50 Story tellers trained on Media for Demographic Dividend

Last week, about 50 young change makers got trained on the use of media to achieve demographic dividend courtesy, Hacey Initiative and Alarika. Hacey Health Initiative is a youth led non-profit organization that has been in existence for over 12 years and has impacted the lives of many young Nigerians through community projects and training. The one week storytelling boot-camp took place in a city in Lagos state, Nigeria. Our founder, Akinjise Daniel was selected amongst other media storytellers and journalists to attend the training.

Demographic Dividend to a layman can be referred to as the benefits gotten from the investment given to the youths over a period of time. One of the ways to develop a nation is to invest in its human resources so as to have more independent young people who are capable of fending for themselves and adding to the GDP of the nation.

In Nigeria today, over 50% of the young people are underemployed or unemployed leaving them to be dependent on their parents or the community for survival. Developed nations like the United State of America, Japan and United Kingdom have put in structures to harness the benefits attached to investing in Young people and are reaping the dividend already. Statistics says that in 2050, the population of Nigeria will be times two of its current number. This means that there would more out of school children, increase in the rate of unemployment and the nation might be poorer than it is today.

There are four thematic structures to be looked into if a nation must harness it demographic dividend:

- Reproductive and sexual health

- Education and skill learning

- Entrepreneurship and Employment

- Youth empowerment and participation in governance

If a nation invest in the aforementioned points, there would be more independent youths who are employed or entrepreneurs running scalable businesses, there would be educated people who have talents and skills to start up initiative capable of building the nation, there would less teenage mothers and out of school children an there would be more young people with capacity to participate in governance.

Nigerian youths are meant to be key drivers of the economy; they must be invested in to harness the demographic dividend.