The project coordinator of Project Mind Impact for Motivation Initiative (MIMI), Kemi Oshiyemi-Cole, has said that training students in agriculture as a means of self-sufficiency not only empowers them with essential skills but also contributes to the overall well-being of the community.
Oshiyemi-Cole stated this during an empowerment programme in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital on Thursday.
MIMI is a youth empowerment initiative aimed at boosting the skills of youths in agriculture.
Oshiyemi-Cole said implementing a structured programme that combines education, hands-on experience, and community involvement, can foster a generation of informed and capable individuals ready to take on agricultural challenges.
She said proffering solutions to the challenge of hunger or food insecurity brings about significant reduction in the other areas of challenges saying every student in every school is a representative of a family, nuclear and extended.
“When a student is fed, several families are fed. When these students are given seeds so that they can plant and feed, thousands of families in each local government are fed.”
She said they are focusing on students of secondary schools because they are young and their minds are still malleable and shapeable and their energy can be channelled positively towards planting their foods with a view to feeding themselves and members of their families.
Oshiyemi-Cole disclosed that “We are propelled by this truth, in seeking solution to the food insecurity pervading our land, to renew and reorientate the minds of the students in secondary schools in every local government in Oyo state towards agriculture as a means of self-sufficiency and food security.
“We are also training them in different skills from which they can earn money to supplement what their parents are making. These skills include graphic design, web design, wig making, soap making, make-up and gele artistry, pastry and cake making, event and interior decoration and Ankara craft.
This brings our vision of self-sufficiency, food security and economic self-dependence to fruition.
“We achieve this dream by going to every secondary school in every local government in Oyo state to renew the minds of the students through sensitisation and demonstrate, physically, how they can plant their foods on lands around them and in sacks in their backyards or on their balconies.
“We give them seeds of foods to plant while telling them how they can get the ones that we are unable to give them easily and also follow up on their farming/gardening activities through different effective follow-up strategies and incentives with a view to encouraging them to see their farming activities to production and also to provide solutions to challenges they may encounter along the way.
“We are organising various competitions between the local governments, represented by secondary schools within them, and giving incentives, rewards and awards as a means of encouragement, motivation and result-consciousness.”
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