citizen involvement in the budgetary system of the Area Council.

Hon. Umar Abdullahi, Chairman Kwali Area Council.

Action Aid country Representative ably represented by Hajiya Suwaiba Muhammad Dankabo in her goodwill message that Action Aid commits to support citizens’ participation and development, urging local Councils to collaborate with CSOs for partnership while employing other Area Councils to sign up for OGP globally. She suggested the setup of OGP desk at the local government.

Hajiya Suwaiba Muhammad Dankabo, Director of Programmes Action Aid.

Civil Societies in attendance promised support to Area Council who have citizen centric development initiatives  as it is the goal of many Civil Societies to develop initiatives that promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.

Group picture of all participant

OGP-Local Gamechanging Public Procurement in AMAC

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After a successful first cycle Action Plan that opened up citizens in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) to have the opportunity to co-create governance through citizens participation in budget making and through voting for citizens prioritized needs and projects, citizen’s participation in budget making has improved truth and trust in governance and also allows citizens, involvement in the electioneering process.

Through a public survey conducted by DEAN initiative, citizens were asked various questions among which was, “What should AMAC OGP-Local Action Plan II Focus on?”

Forms response chart. Question title: Choose only one option. What should AMAC OGP-Local Action Plan II focus on?. Number of responses: 37 responses.

The above chart shows the response from citizens, Open Contracting Public Procurement and Anti Corruption and Integrity both had 21.6% but we went for Open Contracting and Public Procurement as AMAC had done Anti Corruption and Integrity in their first Action Plan Cycle. With this survey  citizens expressed their desire to actively participate in the procurement process of the Area Council as a way of engaging in the Government hidden system for projects, and calling for a strengthened and accountable procurement process and project implementation tracking mechanism.

The above survey birthed the Second Cycle of AMAC OGP Local Action Plan which aims to involve citizens in public procurement and making its Contracting System open to all for proper citizen inclusion. As AMAC’s OGP CSO partner, DEAN Initiative collaborated with AMAC to hold a two day workshop to develop its OGP Action Plan II. 

The Action Plan II is focused on Open Contracting which is aimed at encouraging accountability and transparency in procurement processes in the council and to further encourage citizens participation in the budgetary process. 

Andie Okon from Open Contracting cleared the air on what Open Contracting is. She further emphasized why it is important for Women and People Living with Disability (PWDS) to be actively  involved in this process as there should be gender balancing in the procurement system.

Andie okon, Program Officer Open Contracting.

The Executive Director of DEAN Initiative, Semiye Michael said the workshop is targeted at establishing the duty and presence of the citizen  into a people-centered budget and procurement at the local government level.

Semiye Michael further stated that “it is essential for projects and contracts to be free of malfeasance and open to  inclusion of women and people living with disability (PWDs) as well as all contracting processes.” There are roles in which the local government should smash-hit in development, such as primary education, primary health care, water and sanitation activities at community level. This and more is what DEAN Initiative aims at using the OGP to achieve at the governance level of the local government. 

The Council Chairman represented by his deputy and the Director of Administration AMAC, Mr. Attahiru Ibrahim, in their speeches stated that the Council was committed to promoting OGP with the people at the grassroot, that the council is also committed to achieving the OGP plans as they are committed to ensure an Open Procurement Process for everyone to participate.

Deputy Chairman, Hon. Nasiru Umar.
Mr. Attahiru Ibrahim, Director of Administration AMAC.

DEAN Initiative hopes to encourage citizens’ inclusion and active participation across all levels of government, as this will reshape our governance system and make leaders accountable to the people by providing them with relevant knowledge and tools to engage elected officials.

When completed, the Action Plan will be hosted on the AMAC page of the global OGP website for global tracking and referencing.

The Global Children Designathon (GCD) 2023 Project.

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The Global Children Designathon (GCD) Project was held on Saturday 15th April 2023 at the Global Goals Community Centre by DEAN Initiative. The Global Children’s Designathon is a yearly event that uses design and problem-based learning to encourage children to think creatively about sustainability issues. Each year, children from around the world come together to devise solutions for global environmental problems, focusing on specific themes. The theme for Global Children’s Designathon 2023 is “Our World: Restoring Biodiversity Big and Small“. The objective of the project is centered to inspire and provide a platform for students to engage and know, what biodiversity is, what the main causes of the loss in biodiversity are, and how it affects the planet and the future of all living things. To offer students a chance to participate in a well-structured design thinking workshop, to introduce students to various ideas and brainstorming techniques, and to enable students to prototype their own solutions to tackle biodiversity loss and promote co-existence. 14 students made it to the finals of this year’s cohort and were supported by 8 facilitators. There was a gender balance agenda that ensured participants to be 7 boys and 7 girls. The Global Children’s Designathon is an initiative of Designathon Works, Netherland.

The Initiative is centered on raising early-stage pupils through education to be able to understand their environment and basically understand climate change from the early stage. The children had generated a wide range of ideas, they were happy to create prototype sketches as instructed. This process allowed the children to refine their ideas and communicate them more effectively. By the end of this segment, children had generated a variety of solutions to the problem at hand and had visually represented these ideas through their prototype sketches. The children were also asked to design a prototype of their ideas. The prototyping section was a critical step as it enabled the children to turn their ideas into actionable solutions to tackle biodiversity loss. They made use of eco-friendly materials such as paper, straws, pencils, food sticks, cardboard, and so on, to create their solution prototype. The teams made different prototypes as stated below:

  • TEAM INVENT: Created an idea around houses in the cities and rural areas. These ideas encourage house owners in the cities and rural areas to cultivate vegetations around their houses by planting local trees and flowers especially creepy plants to grow over the roofs of these houses; making artificial ponds to grow species of fishes enabling interactions in our ecosystem. These innovations will bring a habitable environment for animals, insects, and man to boost living coexistence between man and animals in the ecosystem, create cool and conducive habitat, thereby increasing biodiversity.
  • TEAM CHANGE: focused on modern houses, they want to help flying insects like butterflies, birds, and bees to increase pollination. The ideas are described “we want to engage in the cultivation of flowers in our Gardens, this will attract butterflies and bees, increase their population, thereby increasing Biodiversity” and the ways in which they think they can promote their ideas is to inform their parents to purchase flower seeds and demarcate an area for the seeds to be planted around their houses.
  • TEAM DESIGN: focused on forest, they are particular about helping wild animals and the way in which they want to help these wild animals is by making spaces and food for life, and to teach people about Biodiversity. Their ideas were to introduce forest rangers to ward off poachers who indiscriminately kill wild animals for their parts thereby drastically reducing the population of animals in the forest. They also thought that another way to promote their ideas is by soliciting help from the government and asking private organizations to help implement these ideas.

At DEAN Initiative, we provide innovative, educational learning programs, in an extra-curricular format. The students in our participating schools’ constituents are opened up to sustainable skill-based educational resources and learning experiences that turn them from mere academic students into educational solution-based resource students. Our education interventions secure an unwavering partnership with the government that ensures smooth delivery in all participating schools without any form of technical issues. Models are co-delivered by volunteer educators, which makes delivery less expensive. Real-time teachers in participating schools also participate in delivering models as part of their partnership contribution to delivering our innovative solutions. Students are allowed to create their ideas and innovations, rather than listening to lessons only, they are now able to co-create their learning resources and as well enjoy the freedom of creating solutions to basic community challenges raised as problems in their classes.

Vote buying and selling conversation.

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DEAN Initiative had the second episode of our vote buying conversation series where we discussed the implications of CBN cashless policy on vote buying and selling in the forthcoming general elections.
Responding to the question of what he foresees with the cashless policy and how it affects the genral election Mr Emmanuel Njoku said he supports Mr president decision as he believes the policy will tackle the menace of vote buying and selling and bring some sanity to the country’s electoral process,
He added that as an experienced election observer, the eve of the election is when cash is mobilized and used for some wrong things including buying of drugs, alcohol, bullets and votes buying.
But still the policy has some adverse effect, due to the scarcity of cash people who need to travel to to other locations to vote might not be able to and this will greatly affect voters turnout. Also, the scarcity of cash is so severe that people, especially in the rural area might be selling their votes for as low as 1,000 naira or less.

Mrs Nike of Dataphyte butressed that the media has a responsibility to get above the noise especially with giving adequate information on the intents of the policy especially to those in the rural areas as they rarely have access to news and information.

Mr Bode affirmed that the role of young people in the management of vote buying and selling cannot be overly emphasized as he strongly believes that young Nigerians are very much interested and actively participating in the elections.

Lastly Mr Emmanuel stated that the National Orientation Agency NOA has a responsibility to educate Nigerians on the cashless policy and recommended that the NBC should give orders to all broadcasting channels especially the radio for adequate sensitization using jingles as it would help educate Nigerians.

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ELECTION EYEWITNESS MISSION PRESS CONFERENCE.

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ELECTION EYEWITNESS MISSION Press Conference.

DEAN Initiative held it’s Election Eyewitness Press conference on 17th Febuary 2023, among the media crew and organization present were TV stations like AIT, Channels, ARISE tv, Gee Tv and some print media like blueprint media, NANS and FRCN. 

In his press statement the Executive Director DEAN Initiative/Team Lead of the Election Eyewitness mission Project, Mr Semiye Michael made a recap of the INEC Mock Election held in the 36 states including FCT-Abuja on 05/02/2023

In another statement the Election Eyewitness Project Officer Ajayi Theophilus said DEAN Initiative will be conducting the election observation mission to observe the voting process in the 2023 general elections. Through this mission, he said the organization aims to collect reports of incidents and track the entire procedure.

He said the organization has successfully recruited, trained and deployed 774 INEC-accredited observers, one each in every LGA across the 36 states in Nigeria including the FCT. This he said demonstrates the organization’s commitment to improving the quality of good governance through a strengthen electoral process.

He also said that after series of engagements and intense training, the selected field Election Eyewitness observers will observe the entire election procedures from Polling Units down to INEC LG Collation centres, report incidences, result in the collation and transmit the same to the election eyewitness observation situation room for analysis. 

He concluded by saying that the main objective of this mission is to open up a new entry point for young people to effectively participate in the electoral process as a way of rebuilding our national election integrity and inclusive election process. 

On her own part the Program manager ably represented by Miss Olaleru Fisayo mentioned the major key areas of observation that the Election Eyewitness will be focusing on.

  • Testing the election time management, which has to do with the time it takes to accredit each voter. 
  • Observe the entire BVAS efficiency and performance especially in fingerprint, facial recognition, battery lifespan and in the display of the BVAS reading before the start of accreditation, the general conduct of INEC staff and the security agencies that will be on duty. 
  • We will also be observing the possible incidences of vote buying, election violence, underage voting, voters’ confidence in BVAS, and the overall performance of the BVAS. 

The 2023 general election is generally seen to be very crucial to Nigeria’s democracy and the Eyewitness Election observation mission is our contribution to the entire process for a successful and reliable election.

INEC MOCK ELECTION EYEWITNESS REPORT

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Lessons from 2023 INEC’s MOCK Election

50 of our Election Eyewitness Observers were on the field in different states of the country to observe the MOCK Election that was held on the 5 th of February 2023. INEC uses the mock election to demonstrate the entire election procedure to the people. It also provides opportunities to identify potential gaps and technical failures or threats that may hamper the election process and as well enables citizens and other stakeholders to raise genuine concerns ahead of the main elections.

We were specific on our areas of observation interest. The key Observation Area(KOA) was on BVAS efficiency in terms of battery hours, time of accreditation per voter, BVAS reading before the start of the election, and the citizens’ confidence in the BVAS’s performance.

Other Key Areas of Observation(OKAO) include the timely arrival of INEC officials, the average time it takes officials to set up and start attending to voters, voters’ arrival time to polling units, polling units’ accessibility and proximity, preparation for crowd control and management, and security presence and management. Also on the observation lock includes voter turnout, under-age accreditation, and proxy accreditation.


Election Time Management

INEC Staff Set Up Time
inec staff set up timeThe Election Eyewitnesses on the field generally reported early arrivals of poll officials at most polling units they observed.

It takes less than 30 minutes for the poll officials to set up in 92.3% of the PUs observed. This is encouraging against the usual lateness that normally plaque elections especially in remote and suburban centers. The Lateness of officials and longer time for their setups generally affect the election timeline and also provide a way out for hoodlums who take covers in the late night darkness to disrupt vote counting as well as compromised officials who use such a medium to alter results before eventual transmission.

Accreditation Time Per Voter

It was reported to have taken between 2 to 3 minutes to accredit a voter in yet 92.3% of PUs visited by our Election Eyewitnesses. This is a major interest because it has to do with the efficiency of both the BVAS and the handlers. The lesser time it takes to accredit a voter, the better for the time management of the entire election chain of activities.

BVAS Test

The integrity of this election has been largely talked about to depend on the BVAS. The
Election Eyewitnesses reported the display of the initial reading on the BVAS which read:
000 as expected in 100% of PUs visited. The rule provides that before the exercise begins, the
value of reading the BVAS must be shown to the public and it is expected to read: 000.

There were BVAS technical issues in 7.3% of places visited. Battery issues, fingerprint, and
facial recognition issues. In most cases, observers reported that most of the issues were
quickly fixed. But largely, the BVAS functioned maximally in over 90% of places visited.

Voters’ test of confidence in BVAS was investigated and the confidence expressed by the
people goes as high as 95%. This is exciting. This is against concerns expressed in several
quarters that citizens don’t have trust in the ability of the BVAS to facilitate election
integrity. If the process is allowed to run without any form of human manipulation, people
have seen what BVAS can do and how it performed.

Accreditation Dispute

Voters had issues around accreditation in 15% of the PUs observed. A major cause of dispute centered on PU changes without voters’ knowledge. Voters arrive at their original PUs with their PVCs only to discover that they have been reallocated to another PU. The newly created PUs that people were shifted to without their notification may cause more issues at the main election if not rapidly addressed. We also had issues with failed fingerprints and facial recognition. But the availability of the voter register helped resolved most of the issues.

Voters Turnout

Election Eyewitnesses reported 85% poor voter turnout in PUs visited. This is very poor. Observers practically helped look for voters within PU vicinities to come out just to ensure that the exercise achieved the minimum result possible.
Under Age Voting


Election Eyewitnesses reported 0% under-age voting in all PUs observed. The MOCK Election demonstrated what is possible if elections are allowed to hold without any form of negative interest. The different levels of interest that motivate layers of inducements and compromises lead the way in election fraud. Nigeria’s democracy must speedily outgrow the surge of financial affluence and massive wealth accumulation that currently fuels peoples’ passion for democratic service.

Basic Recommendations

  1. INEC as an institution has time without number assured Nigerians and all stakeholders how ready and committed they are to conduct an election we will all be proud of and we have no doubt seen commendable improvements in their planning and activities. Nevertheless, a good number of INEC field officials have continued to act exhibit a wide range of unethical practices ranging from needless hostility to citizen observers, voters, and good-intentioned stakeholders. These field officials carry with them bags full of aggression, arrogance, and anger that they dispense without control. Elections are citizens’ biggest business to decide their lives in a democratic governed society and to serve as an election umpire is one of life’s greatest honour. This honour must be treated with civility and humanness. We recommend continuous training and retraining of INEC field staff, especially their state and LGA staff members.
  2. INEC should endeavor to make available all needed resources for field operational activities in this election. Politicians have continued to relish the resource shortages for INEC field officials at the local level and pitching dependable cashflow and logistic for them at prizes that over the years have continued to undermine the integrity of our elections. There is no need to break this down beyond this, at least for now.
  3. From the Mock exercise, it became obvious that we can have a desired election as a people. We call on INEC to be more intentional in the area of public education and deploy sufficient information to people affected by the new polling unit creation. The new INEC voters’ data contains citizens’ phone numbers and we expect the reason such was collected would be to provide on-the-go information to citizens. It will be unacceptable for eligible voters to miss their right to vote from a situation they had nothing to do with as noticed during the MOCK exercise.
  4. INEC should also ensure each state is provided with enough BVAS machine backup to promptly replace anyone that may for whatever reason encounter unresolvable technical or human disruption on election day.

Climate Education Press Conference

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DEAN INITIATIVE held a press conference to reemphasise our call on the Government to include Climate Education in the learning curriculum for students, holding onto COP 27 commitment which had education as its frontline action, we called on the ministries of Education and Environment to forge beneficial collaboration by adding climate education into an existing subject or introducing a new one.


We presented our climate education curriculum, a contextualised climate learning curriculum for climate educators that detailed the issues and possible solutions to climate change so that when integrated into the learning curriculum, future generations in NIGERIA can be called CLIMATE Champions

Passionate educators from our just concluded 10-day Abuja Climate Education Survey who used the transforming education survey to collect Nigerian children’s voices in shaping the future globally were there, they shared their experiences and expressed the excitement of the educators and the eagerness of pupils to put into practice all they had learnt.

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Below is our official PRESS STATEMENT which was given to the gentlemen of the press and all present for the press conference;

PRESENTATION OF CLIMATE EDUCATION LEARNING CURRICULUM FOR CLIMATE CHANGE EDUCATORS

COP 27 has come and gone, with inspiring promises and a list of commitments, including making climate education a frontline action in addressing climate change’s devastating trajectory. We are to remind the government to keep its promises and be bold in leading actions through innovative climate education designs because, in today’s world, Climate Education has become a right for children not to be denied.

As part of our efforts as experts and critical stakeholders in the business of development design through innovative educational programming, our organisation, Development Of Educational Action Network (DEAN), formerly known as DEAN More Initiative for African Development and the World’s Largest Lesson (UK) in 2020 started working to create adaptable climate education learning materials that anyone basic teaching skills can use to dispense quality climate education teaching to students around the world. The effort has been very successful.

Nigeria is one of the selected countries we have put the use of the developed Climate Education Pack to the test for two years of school-based learning. In 2021, we rolled out the exercise in six Nigerian states; Lagos, Ogun, Ekiti, Niger, Kwara and Abuja FCT. We worked with 32 trained climate change educators to cover 32 schools across the selected six states for a six-month pilot teaching exercise to deliver contextualised Climate change- makers classes as an extracurricular exercise. 127 classes were held with over 1000 pupils who participated. We scaled to 10 schools this year(2022) and worked with 50 Educators to reach 1500 students. The results have shown explicit empirical confirmation of various scientific research that has prescribed climate education as the best short and long-term measure to fight climate change.

As an organisation, we want to emphasise that there is no more excellent tool to change the world than EDUCATION. Students must understand that climate change is not just a threat. It is a reality resulting in social, economic, and environmental instability in a country that is already vulnerable. Our contextualised resources for the classroom include all these issues and possible solutions so that future generations in Nigeria can be climate champions.

We are also calling on the ministries of Education and Environment to forge beneficial collaboration on this subject. The world is making gradual progress in climate education

The mandate of Article 6 of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (Paris Agreement), to which Nigeria is a signatory to, listed six areas that should be utilised to engage the public in climate change solutions; Education is the first mechanism mentioned in Article 6. The IPCC reports have also supported climate education as a climate

response to strengthen societal responses to climate change.

already. Countries are now making climate education laws. We are passionate about this because we believe climate literacy can give people the tools to engage meaningfully with governments and corporations to help solve climate change. Argentina has drafted a law on environmental education that will make climate education compulsory in all schools. They said implementing environmental education will teach the next generation of leaders to love, protect and respect the Earth. In 2019, Italy announced a requirement for climate change studies in all Italian schools. Also, New Jersey has adopted Climate Change As Part Of The Core Curriculum In All Public Schools in the USA. And New Zealand schools also now teach students about the climate crisis, activism, and eco-anxiety.

Over the years, DEAN has championed social issues affecting young people, children, and other vulnerable groups. We celebrate the passion of our Educators across the country, especially those participating in the ongoing special Climate Education Activation in Abuja, using the Transforming Education survey to collect Nigerian children’s voices in shaping the future of education globally. We also applaud the federal government through the Ministry of Environment for implementing various initiatives in tackling the climate change crisis, as demonstrated in their ambitious plan in the NDC. As we share this Climate Education Learning Curriculum For Climate Change Educators for their use, we ask that more urgent and sustainable actions be implemented to solidify ongoing climate interventions by the government and other relevant stakeholders. Building on Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, we, as a result of this, submit these THREE(3) ASKS:

  1. Through the Ministries of Education and Environment, the Federal Government will draft a review process that will include climate education in relevant subjects across primary and secondary schools in Nigeria.
  2. Environmental/Green clubs can function across schools, which will be duly regularised.
  3. Students can participate in extracurricular activities that equip them with knowledge of nature, biodiversity, climate change, and environmental stewardship, including environment/climate literature as part of approved reading literature for pupils/students across schools in Nigeria.

#ClimateSmartKids

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Project Description: 

Climate change and its effect in recent times have become a global emergency. With the earth warming above 30C, there is need for the world to develop innovative solutions that will push actions by different government, to reduce carbon emission if we still desire to protect our planet. With the world recovering from the COVID-19 and witnessing the impact of a virus on mankind, there is a need to urgently declare an emergency over the climate change situations. The pandemic has gotten a vaccine to help reduce the impact but for climate change, there is no vaccine, all we have is to take action and that is our only solution.  

From country-to-country young people has become climate activists and calling for actions by world leaders. As young people push for climate justice and holding their different government accountable to be more proactive in implementing policies and climate governance there is need to sustain this call and continue to hold the government to deliver on their promises. To sustain climate action call especially in Nigeria children whose life will be affected if pre-emptive and result-oriented measures are not immediately taken must be guided to become part of this climate movement to both take precise actions and as well participate in calling for actions from the government. The Sustainable Development Goals is built on the bedrock of ‘leaving no one behind’. Therefore this project tends to not just educate children on climate change and its effect but also to help them create their stories around how they are affected and encourage them to call for more actions by the government. The project will also help them to identify the roles they can play in addressing the climate change issue and also motivate them to take climate actions and make a commitment in their little ways. 

Objectives: 

  • To create a sustained awareness of climate change focusing on children between the ages of 6-17. 
  • To raise a generation of young Nigerians who are greatly concerned about the environment. 
  • To help children understand that they can play a role in solving climate change issues. 
  • To build a country where everyone is committed to protecting the environment.  

Activities: 

  • Climate and Environmental conservation training for selected school children using well-curated Climate toolkits. 
  • Visitation to selected schools in Abuja, Abeokuta and Port Harcourt by young climate activists to educate children (20 schools in Abuja, 5 each in Abeokuta and Port Harcourt). 
  • Setting up Environmental/Climate reality clubs and raising young climate activists 
  • Planting trees and nurturing the trees as part of a commitment by these young climate activists. 
  • Stakeholders’ engagement and Excursion Visits. 

 Expected Outcome: 

  • Establishment of 30 Climate reality clubs in Abuja, Abeokuta and Port Harcourt. 
  • 250 young climate champions trained and equipped with innovative climate and environmental education. 
  • 1200 seedlings raised and nurtured. 
  • Young climate champions taking climate actions to address climate emergency in their communities. 

Sustainability: 

The project will serve as a mitigation and adaptation-based program heralding multiple target schools whereby young climate champion will be raised. This project shall incorporate a developmental perspective metamorphosing into the creation of environmental clubs in selected schools. The club will meet at the Global Goals Center periodically and the center would continue to facilitate part of the project activities with supervision from the Center Manager.  

Scaling Up Methodology: 

To ensure that the voices of young people and children in Africa are actively considered for climate action and justice, the project will partner with other climate activists in selected African countries. These activists will support the project by establishing Climate Reality Clubs in their communities. This will help to call for more stronger active voices across Africa to take ambitious actions in addressing impacts of climate change crisis across the African continent.  

Youth opportunity training (YOT)

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Project statement

Youths’  unemployment  in  Nigeria  has  been on an increase as numbers of  yearly graduates from

Youths’ unemployment in Nigeria has been on an increase as numbers of yearly graduates from institutions of higher learning continued to increase, due to the fact most youth are not equipped with the necessary skill required to be employed or are not able to develop good content either when applying for a job to earn a living or to further pursue a career abroad. The unemployment and underemployment rate according to NBS as of 2018 rose to 23.1 percent and 16.6 percent respectively.

Project description

Youth opportunity training (YOT) is aimed at equipping/enhancing youths with digital skills, scholarships & job application opportunities and 21st century cv/resume creation template. TOY is targeted at 20 youth particularly undergraduates, serving & ex corps members within G/lada Area Council of the Fct both male and female.

Activities

  • A google form would be created to be filled by interested youth, who want to be beneficiary of the training.
  •  Participant would be divided in two group, 10 in each group making it 20 participants in total.
  • A 2 weeks intense training for participant. YOT is expected to be a week for each group. Training is to start by 10am on each day.

Overall Goal

  • Is to acquaint participant with necessary digital & content development skills required to become entrepreneurs and also further make them employable, so as to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country.

objectives

  • Equip participant with digital skills like web creation & development, graphic design.
  • Enlighten and teach youth on how to apply for jobs & scholarship
  • Exposing participant to 21st century cv template

Outcome

  • We hope to have more youth that have the right skills needed in the 21st century labor market.
  •  reduce the rate of unemployment in the country at large.