The Covenant Information Empowerment Services (CIES) in partnership with SBCCI and Tropicana services held its second in-person annual summer conference on Saturday, 29th and Sunday, 30th of July 2023 at Hyatt Hotel, Winnipeg. This beautiful event was tagged “Equipping the Next Generation of Youth”. The two-day program was specially designed for leaders leading different groups of immigrant youth to come together and discuss ways of advancing youths for the good of themselves and humanity.
At the inception of the program, a welcome speech was addressed by Mrs. Atilola, the executive director, CIES. In her speech, she spoke about the objective of CIES’ work, the essence of the program, and admonished all the attendees and guests to make the best use of this rare opportunity to benefit immigrant demography. Mrs. Atilola finally stated that “Our youth are our glory and our future. We cannot afford to be careless with them and we cannot afford to be too busy for them. Without them, there is no future, sustainability, or legacy”.
The event was attended in-person and virtually by responsive participants, global discussants, honourable invited guests, distinguished keynotes speakers, and several guest speakers from various nations including Canada, USA, UK, Ghana and Nigeria. The two keynotes’ speakers for this were Mr. Adegboyega Aiku, a director of Material Services in a Manitoba Government Hospital and Pastor Austin Godfrey, a youth pastor and assistant to the Senior pastor of the Maple Leaf Foursquare Gospel church. Mr. Aiku highlighted the need for youth to start believing in themselves, solving problems and positioning themselves for greatness. While Pastor Godfrey shed more light on how youth have the choice to ‘date’ or ‘rape’ the information they receive in their present life stage.
Several tending topics pertaining to today’s youth were facilitated by the expert guest speakers. These includes; ‘Leadership for Today’s Youth’ by William Frances, ‘Empowering Immigrant Youth for Optimal Community Engagement’ by Migdalia Jones, ‘Effectively Supporting Immigrant Youth without causing Damage’ by Omokorede Fasoro, ‘Exploring the Needs of Immigrant Youth in Canada’ by Adesuwa Ero, ‘Supporting Immigrant Youth to Develop and Sustain Values and Virtues’ by Gbenge Ogunbode and ‘Internet and Youth: The Way Forward’ by Enoch Olaoye.
There was an interesting discussion by the in-person and virtual discussants facilitated by Mrs. Atilola on threading issues faced by immigrant youth, Christian youth, and roles of parents, youth leaders and pastors, and the church to help youth resolve these problems. This was followed by questions and answers.
On a concluding note, both guest speakers and participants expressed their gratitude to the organizers of this successful, enlightening and educating program and they wished to attend the next annual event in 2024.
The Covenant Information Empowerment Services Inc. is supported by the Government of Canada’s Supporting Black Canadian Communities Initiative and the Tropicana Community Services.
