DIFFERENT SETS OF BEAUTY

I registered for the 2014 AYC camp but couldn’t make it because I couldn’t be excused for a week from work. However, that didn’t stop me from registering for AYC 2015. I am glad that I could take time off work to be here. My experience hasn’t been a bed of roses, but it has been laced with different sets of beauty. I had thought I was coming here to be a mentor and be of help to the campers, which I am doing to the best of my abilities. More importantly though, I have also been mentored as a mentor. We got here a day before the campers and had facilitators educate us on diverse topics that will enhance our role as mentors. I particularly enjoyed Mr Taiwo Akinwumi’s session and though his session was funny, it was enlightening. I understood that even trivial things might not be so trivial when it comes to raising the right kinds of teenagers and children. Even songs, words and ‘white lies’ shape them in one way or the other. They do as we do, not as we say. So we must not only speak right around them, we must do right. We must be right.

I paid with my time to be here, but I can say I have gotten a whole lot more. What is time without knowledge? As I earlier said, it hasn’t been a bed of roses. There have been times during the 3 days I’ve been here where I’ve been upset about a thing or two; but we’re humans and we err. What motivates me though is that we all are here for a great cause. We might not see eye to eye on certain issues, but we must keep our eyes on the goal; which is to raise a better generation. And that is exactly what we’re doing.

I’d definitely love to be a part of AYC 2016. Not just because I’d like to be a mentor, but because I know I’d also be mentored and will leave the 7 days camp a better person.I haven’t left AYC2015 yet, but I can tell that there’s also been a paradigm shift. 

Mobolaji Olorisade.