As part of activities marking the International African Child Day, Seed for Change Initiative – an employee engagement platform of BARRY CALLEBAUT – engaged with over 500 students in 5 different schools in Akure, Ondo State by sensitizing them on their roles on the national development particularly how they need to get involved in supporting programmes that will improve climate and environment.
In line with the theme of this year’s African child day which is, “The Rights Of The Child In The Digital Environment”, the Sustainability Operations Manager for Barry Callebaut Nigeria, Mujeeb Oniyide stressed the need for the children to priotized thier studies in this ever changing world where everything is going digital.
Oniyide charged the students to start using available digital skills to contribute to the various challenges facing cocoa farmers in the country.
He further used the events to expatiate ways the children can be an agent of change as the world continue to face climate related challenges, particularly among the cocoa farmers.
For this reason, over 150 trees were planted in Ogbe High School, Imafon High School, Muslim College, Fiwasaye Girls College and Aquinas College all in Akure, Ondo State.
The students were implored to become tree planting ambassador in thier respective schools by nurturing the trees to maturity. This will be a legacy they will continue to look back and appreciate.
The Seed For Change initiative had earlier organized a speech contest programme for the students from these selected schools where they extensively discussed these two topics: “The future of our cocoa & our planet and My part in shaping sustainable cocoa in Nigeria.”
The essence of the speech contest is to enlighten the children about some of the challenges the farmers are facing and the young ones can start thinking of the solution to support the farmers. Some of them could become farmers, lawyers, engineers, even politicians that will formulate policies that will support the cocoa farmers in the future.
While futher indicating the essence of the speech contest event, the sustainability operations manager, Mujeeb Oniyide indicated that “some of the issues we are addressing in cocoa sustainability is paramount that children are also one of the vulnerable people that we are also looking at.
“We have child labour cases in the cocoa sector, by this, the children will also be aware of some of the challenges they are having and how they can face their education squarely and how they can proffer a solution to the coming generation”.
