SLA conducts youth re-emergence seminar

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