(Published Online: 28th January 2008)

Pre-amble

It is my belief that VC should actively pursue a strategy that enables it effectively harness the real-life knowledge and skills of each volunteer for use in order to provide fuller and more rounded “education” to students in the tutoring project.

The overriding objective of VC to me is to help the students become successful people in life, ultimately. That’s why we are going to all this trouble with the tutoring project. We are all hopeful that the input we make into the lives of these young people today will serve them well later on in their lives, and help them overcome inevitable challenges and difficulties to become successful members of society.

If the above were indeed our major purpose, then would it not be to our benefit if we could equip these young people with the specific knowledge, attitudes and skills that would help them achieve success in their adult lives? A parent who wishes the child to become something of a Shina Peters in Music, Serena Williams in Tennis, Tiger Woods in Golf, will wisely start the child off practicing as early on as possible in life. The longer the child does it, with intelligent instruction on how to improve, the better he/she ultimately becomes.

My apologies. I do not intend to make this a lecture of any sort. My point is that we need to explore ways to “grow” these students up faster so they can survive in the world. They must not be allowed to finish from school thinking(like others before them) that because they have academic knowledge, they will succeed – only to find that few jobs are available for their qualifications, and they don’t have any money making skills! In fact, participants in VC’s tutoring projects should differ from other students in terms of their demonstrated aptitude for survival in the real world.

Simply put, every single legitimate way that each volunteer uses (or knows can be used) to earn a good living (outside paid employment), and/or which can also help them succeed in various areas of endeavour – including their higher education - should be researched thoroughly (starting with interviews of volunteers, then if necessary liaison with business support NGOs, higher institutions etc), documented, and incorporated into the “education” provided at the tutoring sessions of VC.

For easy management/coordination, VC will need to set up a group of inter-related and complementary micro-business projects. Students will be trained on how to successfully operate each of the projects in the group for profitable income-generation. They will also be shown how to leverage technology in a cost-effective manner to better monitor/control their production processes. Note that my suggestions here centre on Agricultural/related ventures. The reason is that these are areas of business endeavour that are guaranteed to remain relevant regardless of changes in socio-economic trends or development in Nigeria.

1. Catfish Hatching and Fingerlings Production VC can establish a room-sized fingerlings hatchery/ nursery very inexpensively to provide training for the students. One female (Clarias) catfish weighing 0.5kg can be made, to produce 5-10,000 smaller catfish (fries) within 48 hours through a simplified method of induced breeding that can be mastered by even illiterate fish farming enthusiasts. Within 4 – 6 weeks, each baby catfish can be sold for N5 – N15 each to fish farmers, and homestead pond owners who need them for production of table-sized catfish.

Incidentally, the VC nursery must be operated profitably to demonstrate to the students practical benefits of going into the business, part-time. VC projects must be seen to have a visible impact on the lives of the students, so parents/relatives can be encouraged to assist their children who undergo this training to set-up theirs if possible where they live (with as little as N20,000 - N50,000).

In no time at all, you’ll find that more students/parents will want to be associated with VC and you’ll probably find many more people coming in to become volunteers not just to help with the project, but also in order to learn these trades for themselves!

Marketing/Sales: Where/how do we find buyers? There are many catfish farming enterprises in Lagos(and environs) involved in producing adult catfish for supply to local market women, restaurants and hotels (that serve them as delicacies for pepper soup). All VC needs do is establish itself as a credible source of healthy and productive catfish fries, and the market opportunities will be virtually limitless. This is no exaggeration.

2. Catfish Grow Out

To ensure the students benefit, VC would do well to establish a catfish grow-out operation, which will get its supply of catfish from the fingerlings operation. This only makes sense since there is even greater impact on the students’ economic awareness, if they get to see the fingerlings they produce grow into 1 – 1.5 kg table-sized catfish adults that they eat at home!

One other benefit of this is that they are able to interact with market women who might be invited every 5 months(at harvest time) to purchase the market-ready fish. When the students visit the markets, their understanding of where the fish that get sold come from will be deeper.

Locally adapted techniques that make rearing of catfish to adulthood inexpensive have been developed. These techniques will make it easy for VC to safely, and cost-effectively venture into this area. Note also that the fingerlings production venture could even be used to finance the start-up of the grow-out venture, and that process could be used to teach the students the critical thinking involved in expanding a business.

Specifics: 4-6 week old fingerlings weighing approx. 10 grams, will be grown to about 500 grams – 1 kg size in about 5 months using about 1 kg weight of food(worth N15) to produce 1 kg of fish flesh(sold for N250 – N350 in the market).

You can keep about 50 fingerlings per square metre, so that a standard room sized set-up of 50 x 12 sqm, will take about 600 fishes. When they mature to table-size, you get (considering losses due to poor handling etc) at least 500 big fish which should fetch something in the neighbourhood of N150,000 in 5 months – depending on who you’re selling to.

NOTE: I have suggested only the above agro-based ventures for now, because I believe success is more readily achieved in them, and will provide justification for venturing further into other areas if the need arises.

3. Computers and the Internet

Computer/Internet related business ventures are good, but in my opinion require creative and innovative thinking that is lacking among majority of Nigerians. It is something that will have to be taught/encouraged to develop in our youths. The ways Nigerians currently use the IT revolution and the Internet is similar to the way we have used every other advancement introduced by developed societies: We just take and use. We very rarely add to what is being discovered or learnt about the world.

If a survey were done, Nigerians would be found to be the NO. 1 users of FREE resources on the Internet. “Respectable” Nigerian businesses use Yahoo!, Hotmail and other FREE e-mail services meant for students and other less financially enabled individuals. They do this despite the fact that it would cost them less than N7,500 to get an internet based e-mail account linked to their domain name – which is not only more professional and befitting of their status, but more convenient because of additional features.

In developed countries no prospective client would take ANY business that uses a FREE e-mail service seriously(Go online and check to see if you can find ONE non-Nigerian/African business entity that uses a FREE e-mail service).

Nigerians do not develop software that other countries would be willing to download either FREE or for a fee. But we pay for foreigners from India and America to install their software for our use in our companies.

If VC is going to introduce students to IT, and the Internet, it should do so with the objective of getting the oriented to appreciate that they need to explore ways they can develop solutions and innovations by drawing inspiration from their immediate environment and beyond, which can result in monetary returns to them/others within or outside Nigeria.

Anybody can download FREE information from the Internet and use. But why can’t you and I also be people who upload useful information to the internet that other from every part of the world will find beneficial for download or even purchase? Can’t Nigerians also write nifty software programs that will help others do something they currently do with their computers/the net faster or better? Of course we can!

But many Nigerians dislike work that makes them think. They prefer to let Oyinbo do the thinking, and develop the product, so they (Nigerians) can simply buy and sell. We forget that by so doing we hurt ourselves the most – especially economically. VC can begin to nurture a new generation of “thinking and creative Nigerians” who can use technology to make things better for themselves and others. How?

One way is by encouraging interested individual students to become programmers, and getting them to use their skills to solve real-life tangible problems in society, that will impact directly on people in a way that they will be willing to pay for them.

A good programmer is not likely to NEED paid employment(except for very good remuneration) as he/she will be capable of developing packages that users will be desperate to have because it really solves a major problem or meet a major need! And they will pay well to get such packages. Take a look at America and Asia, and compare what programmers in paid employment over there get with the “table crumbs” their counterpart in Nigeria get, and you’ll see my point.

I believe other ventures like Neighbourhood Car Washing, Barbing Salon Venture, homestead rabbit rearing, earthworm rearing/mass-production(for supply to fish/poultry farmers) can also be explored by interested persons.

About VC Extracurriculars

What follows are a few ideas I’ve been nursing about specific extracurricular activities for VC students.

1. Team Working/Building Activities – to help students learn how to work with others towards mutually agreed goals. They learn the essence of cooperating to get things done effectively as a group. Major competence to acquire: Interpersonal Effectiveness. Students would be required to read the book “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie, and apply it in their daily activities.

Business and other partnerships are notoriously impossible to sustain here in Nigeria. One main reason: Lack of trust. Someone defined TEAM as Together Everyone Achieves More. If VC can teach students to adopt this philosophy in their lives, a new generation on Nigerians willing to work together for success is likely to evolve over time. Our Traditional Medicine Industry, despite it’s huge potential, remains archaic and underdeveloped because of this unwillingness of stakeholders to work together. The Asians have done just that and we all see the results.

2. Creative Thinking and Problem-Solving Activities – to help student learn how to go about investigating the root cause of problems, be they process or people-related. They will be taught to understand why it is important to champion progressive change and how. They will learn how to constructively challenge existing ways of doing things. They will be made to realise that it is important to have questioning minds – always constantly wanting to know why things are the way they are, and what can be done to improve.

3. Self-Development(SD) – I have noticed that many people readily claim that they practice SD. That may be true. But the way I have conceived of SD and its practice, I refer to something that could be called a “culture”. Something that is not only systemic, but has actually become a way of life for a person or a group of people. There are many sides to practicing SD some of which are :

a. Vocational Skills Acquisition – A person can decide to attend a seminar to learn how to make money from soap production. That would be Self-Development. The problem is that many times, there is no continuity in such efforts. What happens is the person then launches into the business having no idea of other areas of knowledge and skill necessary to run a business successfully.

b. Mental Stamina – This is the most neglected part. Some people do not even know it exists yet many times it makes the difference between the man who wins the 1,500m race and the one who comes second in a photo finish.

When a long race is coming to an end, the muscles are aching, the legs are tiring, the lungs are screaming for air and each runner is desperately wants to stop so he/she can take a little rest. The runner who is able to maintain the mental attitude that enables him/her manage all the pain/discomfort well enough to keep going, instead of slowing down, often wins. Michael Jordan is renowned for what his NBA colleagues have called his “tough mental game” – that made him repeatedly score game-winning points hundredths of a second to the end/loss of a game!

To buttress the foregoing, consider the importance Americans for instance place on having psychologists attached to their teams/athletes. It is well known that a person’s state of mind is as crucial to his/her success as is his/her physical condition. This rule applies across all spheres of endeavour. (Try going to the market to do elaborate shopping while worrying about the whereabouts of your 8-month old child who went missing over 2 days ago, and see how well you fare!).

People’s mental attitudes often determine, many times, how successful they become. If you do not understand how to deal with difficulty, disappointments and adversity in your life, and how these unpleasant experiences actually offer you unparalleled opportunities to develop into a stronger person emotionally, you might be unable to achieve noteworthy success. I speak now based on my personal achievements in paid employment, and after.

Our youth need to be made to understand the need to develop this side of themselves. It will enable them have good self-perception/healthy self-esteem, and ability to carry on in the face of discouragement. If we want to turn out youths who will make a difference in society, we must help them develop to be self-confident and emotionally stable. That is not read in books or taught in schools and universities. But it can be deliberately passed on through coaching, mentoring by competent persons. VC is already well placed to make this happen.

If we neglect this aspect of their development, many students will end up like those who today do nothing but copy the ghetto black Americans(equivalent of our own area/Ajegunle crowd here in Nigeria!), and feel good about it. Many youths do not even understand why they do what they do. They speak funny because they feel it is better to sound like an American than it is to sound like a Nigerian.

That kind of behaviour betrays a deep lack of self-pride and self-esteem. I ask VC to help the students in the tutoring project develop passionate pride in being Black, Nigerian and African.

My apologies for the length(or ”lecture!”), but this is a subject that I feel strongly about – especially because I think too few people are willing to do something about it. Hope you find something that’s of some use in all of it.