NGO Partners US Varsity To Train 100 Nigerian Teachers

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Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, United States would be partnering with two non-governmental organisations, Boys Champions and Hope for African Children for the training of 100 teachers in Nigeria.

The training would include best classroom practices and management skills to better support students, especially those with learning and physical disabilities.

The founder of Boys Champions and Hope for African Children, Noel Ifeanyi Alumona, who disclosed this to journalists, said two professors from Vanderbilt University would be anchoring the programme at the new training centre in Enugu, after an international conference tagged: “Shaping the Future”, organised by the group recently.

According to him, the training would be provided at no cost to the participants, who must be teachers resident in Nigeria and working in schools in the country.

Interested teachers who wish to participate in this training exercise can log on to http://www.boyschampions.org/teachers to register.

He explained that the training would be for teachers aimed at improving special education and better support for children with disabilities to have access to education in the country.

Meanwhile, Noel met with His Holiness, Dalai Lama in India recently and shared with him the vision behind the founding of Boys Champions. He related to the Nobel laureate the horrific story of watching his mother killed by hoodlums when he was only nine years old. The young leader, who turned 30 on October 1, said it was a chilly incident that traumatised his childhood and left his heart bleeding in agony.

Rather than brood endlessly over his loss and seek vengeance against the cruel perpetrators, Noel said he toed the peace path and founded a non-government organisation, Boys Champions, to educate young boys and men to shun violence against women and girls for a better society.

He chose forgiveness in place of revenge, and became a messenger of peace, preaching respect and tolerance for women among youths in Nigerian communities.

The heroic work of Boys Champions caught the eyes of the world as Noel won the 2022 AFS Award for Young Global Citizens by the United States Institute of Peace and became the first African to win the coveted prize since its inception in 1914.

Every year, the United States Institute of Peace gathers 28 youth leaders from across the globe confronting violent conflict to meet with His Holiness, the 14th Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India, where he encourages them in their peace-building efforts in their home countries. This dialogue is a partnership between USIP and the Dalai Lama, a global voice for peace and the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

Noel joined other young leaders from across the globe for this year’s Generation Change Programme in the pilgrimage of peace to meet his Holiness, Dalai Lama.

“As someone who works to end violence against women and girls in Nigeria by teaching young boys proper behaviours and respect for women, I have been inspired by meeting His Holiness and other change-makers from different countries across the world,” he recalled.

Speaking on the gains of the 5-day training and dialogue with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, he added: “The whole world is interconnected and we are all facing similar problems. Gender-based violence in Nigeria is gender-based violence in Colombia, climate change and global warming in Uganda are the same in America, and injustice and war in Syria and Libya are the same as it is in South Sudan and Turkey. Thus, we all need to have one mind and treat each other with love while promoting world peace.

He said networking with other 25 young leaders selected from across the world for the programme was a great and memorable experience, saying, the incredible young leaders were carefully selected from war-torn countries, killing fields, unstable governments, from tragic situations and experiences.

“Each of the Fellows had an opportunity to share their stories with His Holiness who listened attentively, moved with pity, showed empathy and prayed, too. These stories were all about conflict scenes and experiences – from sexual violence against women and girls to genocide,  trafficking, wars, ethnic cleansing, fleeing of an entire community from their land,” he explained.

Noel said His Holiness, Dalai Lama was  emotional listening with rapt attention as participants unloaded their bottled sorrows.

Noel said  he founded Boys Champions in 2018 to end violence against women and girls in Nigeria.

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