Sabally’s
Leadership Academy (SLA), a nonprofit youth mentorship institute founded by
former Presidential Affairs Minister Momodou Sabally, has just concluded a
2-day youth development seminar.
The motivational seminar, held at the Kotu
Senior Secondary School, brought together students and young professionals to
discuss strategies and motivational practices for self-fulfillment under the
theme: “Still I Rise”.
Participants
were mainly students of Kotu Secondary School and instructors were members of
SLA and staff of the Swedish-backed NGO Future in Our Hands (FIOH).
The seminar taught the youths about how to
embrace an authentic sense of purpose and use personal initiative and
persistence to reach their goals.
Topics
discussed include: “Leading and Healing through Reading”, “Using Faith for
Healing”, “Techniques of public Speaking”, “First Aid Techniques”, “Child
Rights” among others.
Students
were also led by experts from the Sustaining all Life Community to conduct
Re-evaluation counseling, which they found very effective in helping them
overcome past troubles and emerge refreshed and inspired.
Day two of the seminar, which coincided with
Earth Day, witnessed presentations on climate change by members of “Greenup
Gambia” and “Trash for Cash” organisations.
Jainaba
Teeda Sarr, an environmental activist and green poet, who is also a founding
member of SLA, led the team in “Conversations on Climate Change”.
Speaking at the opening ceremony held on
Friday 21 April 2017, the founder and CEO of SLA, Momodou
Sabally, who is also a motivational speaker and author, advised participants to take charge of their lives by appreciating the beauty within themselves and around them and to leverage it for personal achievement as well as contribute to the growth and development of their communities.
Mr
Sabally further dilated on the theme of the seminar, “Still I Rise”:
“So
beautiful young men and women, do not let anyone rain on your parade. You are
all special in your own ways!” To quote again from the Desiderata
“You
are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars…”
“The next two days will see us work together
and learn from each other about veritable life skills that can propel us higher
into our personal achievement trajectories,” he said.
Delivering official closing remarks, Mr Lamin
Sarr, international consultant and president of Heritage Revival Projects,
advised participants to implement the lessons learned during the seminar and to
reach out, to care for, and support their peers and members of their
communities.
Ruqaya Ceesay, a teacher at Kotu Senior
Secondary School, who invited SLA to her school to conduct the seminar for her
students, thanked Mr Sabally and his team for conducting a “very effective
seminar” that would help her students to impact the lives of other people in
their future careers.
SLA coordinator Muhamed Mbye thanked the
facilitators for their “brilliant” presentations and urged participants to make
good use of the lessons learnt.
Source:
SLA Press Release
