HOW to Mentor Youths in Leadership

Mary Ekah

The Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe (HOW) Foundation, founded by Dr. Herbert Onyewumbu Wigwe, Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Access Bank, is set to empower Nigerian youths with a leadership and mentorship seminar aimed at providing youths with support to push them closer to achieving greatness.

The Foundation’s pilot programme, leadership and mentorship seminar for secondary school children and young adults, billed to hold on Saturday October 8, at the Intercontinental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos, will focus basically on how to get young people to understand their individual leadership potential and to develop their leadership skills from a very young age.

Speaking during a press briefing in Lagos on Monday, the Foundation’s National Coordinator, Ms. Antonia Ally, said the Foundation created in January this year, is a non-profit organisation focused on creating awareness for prevention of malaria, prostate cancer and providing mentorship for youth leadership. “We started in January 2016 and since then, we have been holding programmes now and then but from the end of this year we want to take it to another level and so we are starting with a youth leadership seminar billed for Saturday, October 8,” she noted

Expatiating on the focal areas of the Foundation, Ally said, “At HOW Foundation, we believe it is possible to eradicate malaria and one thing we have found out is that education is key to solving malaria. For example in Nigeria, most people believe that during raining season, you must have malaria but we are trying to educate people that you don’t have to have malaria every season if you put certain things right to prevent malaria. And for prostate cancer, this is the number one disease that kills men in Nigeria and yet people are not talking about it as much as they talk about breast cancer and the likes. People seem very uncomfortable talking about prostate cancer. So we want to encourage people to talk about prostate cancer because a lot of people are suffering and dying from it. We want people to know that prostate cancer is a disease that can be avoided. If one has already got, it can be managed.”

She noted, “At HOW, we believe that every Nigerian youth is potential leader. All they need is to tap into that inherent ability in them. And come Saturday, October 8 at the Intercontinental Hotel, Lagos by 11am, we are holding a seminar on leadership, where youths would be tutored on the different forms of leaders they can become and at the same time encourage them on how to work towards that.”

The theme for the seminar, Ally said, is, “Be Your Best”, noting, “We preach that whatever you want to be, make sure you are the best in it. Do something extra-ordinary to make you stand out in your chosen career and this is what the seminar will focus on basically.“

HOW’s Founder, Wigwe combines his passion for helping others especially children and the youth with the need to raise awareness around malaria eradication and prevention of prostate cancer. Its focus around malaria is to help educate on the possibilities of malaria eradication in Nigeria and assist in providing tools/resources that help to fight against and prevent malaria. The attention on prostate cancer is to raise awareness and aid in the provision of tools, which can enable professionals to erase the stigma around the disease in Nigeria.