YEAR 2007 ACADEMIC PEACE AWARDS

Laboring to Liberate Future Generations African Foundation (Projects) for Peace and Love Initiatives Presidential Speech at the Honor Ceremony at Baptist Junior High Held on October 26th 2007 By Rev. Titus K. Oyeyemi. Good afternoon to everyone here present today at this august occasion to honor our illustrious children, youths and young adults that have proved their mettle at international, national, state, local government, and community levels to achieve honors worthy of our appreciation. With all protocols observed, I’ll quickly go into my discourse for our today’s gathering and assembly. Our Nation is Besieged, Our Children Are Ensnared From the time our children start to play outside the household as toddlers to the time they complete their national services at NYSC, they are ensnared and entrapped by known and unknown bondages. Our children need and deserve our standing in solidarity with them if they will become free from those ensnarement and entrapments.  A major and serious bondage into which our children are exposed is that of cult practices in educational institutions. The alarming statistics show that on average 50% female and 45% male students in all institutions of higher learning are members of one cult or another. It is on records that since Year 2000, cults and cultism are responsible for deaths of thousands of university students each year. Unless and until we can rise up as a one people to tackle this problem the future of this generation, who are our children, is doomed. Our children are helpless. We are like the parent zebra, who watches helplessly, when the ugly, drooling hyena, steal the zebra younglings, without any challenge. We watch our children being stolen, destroyed and killed without doing anything to come to their rescue. The 20th Millennium – A Wasted Opportunity for Many African Youths There have been no people completely free of bondage of one nature or another all over the world through all generations. If it were not slavery, colonization, occupation, or militarism, it will be political, economic, illiteracy, diseases, and even religion. Until a nation can equate the lack of political will of her people, economic incapacitation, infrastructural limitations, corruptions, lawlessness, diseases, decay and unproductivity, violence and unresolved conflicts, to a form of siege, bondage or slavery, it may be impossible for such a nation to advance to any of its potentials. Another insurmountable obstacle which limits potentials of any nation is the context operating within the cultural values of that nation. Worst of them all is “victim mentality” by which means citizens of a nation avoid their personal accountability and responsibility for change. As the 7th year of the new millennium rolls to its end, every Nigerian adult should have a question on his or her lips – “What do we want to get out of this new millennium for our children and for our country?” Why Do Nations Go To War? One major reason why nations go to war or engage in revolutions (violent or peaceful) includes the desire to defend, preserve or liberate the future generations from any form of known bondage. While it may be a Herculean task to secure total freedom, it was always within the sphere of possibility of any generation to deal with several of the human made systemic bondages just by saying a simple “no” to anything unwholesome. You may say it is naive to think that one can shake off bondages and fetters by merely saying “No.” But I challenge you to start saying “a sincere no” to any known human made systemic bondage in this country, and you will see how your resistance will begin to yield positive results. African Foundation for Peace Presents Alternative Way Out The African Foundation has provided an alternative way out by conceptualizing her twenty-year long tomorrow concept for Youth Peace and Nation Building as follows:         9 Years of Growing with Peace Our Children spend the first nine years of education life in nurseries, kindergartens, and primary schools. We have targeted The African Children of Peace Clubs with its peacebuilding curriculum Growing with Peace for our children at this level.         6 Years of Youth Peace and Nation Building As teenagers our children spend six years in junior and senior secondary schools. We have targeted The Youth Peace Alliance Clubs (Y-PAC) with its peacebuilding curriculum Youth Peace and Nation Building at those teenagers.         4 Years of Equipping Young Adults for Peacebuilding The KAIROS Peace and Love Clubs, targeted at young adults in institutions of higher learning, such as universities, polytechnics and colleges of education, with its peacebuilding curriculum Equipping the New African Peacebuilders.         1 Year of Cultivating New Lifestyle of Peacebuilding The New Peace Legacy Clubs, targeted at youth corps members serving their fatherland during the one year National service in various parts of the country, is expected to prepare our graduates for a lifestyle of peacebuilding. Mobilizing the Community for Peacebuilding We mobilize the community through the mechanism of our other peace clubs, proactive grassroots peacebuilding for ethnoreligious harmony and other community intervention programs such as the         The City Peace Clubs, targeted at the adults and elites of the larger society at state and local governments, town and city levels         The KAYERO Peace and Love Clubs, targeted at religious houses and institutions         The Peace Intercessors Clubs, a club engaging in intercessory prayers for peace and promoting the peace and harmony day program in Nigeria         The MAYORAL Institute of Peacebuilding for Princes and Princesses         The TimeOn KAIROS Peace Academy Arrangements have also been made whereby teachers who assigned to each of these peace clubs are offered appropriate training to teach those curricula. Our ultimate goal is to negotiate with State Governments to introduce grassroots proactive peacebuilding as a mainstream curriculum in our schools. Partnering and Collaborating with Teachers and State Ministries of Education Our ultimate goal is to negotiate with State Governments to introduce grassroots proactive peacebuilding as a mainstream curriculum in our schools. For this reason we have been training teachers at the primary and secondary level in the use of the relevant peacebuilding curricula at the co-curricula activity levels. We do this by symbolically launching our peace clubs at Education Districts and Zonal Levels. We then train assigned teachers how to operate the peace clubs and impart the peacebuilding curricula to members at co-curricular level. It is our hope that by the time the governments are ready, we would have on ground enough teaching manpower to teach our peacebuilding curricula as mainstream curriculum in our schools. Collaborating with Governments and Communities Our nation is ripe for the introduction of community colleges, where teenagers will repair and improve their bad WAEC and NECO grades and move on to their chosen majors in the universities, instead of repeating these examinations for years without success. In this way no teenager will be left behind. All of young adults will have the opportunity for higher education education. Establishing Peace Education Centers In addition to our efforts to promote the concept of the twenty year long tomorrow for peacebuilding, we are also embarking on establishing peace education centers as mini-libraries where ever we have founded our grassroots peace clubs. We want to transform our youth from racketeers to inquirers and discoverers, creative and innovative citizens and lovers of their own country. We are calling for every well meaning Nigerian who holds the future of this nation dearly to support our endeavors in this regards. Our Vision is Divine and Eternal By the virtue of the task which Providence has bestowed upon us, we are prepared to collaborate with governments and communities to make proactive grassroots peacebuilding for ethnoreligious harmony a reality in Nigeria and in Africa. Our vision is divine and eternal. As long as there will be primary schools, our African Children of Peace Club will continue to exist. As long as there will be secondary schools, our Youth Peace Alliance Clubs will continue to exist. As long as there will be institutions of higher learning, the KAIROS Peace and Love Club continue to exist in those tertiary institutions. A corner stone of this vision is that democratically elected State Governments have been assigned as Grand Patrons and Matrons of these Youth Peace and Nation Building Clubs. The youths have seen the vision; we are calling on parents, teachers, government officials, politicians, professionals, indeed, all Nigerians of all works of life, to support this vision. May Peace Prevail on Earth! Shalom. Peace. KAYERO! Rev. Titus K. Oyeyemi Founding President and CEO African Foundation (Projects) for Peace and Love Initiatives Honor-26-10-07

ACPC Pictures 07

Principal's Speech Obanikoro Jr. High

Award Event Pictures

KAIROS PICTURS 07

CITY PEACE CLUBS 07

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