Success Stories

Gulalai Ismail, a Forgotten Diaries project grant recipient from Pakistan

Esther Eshiet, a Forgotten Diaries participant and project grant recipient from Nigeria

Esther describes her experience:

“When I heard about the forgotten dairies project, I was contemplating whether to participate or not, but as a girls/women rights activist, I know that women and children bear the brunt of all conflicts/crises situations. They are exposed to physical and sexual violence as well as the psychological trauma that comes with such experiences. This motivated me the join the FD project, to add my voice to the number of young people whose demand is NO MORE CONFLICT!

The FD project built my skills in photography, new media and storytelling through a series of courses. These courses were so striking and rich in content and delivery. One of the assignments we had during our storytelling and photography course was to use pictures to describe our locality, people and culture. I reside in Calabar, the capital of Cross River and Nigeria’s No. 1 tourist destination, so I took up the challenge, took pictures of our tourist sites and shared with the course instructor, he was mesmerized with the pictures and write up and concluded in his remarks…this is convincing enough for one to visit Calabar!

I was stuck at what photojournalism can do, so I gave it a thought to the social media skills and platform to promote the tourism potentials of Cross River State, so I christened the project Calabar Beckons, CB is now on facebook, twitter and we have a blog (www.calabarbeckons.wordpress.com). Currently, am working with a team of 15 volunteers on the Calabar Beckons expansion plan, we have a 3 members of on our Board of Directors, and our objective is to use this project to create, redirect and sustain youth entrepreneurship efforts in the tourism sector.

…I couldn’t have done this without the Forgotten Diaries project…BRAVO YAC!”

Ogaga Maxwell, a Forgotten Diaries participant and project grant recipient from Niger Delta

When Kofi Annan appeared on television, visiting a country ravaged by war, many people chose to turn the TV off or change the channel. Not Ogaga.

Kofi Annan’s visit to Nigeria inspired Ogaga to to take his society’s development into his own hands. He founded a youth NGO called “Dare to Dream” which aims to help young people unlock their dreams and help them become a powerful tool for change in society.

While surfing the web, Ogaga got to know Youth Action for Change (YAC). Through YAC, he got involved with Forgotten Diaries. It has been, according to Ogaga, ‘the hallmarks of my development work since I started’. Quoting Ogaga, ‘the concept of FD was innovative and I loved the fact that YAC was started small, since we were made to know how with little funding YAC grew to where it is now, it was an inspiring example for young people like us, who do not yet have all the resource for offices, staff and whatever is needed for big funders to recognize what we are doing. The courses [in project development, provided by YAC] also made me have the needed capacity to embark and develop projects and also I love the idea that after the project we would be assisted to put what we have learnt into action.’

Whilst working with YAC, Ogaga was able to have his project selected for YAC´s grant through Forgotten Diaries project which supported his first project ‘Sports Skills for Peace’.

His work has also led him to another new accomplishment; Ogaga´s nomination as one of the 15 Youth Ambassadors at the United Religious Initiative. He will now represent Africa as an ambassador for 2011, alongside another selected youth ambassador from Kenya. According to Ogaga, the relevance of his FD experience to his latest accomplishment was that it ‘provided two key experiences for me to be able to share with the interviewer on phone, my “Sports Skills for Peace Project” and the recently concluded “P.E.A.C.E project”, I do believe that if I had not done both projects sponsored by YAC, I may not have been picked because there would not be proof of work done in the area of Peace building, then URI is also interested in blogging, and FD website have provided me with a global platform to blog.’

However, this nomination is only one of the projects Ogaga has in 2011. After the success of Sports for Peace, Ogaga tells us about his expectations for his latest project that has received a grant from YAC, titled ‘P.E.A.C.E’ [Peace Education, Arts and Cultural Empowerment]. He states that ‘the expectation for P.E.A.C.E is great … in this project we are merging three things 1. Peace Education 2. Arts with focus on fine arts, painting 3 Culture, because we discover that when we focus on Arts and Culture we can reduce tension; this is also missing in our school curriculum and in our everyday life.’
Ogaga´s projects often involve the arts and sports. According to him, art is universal and Africans are very artistic by nature. Ogaga recalls bronze arts and the Terracotta arts, summing up a rich history that can be rediscovered. He firmly believes that participating in the arts can be run parallel with peacemaking.

Ogaga tells us that seeing the young people turning out to be better people after attending his projects is the most rewarding achievement. One of the volunteers of his project, has started his own project in Mathematics, and encourages young people through motivation and leadership initiatives.

When asked to give advice for someone willing to follow his steps as a youth agent for change, he suggests ‘find your passion, focus on it, find a mentor, pursue his wisdom, and put words into action. Just keep doing it.’