Author: Taiwo Akinlami

The Premier Skills/British Council Child Protection Journey

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#ThisisMySTORY #ThisisMyLesson

Dateline was May 2014 when I received an email from Stephanie Delaney, who resided in Egypt and headed Child Protection affairs of the British Council for Africa and the Middle East. I had met her earlier that year in South Africa, while running a refresher course on School Leadership under the Connecting Classrooms program of the British Council.

Stephanie had contacted me to develop Training and Facilitators’ Manuals on Rights and Protection for the girl child under the Premier Skills Project.

Stephanie had Linked me to work with Roy Chikwen, then Project Manager, Education and Society for the British Council.

I had been given 30 days to develop a total of 12 modules of Training Manual and 12 modules of Facilitators’ Manual…It was a tough order but I accepted same as a challenge that could be surmounted, with the right mindset, proportional and deliberate activities and love and passion for the PRECIOUS AFRICAN children. It was my second attempt of trying my hands on curriculum development on Child’s Rights/Protection, having worked with UNICEF between 2006 and 2009 to mainstream Child’s Rights Education into the curriculum of the Nigerian Institute of Journalism(NIJ) Lagos at all levels (graduate and post graduate.)

By the grace of God the manuals were delivered to the unreserved satisfaction of the British Council…I also ran a 2-day training for the coaches/trainers on how to effectively disseminate the training…

Roy Chikwen invited me back in 2015 to use the Facilitators’Manual to train some NGOS, being engaged by the British Council on the Premier Skills Project.

In 2017, I worked with the Premier Skills trainers from the UK to deliver the local components of the Child Protection training of the Premier Skills. There I met Chikam Ekeh, Project Manager, School, Education and Society.

In 2018 November, the Premier Skills School Club kicked off and now(2019) I have been invited to conduct a Monitoring and Evaluation and Training on the Child Protection component of the project in Lagos and Kano. This time around I was privileged to work with my darling wife and fellow Preacher, big in mind, strong in strength and reliable in all professional and love matters…While I handled Lagos, she handled Kano.

Here is the main lesson for us, the best of organisations, who work with children and we have been privileged to work with over the years, do not take Securing A Friendly and PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT™ for granted…They have comes to accept as an inevitable operating principle that until Children FEEL safe, they do not give the best of themselves to any form of activities they are involved or engaged in…Having accepted the foregoing, they are always working to keep the precious children under their care safe. How do they do that? They create Securing A Friendly and PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT™systems and a critical component of the systems is Monitoring and Evaluation. The system is codified into an implementation policy. You cannot come in contact with children under their watch without being informed or trained on their Securing A Friendly and PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT™ for Systems and Policy. They work with Subject Matter Experts(SME) and instist on the best outputs, embracing global STANDARDS as key component of the entire operations.

For them, Securing A Friendly and PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT™ for the PRECIOUS children under their care is not an affair in window dressing, it is the heart of their continued existence and the foundation of all they do.

It is our earnest expectations that Nigeria, Africa and her privte and public institutions will truly embrace as inevitable systems of Securing A Friendly and PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT™ for the precious children under their care, noting that the devil of abuse is in the details we neglect…

Do have an INSPIRED day dear STANDARDS BEARERS.

Yours IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE PRECIOUS AFRICAN CHILD

Taiwo AKINLAMI
The Preacher

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Appreciation Seminar/The S.A.F.E™ School of STANDARDS Holds Successfully

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Saturday, March 30, 2019 was a strategic day. It was our first program for the year at @taiwoakinlamiacademy and safe4childrensociety. It was our Appreciation Seminar/The S.A.F.E™ School of STANDARDS.

We also used the occasion of the day to present to the public our comic, S.A.F.E™Ville to the public…

I, The Preacher was over one hour, thirty minutes late for the program…I had woken up that morning battling with my health…I think it was as a result of overuse of my body…I guess the body and the system controling it did not care that I had an important appointment to keep with an eargerly waiting audience…I finally dragged myself to the venue, apologised to my distinguished audience and struggled through the presentation…It was the shortest presentation I have ever given in any of our program… Though, I was not feeling myself but to the glory of God the audience, in my interactions with them after the program said they really felt me…That is what God can do…His strength is made perfect in our weakness…
Dr. Orawusi of @eduaid showed up with a powerful birthday cake, baked by his great and generous wife…So we cut the cake and sang happy birthday song in arrears…He and madam made my day in an unusual manner. Thank you ma and sir for your kind gesture…
Mummy Akinyemiju also came…Her presence was a great honour and a priceless one for that matter…She stayed till almost the end of the program…She unveiled the comic for us and made huge commitment to pick 100 copies for @dansolschool…Mummy and Mentor, e pe fun wa ma.
To all the distinguished guests, who made it on Saturday, thank you for coming and for those who invested in our comic, thank you for being part of the revolution…
We made an announcement that The S.A.F.E™ School of STANDARDS™ in now available to be hosted by organisations, schools, religious places of worship and others without charge under our NGO @safe4childrensociety…It is a 45 minutes talk on CARE by ALL STANDARDS NECESSARY. Please take advantage…
More reports will come from Saturday Program… Please watch this space…
Do have an INSPIRED week dear STANDARDS BEARERS

THIS LIFE AT FORTY-NINE: WHAT IS THE MEANING?

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F

Forty-Nine year ago I kissed this world welcome…

I came after a long wait of a dear father, who had moved from one woman to another in search of heirs…

To my mother, I was OLUWAWEMIMO, the one through whom the LORD rolled away her reproach, having lost her very first child /daughter at birth and now she is blessed with twins…

I was an answer to the prayers of father and mother and their well wishers…

Childhood was everything but fun, it was a BOUNTIFUL BASKET of ABUSES and it was not the fault of those who EARNESTLY WISHED for me and invited me from the very safe bossom of my LORD…The real challenge is this and it is still very common to many primary and secondary caregivers today, particularly in Africa: those who WISHED for me obviously did not know WHO they WISHED for and WHY they WISHED for me and therefore did not know HOW to RAISE the ONE they WISHED for. I guess they were PRODUCTS of their own lost CHILDHOOD…

With most profound respect to those divinely and primarily saddled with the sacred responsibility of raising me and their blessed memory, I was not RAISED, I was ERASED, physically, emotional, sexually and by neglect…

From CHILDHOOD through teenage years and early ADULTHOOD, I lived an ERASED life in ways that words are too weak to describe…

Then came that GREAT, STRATEGIC and UNFORGETTABLE DAY, February 16, 1997, I experienced another BIRTH in Christ Jesus…The ERASED me was RAISED BY HIM, IN HIM and FOR HIM and sent on the LIFETIME errand to RAISE others, who were like me ERASED from CHILDHOOD and help ensure that from then on, our precious AFRICAN children are RAISED and not ERASED and their priceless CHILDHOOD preserved…

Then from my LORD and SAVIOUR Jesus Christ, I picked the GAUNTLET with this inscription, ‘NO CHILD shall once AGAIN be ERASED under my WATCH….NO, NOT ONE…’

This how, by HIS GRACE I make this GIFT and RESPONSIBILITY, called LIFE count and THIS IS WHAT THIS LIFE means to me, Today and always, till when I shall see HIM on that day: ERASED Childhood… EMPTY Young Adulthood… CHANGE Pilgrimage…HOPE for the PRECIOUS AFRICAN CHILD…

On Fri. March 29, I will be sharing on LIFE and LESSONS FROM TRENCHES at my weekly LIVE Broadcast at our group S.A.F.E™ School of STANDARDS
https://www.facebook.com/groups/576030869535441 Join the group TODAY and make it a date with me as this is still very well part of my birthday celebration…

Do have an INSPIRED day as you join me to count the BOUNTIFUL BLESSINGS of today, by the SEED that I PLANT and not the HARVEST that I REAP, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson.

Yours IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE PRECIOUS AFRICAN CHILD ON THE DAY OF MY BIRTH,

Taiwo AKINLAMI

The Preacher

The Birth of S.A.F.E™ Ville

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At our S.A.F.E™ 4 ME Conference in 2017, gathering over 750 precious young people and over 250 distinguished STANDARDS BEARERS, we launched the S.A.F.E™ 4 ME Movement.

From our field experiences, interacting with children, young people and their primary and secondary caregivers, we have come to identify the S.A.F.E™ 4 ME Movement as the heartcry of the Nigerian child to be allowed to grow and fulfil his/her potentials in a FRIENDLY and PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT…

The foundation of the movement is the involvement of our precious children and young people in their own Personal Safety and Self-Protection. If they must be involved, they must be empowered, if they must be empowered, we must find a way to reach them at their level and their own language…

This is the spirit behind our monthly comic series, known as S.A.F.E™ Ville due to be released later this month…

The message the S.A.F.E™ Ville is born to drive is to identify and promote POSITIVE VALUE SYSTEM as the foundation of Personal Safety and Self-Protection, which is the real meaning of Securing A Friendly and PROTECTIVE ENVIRONMENT™ for the precious African children…

This monthly comic is for primary for our precious children and young people and primary and secondary caregivers, who love them…

To protect our precious children and teenagers in today’s volatile world, with all its complexities and complications is a task that must be done by ALL MEANS NECESSARY…

Be on the look out and we count on your kind support to drive this message home by the grace of God.

Do have an INSPIRED week.

Yours IN THE BEST INTEREST OF PRECIOUS AFRICAN CHILD,

The Preacher of S.A.F.E™ Ville

VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN IN SCHOOL IS NOTHING BUT AN EFFECT: BUT WHAT IS THE CAUSE?

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Permit me to add my voice to the outcry on violence against our precious children in schools.

I will like to say very quickly that in solving a social problem of any kind, we must be astute in separating causes from effects. Addressing the effects as the causes only sensationalise the issues and takes the sail off the wind of finding lasting solutions.

That there is violence in our schools both private and public is no more news. The 2018 reports of UNICEF on the drivers of Violence Against Children found that much.

What need to concern ourselves with today is the cause.

Permit me to submit that violence against children in Nigeria is not a CAUSE. It is an EFFECT. It is not a SEED…It is a FRUIT…It is not a ROOT…It is a BRANCH.

The root is this thing we call child discipline. Almost everyone who perpetrate violence against children at home and in schools do it in the name of discipline. The report I refer to about found Nigeria to be one of the top 10 countries in the world where violence is perpetrated against children in the name of discipline.

This practice of equating violence against our precious children with DISCIPLINE has it root in our culture as a people.

It is that culture that is comfortable with perpetrating violence against children and call it discipline that we must focus on through a rigorous orientation and reorientation and training and retraining on alternative forms of disciplinary measures.

Policy is critical but it may not be a primary concern here. For example, the Lagos State Government for some years now has a policy against corporate punishment in her schools. Yet, violence has not reduced against students.

The mistake, I think the Lagos State Government and many of us a making is that we want to change a prevailing cultural practice, backed up and fortified with the Dominant Value System of the people by policy. Such template does not exist anywhere in the world.

The people who perpetrate violence against our precious children were themselves raised through violence in most cases. They do not know other ways of helping children to experience the beauty of discipline, despite the fact that it is not always pleasant. What they do to the children in schools, they do to their own children at home if not worse.

They feel for the precious children under their care, when they are told violence must not be part of the the equation…They believe that without violent discipline the precious children are being spoilt and have no future.

We may fight the foregoing all we want, it is the reality on the ground and it will not change by the fiat of Law, Policy and Signature Gathering.

Taking, Lagos State as example, what is the investment of the Lagos State Government in orientation and reorientation intervention of public schools teachers? What is the budget for training on alternative forms of discipline?

I think I am more at home with the strategy of the SOS Children’s Village, Nigeria, who is investing heavily in the orientation and reorientation and training and retraining of public teachers in the areas where they work on the subject matter of discipline. SOS Children’s Village has also gone ahead to comission the preparation of Right-Based Approach to Discipline In School Manual, which lays the solid foundation for the underlying principles, aimed at helping teachers to embrace the revolution of POSITIVE DISCIPLINARY MEASURES.

I think this is the way we should be thinking. In ENVISIONING DESIGNING PLANNING and PROVIDING CARE, we must be interested in STANDARDS as an inevitable tool and find professional solutions to every social problems, plaguing our precious children today in their legions.

I have been privileged to work with the SOS Children’s Village Nigeria in the last 5 years or so to achieve the foregoing and I can testify firsthand that it works and it is working.

I suggest we can also embrace this challenge in our areas of influence and I am available to help in giving further and clearer perspectives to the foregoing suggestions. As a song writer says, ‘revolution starts with ONE…Don’t be afraid to be the ONE…’ One person at a time, one school at a time, I think we can reduce and ultimately stop violence against our precious children in schools, focusing on the right tools.

Do have an INSPIRED week.

Yours IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE PRECIOUS CHILDREN CHILD,

Taiwo AKINLAMI

The Preacher

T:2348033620843, 08056979605 W: http://www.taiwoakinlami.com B: http://www.taiwoakinlamiblog.com G: https://www.facebook.com/groups/576030869535441 T: @taiwoakinlami E: Principal@taiwoakinlami.com

SENSATIONALISM DRIVES PARANOIA AND ATTACKS THE VERY BEST INTEREST OF THE PRECIOUS AFRICAN CHILD:  HERE IS HOW…HERE IS WHAT WE MUST DO AND DO FAST!

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Check my platforms, I don’t post trending headlines and videos…It is a DELIBERATE practice predicated on principles, which I will attempt to address here to the best of my ability.

As far as I am concerned those things must be posted carefully and caution, lest one becomes unnecessarily sensational.

And if they must be posted, we must do so with the following in mind:

How do we post within the context of proffering workable, professional and contextualised solutions?

What is the source and what are the intentions? For example, the video of the two children kissing, how was it captured? Was it manually captured by a person or by CCTV? If it was captured by a person, was the idea of capturing the video more important to the person capturing it than stopping the children from abusing themselves? If it was a CCTV footage, how how did it leak out to become a sad commodity for public consumption? If it is a CCTV footage, was the purpose of installing a CCTV camera in a school for example not for the school consumption, to be aware, prevent and respond to any act or omission that are inimical to the BEST INTEREST OF THE CHILD, except such footage is demanded by regulatory bodies for public interest purposes? And if it was demanded by regulatory bodies, what are the processes guiding the release of such to the public?

In the real sense of it, that children abuse themselves sexually today should not be news to any conscious and informed caregiver. How, in actual reality does the posting of the video under review help our understanding of that reality?

If as a society, we are more interested in posting and resposting of materials, are we not likely to be raising an army of insensitive people, who see preventable action or omission of abuse among children or in the society but are more interested in capturing for repost instead of stopping the act or omission?

Which is more beneficial to the children involve, capturing of the act or omission or stopping them from abusing themselves?

It is a volatile world today and that is no more news. The truth is that everyone seems to know the problem but only very few know the solution or even make DELIBERATE efforts to find the solutions…

Posting sensational headlines of abuses of children by adults or child to child abuse like the recent pictures of two children kissing, without a deliberate attempt to find out the causes and proffer professional solutions only heightens people’s fears and drives them to the precipice of PARANOIA, where they become suspicious of everybody, including themselves.

The last time I checked, PARANOIA is NOT a tool of Securing A FRIENDLY and PROTECTIVE Environment™ for our precious children. It only worsens the state of minds of caregivers and their precious children and make them susceptible to what they fear most.

I don’t really care what is trending, call it Mobo Challenge, I only care about how must we have prepared our precious children to fare in today’s volatile world. There will never be a time in today’s world, where caregivers will be fully abreast of all the dangers our precious children will be exposed to. Same way as human beings, we can never be fully aware of all the dangers we are exposed to.

The solution therefore is to churn sensationalism and focus on the harder work of creating for our private and public institutions (including the FAMILY) SYSTEMS of Securing A FRIENDLY and PROTECTIVE Environment™ according to GLOBAL STANDARDS, codified into POLICIES on which every caregiver is trained. As Olakunle SORIYAN will say, ‘what will come will come; it is who we are that makes a difference.’ I will also add that what will come will come; it is the preparation we make that makes all the difference.

If we spend as much time and data we spend on sensationalism on asking the right questions and seeking professional solutions, our children will be better of. Sensationalism, I must conclude by saying, it very inimical to the BEST INTEREST OF THE PRECIOUS AFRICAN and it must be stopped now!

As caregivers in the sophisticated 21st Century, grappling with the reality of The Fourth Industrial Revolution, we must DELIBERATELY change our game of ENVISIONING, DESIGNING, PLANNING and PROVIDING CARE to comply with the strange realities of today. We must drop the torn and dirty toga of surface thinking and sporadic response to matter of S.A.F.E™ and put on the full armour of VALUE and SYSTEM BASED APPROACH.

The 21st century caregivers must today DELIBERATELY transform from just being a DUTY BEARERS to becoming a STANDARDS BEARERS and VALUE and SYSTEM are the eternal language of STANDARDS as VIGILANCE is the price of LIBERTY.

Do have an INSPIRED week.

Yours IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE PRECIOUS CHILDREN CHILD,

Taiwo AKINLAMI

The Preacher

T:2348033620843, 08056979605 W: www.taiwoakinlami.com B: www.taiwoakinlamiblog.com G: https://www.facebook.com/groups/576030869535441 T: @taiwoakinlami E: Principal@taiwoakinlami.com