‘How youth can achieve emotional stability’

Busola Aro

The Country Coordinator, Lions Quest, Mr Kola Oyekanmi has said the youthful generation will achieve emotional stability if they are allowed to manage their social and emotional skill.

He said this will enable them to face psychological challenges and handle situations in their environment.

Speaking at the Social and Emotional Learning Programme with the focus on building character, Lions Quest an arm of Lion’s Club International  Foundation (LCIF), he said the group has taken it upon itself to impact the lives of young people by training them on how to handle their emotions and stand out socially.

Oyekanmi said the programme was designed to reach out to schools and train teachers who would help build the characters of the children.

“Lions Quest is a life skill and prevention programme of Lions Clubs International Foundation. It teaches young people the skills necessary for everyday success. It is a comprehensive social and emotional (SEL) youth development programme that promotes character, education, bullying prevention, drug awareness and service-learning. Lions Quest also promotes a caring, safe, well managed and participatory learning environment that allows students to develop 21st-century life skill,” he said.

Oyekanmi added that the programme will empower and support young adults globally and nurture caring and responsible young people.

He said: “Despite not given the support and due approval by the Lagos state government, we are aiming to reach out to more schools to implement the idea of schools focusing on adolescents’ social and emotional life style. We also want to have more trainings to produce Lion Quest Trainer. Presently we are implementing the fourth Edition of the Skills for Adolescence (SFA) and secure grant to adapt and print the fifth edition.

“So far, we have trained 300 teachers from 138 schools and impacted 12,000 students. We have also secured the approval to implement the programme in public schools in two states, Osun and Cross River, starting with two local government areas in each state for pilot implementation. Presently we are in the process of finalising a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Osun State Ministry of Education. When that happens, over 2,000 teachers would be trained to affect 2000,000 students.

“We believe that this programme unites parents, teachers and community members to works towards a shared goal which is to help adolescents to grow into healthy, capable and productive young people. Our children are the leaders of tomorrow, and it is our cardinal duty to guide and teach them the skills which can help them to avoid peer pressure and negative influences like drugs and alcohol.”