Originally penned on Thursday 5th June, 2008
I returned to the classroom as a student earlier today- though I made an earlier return a few days back, as teacher at the Government Secondary School, Minna where I am carrying out my primary assignment as a Youth Corps member.
Now I have experienced firsthand what ‘Gbenga Sesan – one of mentors – felt when he had to return to the classroom in April at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
For me returning to the classroom nearly two years after I left it – as student – is a commitment to one of the prongs in my multiple prongs approach to improving self – body, soul and spirit. I resolved at the commencement of the National Youth Service Year for me to maximize the opportunities the period will afford and I have decided on the following:
Serve God: Really Return to the Roots. I should have taken a cue when in Januart ‘Gbenga, One of my mentors and the same mentioned above declared in a meeting January that this year was his year of returning to the roots, I had laughed and wished the best thinking to myself that I have all he is missing and do not need to go back to any roots or retrace any steps. Today however, everything around me points at the emptiness I feel deep within and the need for me to go back to God – seek him out, learn his ways again and put his valued principles to work again in my life – has become imminent. God please help me.
I honestly feel a void deep within and have lost appreciation for a lot of things for which I have had so much value in the past.
God, please, accept m back, I am a prodigal SON come home.
Serve others: I have decided to seize the opportunity of the service year to increase my service to my fellow man; thus the conception of the ICTs Schools Project (ICTsSP), a project designed to take ICTs to children in underserved communities with the goals of (1) creating a thirst for further ICTs knowledge amongst the children; (2) attract Government and donor agencies attention to the need for ICTs based activities at community levels and; (3) above all equipping people who otherwise would not have had the privileged to improve their livelihoods by plugging into the various opportunities ICTs afford.
Service is the whole essence of the NYSC, though largely abused in some quarters with some corps employers seeing the pool of corpers as cheap labour and treating them as such and most corps members seeing the whole program as a waste of time – boy I had a similar opinion until recently.
In serving others, I have resolved to carry work further on the Students’ Survival Kit project, which is a performance enhancement program for undergraduates in Nigerian universities and those willing to study in a Nigerian university (you can read more about the project here, here, and here)
Learn: yeah increase my knowledge base and improve my skill sets. I have itemised my areas of competence and interests and have resolved to improve on my competence by seeking formal education, learning and certification opportunities. While I will seek additional information on all areas of interests to in other to identify their consonance with my life’s goal; which can be simply summarised as: making meaning of life, for me and others.
ASPIRE: Articulate and actualise my aspirations and dreams. Stop the talk and start the walk
Thus far I have made considerable progress on the LEARN point by enrolling with Broad spectrum Synergies Ltd, an Abuja based training consultancy for an eight week formal training in Project Management based on PMI’s PMBOK guide and will prepare me for the certification process by the PMI. And that was the classroom I returned to today as a student.
I will give regular updates on my activities here and more specifically at www.oluwakoredeasuni.com/reflections
