 Thanks for staying with us now. Engaging marginalized youth presents a significant challenge in our society because they are often disconnected from the distrust, the system, slash environment in which they live in. Yet meaningful youth engagement is a key concept, not only for optional youth development, but also as a rather optimal youth development rather. But also as a catalyst for system change to improve support for high risk, marginalized youth and families. Importantly, youth should be more respectfully acknowledged as a key contributor to your development and system change. So how can we begin to engage our youth for impact, passion, and profit? Please, let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to do it. One, 803-4663, can also do that as a wish to Africa, one with the hashtag wish. Oh, sorry, today we have an issue with our WhatsApp line. So I just, I had gone before I remembered. So if you can leave a message on YouTube or Twitter, we'll try to search for it. But sorry, we can't do WhatsApp today. Light it quickly and Noma, I want to hear your two cents on this conversation before I bring in our guests in a minute. So keep it really short, right? If you look at impact youth and youth engagements, impact, passion, and profit, right? A lot of young people are very passionate about a lot of things, right? But some of them have not been able to translate that passion into profit. And again, some also have the capacity for great impact, but they just don't know how to navigate that. So if you were to look at the Niger of today, with all the plethora of challenges that we have, there are also opportunities for impact and profit. So how would you try to engage today's youth? What would you use? I say this is where mentors come in. When you know that you have a purpose instead of having conferences where it's the same old, same old attending the conferences, actually go out and start impacting the next generation. I get fed up when I see the women conferences that you know the one I'm talking about. I'm like, it's the same thing you keep doing all the time. Can you go out and reach out to the younger people and bring them in instead of showing your spouts on Instagram because that's what your purpose is supposed to do. Money tends to follow purpose at the end of the day, but it's usually not the catalyst for giving your time to something. I agree with Lai De because this is grossly lacking in Nigeria where we have people who people can look up to. In fact, it's something I personally struggled with for a long time while as a young person. I couldn't find people who I could say, I want to look up to this person. Most of the time it was somebody outside of the confines of Nigeria. So having people that you can look up to, having people that you can train and mentor people and also information is key. That's what we started with, isn't it? Information is very key. People have access to their phones and data and all of that. What information are they? How are they processing this information for their productivity? You also have the aspect of people finding the Nigerian setting impossible to thrive, right? So a lot of brain drain is going on. People are looking for opportunities outside. There are opportunities here, but do we know about them? Do we have access to them? Do the Nigerian youth have access to these things? The government they feel has failed them. What are the other options? A lot of them have gone into yahoo, yahoo and kidnapping. We saw the video of the young man the other day, the banker, that's how desperate people have become. So the Nigerian youth need opportunities that are viable, that's impactful and can help them to even become the mentors that younger people can look up to in the future. I will just also add that one thing that I've noticed now, the trend for impact and passion and all of that, or youth engagement is tilting towards the tech space. But again, we can't also leave out a major one, which is why even we're having our guests today, which is sports, right? A lot of youth engagement can happen from that sector. But let's bring in our guests. Barista Damola Awashika is the founder, CEO of Hope Dreams Nigeria, a developmental program which teaches the play and perfection of basketball to youth. It was established in 2016 and has mentored almost 3,000 youth. He was the founder of Oyo State Basketball Captain in the 80s, junior and senior nation camp in Haiti. And immediate past vice chairman of Oyo State Basketball Association, and he's joined us live, a gentleman in studio. He came very early, might I add? Thank you so much for joining us this evening. Thanks for having me. All right, so I mean, this is a fantastic conversation to have because when I read your profile, I said it's so easy for us to just quickly give a topic, which is some Wednesdays we try to do passion to profit, right? So I said, OK, let's tie it into the youth engagement more and all of that, and how we can tie both passion, profit, impact while we're engaging the youth. I mean, because that's what I see that you have done with this project that you've started, right? You're smiling because it's easy. Smile is the profit. I thought I was making sense. Smile is the profit. But the profit is not really financial. Right? What is it? What is it? It's more satire, please. It's more satire. Thank you so much for joining us. This is a conversation that is very apt at this time because, again, the population of the Nigerian youth is, I think we are currently over 70 percent of the population are youth, right? And so you cannot ignore that huge chunk. If we say we are over 200 million people, then 70 percent of that is the youth. It means that we have to be paying attention. And with all the drama happening, there is problem of education whereas who has been on strike forever, you know, I mean, Norma had mentioned rightly, brain drain happening. There's a lot of fraud going on. People are thinking, okay, you know what, let me look for alternate sources of income. So they are going into fraud, hence the case of the bank and all of that. So there's a lot of things hitting the Nigerian youth from all angles, right? If we wanted to engage the Nigerian youth for impact, then hyping them to guide their passion to profit. Where would be a good place to start? Maybe you should tell us a little bit about your journey, you know, why you decided, you know, basketball was it for you? My basketball, to me, is life. It's what I know and what I've always known. So what made me start this program was how I personally was impacted. I was in primary school, somebody came and spoke to us and said, who's interested in playing basketball? So a few of us went, and that was how my basketball journey started. So, hence, I owe that to others. Somebody planted a seed in me, and the least I can do is to give it back to the youth. So that was how it all started. So that seed was informed by... I was out of the country for a couple of decades, and before I left, the state team, the state team was full of stars, good players including myself, mostly home-based, actually everyone was home-based. So I came back and I saw the state team, and I kept asking, you know, where's this person from? Where's that person from? This is from my side by it. So many of you are from Ghana as well. Don't you have any local players? No home... Now there's... Oh, kids don't play basketball anymore. I went to a basketball playing school. Everybody knows Lula, one of the best basketball players. I do. They were all boyfriends. I went to Lula, don't even have a strong basketball team. We have to change the narrative. So I thought, alright, what's the best way to grow the game again? Something started. And that birthed hubdreams. So I thought, okay, let's get these kids back on the court. Let's create healthy children, healthy youth, and you know, you all kicked off. Before I knew it, we had first year, I think we had about five, six hundred kids throughout the year. So it's been ongoing since then, and in the end, this is the seventh season. May I speak? Go ahead. I happened to know Uncle Damola from before I was born. My brother and he were friends. In the womb. Before they born me. Before they born me, we knew him in my family. And personally, I know him much more than that. My late sister, who I still cried speaking about yesterday, was his fiancée at the time of her death. So he's a brother-in-law that never married, but he's a brother-in-law. Whether you like it or not. He's stocked with me. One thing I find... Who can detach yourself from me? No, I have said that when I hook you, I hook, hook, hook, hook, line and sinker. I remember when he was in the UK, when he started thinking of coming to Nigeria because he had a very thriving business in the UK. He had young kids, and there was no reason to come back home. Do you understand? I think the first thing that you even came for was the traditional wedding of a marriage that had been in existence for, you know, Nigerian. Whether you go to court or you don't go to court, you eventually come and do traditional wedding. I think that was what brought him to Nigeria. But I've always known him to have a passion for basketball. And I got really touched by the fact that he decided that, okay, let me put profit-making business aside and start impacting people's lives. Because we remember when the Akim Zolajuwans came out of Nigeria. And this other guy that, Filesha Rashad's elder sister is married to, or Filesha herself is married to, I think we had quite a few Nigerian players that probably were ring bearers or what do they call them, monsters at the time. But we're not producing that anymore in basketball. And it's not the height that determines who has the skill. That's what people don't understand. So when you have someone that has lived its, and has lived its in play and in pay, and then comes back to explain it, because what we don't get right in Nigeria most times is we put the wrong people in charge of things. But like I said, mentorship is what matters. When you, someone like him, comes back to give back to the country without even asking for money. Give back to them. Eventually there will be international bodies probably that will start calling you. We want to do something to just change the lives of the youth. Profits will come. Even though it's not profit, you will get your daily bread. He didn't tell you that he wanted to do it. I'm just saying, but just to ask the question off of what Lady has just said, because I mean, I know a friend of mine that a brother was scouted from Nigeria, but eventually when he got into the U.S., he had to switch to the American football. Football. Because, you know, the basketball structure is a bit specialized, right? So if you really want to look at the structure off, because basketball is one sport that is really, really, we like call it... A broad it is. Do we have a place? Do we have a place, you know, as Nigerians in the international space? Because young people are watching. They really love it. They have the height for it. They have the build for it. They love the game and all of that. But how are they going to convert that into being professional? Because what you're saying now, most schools don't really take basketball seriously. Most times it's football, you know, and probably sprint. So swimming, athletics and running and all of that. Football is a bit specialized. So you find it, you know, very rare these days among schools. So how do we give them to the Lebrons? OK, let me put basketball aside for a minute. OK. The essence of... Whoever you find, whichever profession you find people, they're always involved in sports one way or the other. So you have doctors, you have lawyers who play tennis, who play soccer, who, you know, even... If I shall allow, when it was Govna, played soccer every Sunday. So the thing about sports is what drives my passion is getting, raising healthy children, healthy kids. So I go around schools in Ibado and I'll speak to them and try and explain the benefit of getting involved in sports and trying to erase this notion that I can be a sports person and be educated. And a professional person. No, no. White color job. No, no. I'll still be a brilliant student. Students. OK. And I say to them, I'm an example. I played through university, I played through, even in law school. I left law school, left school to go and play a tournament in Sokoto. You know, so I try to tell them the benefit of sports and education. And I make the analogy, I usually use the analogy of if you have two kids, same height, same size, same age, in the same class, one goes home every day and goes and sits down, eats, watches TV, doesn't do any physical activity. Couch potatoes. Couch potatoes. And the other one goes and plays sport for an hour or two, comes back, eats, sleeps soundly. When they get to school the next day, the kid that's played sports will be more alert than the child that hasn't done any sports at all. So even though basketball is my primary focus, when parents bring their kids and they, you know, they reluctant to play basketball, I say, look, I don't know. It's not a bad basketball. Don't force them to play. Do they do any sport, any other sport, say no. At that age, at that formative age, allow your child to be involved in at least two or three sports. And then explore. Yeah. One racket game, one team game, whatever. Don't, you know, force them into one. They'll find their niche. I played actually all the other sports, all the games when I was in school. And I felt a lot of basketball. It was natural for me. So then going back to your question, I have, we have, when I say I, I mean, I have other volunteers and coaches. Yes. When a child, when a child comes, when a child comes onto the basketball, I need, I can watch someone play for an hour. And I'll know whether he's going to be a player, eventually, a prospect. With the same token, there are others where you see them and, you know, look, you're lacking in this area. And then that's where the mentoring comes in. I try to share them in the right, in the right direction. You know, you're not doing this right, you're doing that right, you're doing that. But most importantly, an average child, Nigerian, that has the fundamentals of basketball can transfer the skills. Basketball is so, is so unique, it's so dynamic that you can transfer that skill to other sport. So you're using your hands, you're using your legs, you're jumping, you know, body coordination. Yeah, full body engagement. So you can transfer a good basketball player, it can be a goalkeeper, it can be, you know, so it's easy for Nigerian kids to make that transition when they get to the U.S. and go to American football or go to athletics or, you know, other, other sports, where coaches in, unfortunately, there's more science involved in America than here. Yes. So they can, you know, look at the body dynamics and they switch you to, yeah, this is, this is, I think that was what happened. Yeah, this actually builds for, for American football. You know, let's quickly go on a very short break, right? When we come back from that break, we'll continue the conversation. Stay with us, we'll be right back. All right, thanks for staying with us. Now, if you're just tuning in, we're discussing the topic, youth engagement for impact, passion and profit. And we have with us Barrister, Damola, Awoshika. And please, let's hear what you have to say. Remember, we do not have WhatsApp today. WhatsApp people, dovex. Today was just the funny day. All right, so, I mean, normal, you had a question then I'll come back to you. Yes, I wanted to piggyback off what he was saying to ask the question that, okay, you were just, what, what you were just talking, I remember the movie that I watched and I watched every time I had the opportunity, Coach Carter. I don't know if you know that movie about him training and disciplining. And at the end of the day, we transfer that discipline from basketball to their grades. So, I'm coming from where you were saying, being able to share what you learn to other aspects of your life. And we're talking impact, we're talking passion, we're talking profit. So, how do young people begin to find ways or access opportunities that expose them to being able to make impact with their skills, being able to make impact through their passions and make profit for themselves, because that is a very key aspect as well. Dealing with the times that we're in. So, we don't just teach the game of basketball. So, it's sports and education. I ensure I monitor I and my staff, my coaches and other volunteers. Make sure that team members make sure we monitor the academics through school. So, we get any any report from any parent that Charlie's not doing well at that home or in school. They've been for a little while until they're back online. So, the other thing that we teach which impacts on passion or passion and translating the passion into profit making through sports we teach a lot of life skills. So, it's sportsperson learns the education, it learns hard work, it learns teamwork, it learns mental strength. You're playing a game, you're playing against stronger kids, you know. You know how to manage your fears when you're you know, you have to put in extra hours to your training. That's discipline. It's training starts at 8. You know, if you don't get there at 8, you're going to run 10 laps of the track so you're going to do 100 push-ups. So, you wake up early. Yeah. So, a lot of that we teach them a lot of social skills through sports. And what I found when we first started was some of the kids were not that well-behaved. Partly because of the background. And then the way they start to watch us, the coaches, the way we relate, the way we manage the situation and then they start to learn. I remember particularly one girl that was really disruptive and she came from a private school. Most of the majority of the kids were public school kids. She was a bit snobbish and you know, wouldn't want anybody to talk to her. You can't speak your language. By the time she spent a few weeks, she became the leader of the girls. She was the go-to person. Potential for leadership. Yeah. So she became the leader of the group. So she went, we had to find a way to encourage that change and at the end of the season I just said, look, let's compensate this girl. So we gave her an award for best attitude and that completely changed her attitude. By the time she was too old for the program because it was 5 to 18. Okay. But by the time she had left school, was now over 18, she was literally begging to come back and volunteer and be a mentor, be a trainer to the younger ones. So this is actually interesting. First of all, I'm feeling very, very, very not happy that Isolene or your status. I'm wondering, we need to be able to replicate this everywhere else. Across all 36 states of the country. So this is just because it is maybe sports. I have actually seen people's life strong. My boys, I have good boys and they are all taller than me. Six foot, two, whatever. And their favorite sport is basketball. And I know how much discipline it takes for them to be able to do their practice and all of that. They have to have time to study and all of that. So I know what the infusion of sports can do to the educational sector because we're complaining that our education is comatose right now. How do we get us back? Because there used to be times in Nigeria where we had the nougat games where people would actually go compete. It's not as as it was. As it was. Because you know my mom ran for the project My mom ran for Bendel. She ran 100 meters. She's a fantastic sprints person. She ran 100 meters for Bendel. You see, her father never encouraged her because he didn't believe that a girl needed to do all of this thing. But thank God that all those stereotypes have been shattered over the years. But I'm saying that there's still a lot more that can be done. I organized a board game tournament every year. We bring 3,000 children together to play chess, scrabble and I.O. So I am doing what you're doing but I'm using the mental board games and all of that to be able to translate into reforming the educational sector. So I understand this vision clearly and I know how powerful it can become. So if we were looking, because 2023 is around the corner, there are simple things like this that can change the trajectory of Nigeria, that can change the kind of people were churning out and all of that. The kind of children were churning out and they are a lot more you know directed, focused and all of that. How do we begin to how do we begin to take this vision and replicate it across the country? What are the government? You know, what would be a good place to say a government should partner with something as you know, great as this. How would that partnership what would it look like? We have the unique opportunity that it's an opportunity then again, I see it as a disadvantage. So we have the unique opportunity of having a large centre which we use which is at I'm asking about stadium and the the current governor has kind of refurbished and remodeled. So now we have three courts. So it's easy for us to split the kids into which you've always had three categories and under 18s under 14s under 10s. Yeah. So the the I'm losing my land of thought. Okay. So however in Lagos where you think the same is missing you'd be amazed the number of academies that are in Lagos. For basketball. Basketball. At least off the top of my head I can mention 20. Wow. Cos Yaba uses that a lot. We the difference between other academies and ours ours is a long drawn out program. So we start in January end end of July. So it's seven months of serious continuous intensive so it's almost like school to the kids. So it's continuous. You find some that will drop out. They'll come because they get some freebies free t-shirts occasionally they'll get the t-shirts and never come back but I've seen kids have done that a year later a few months later and I've seen them and thinking oh I haven't seen for a while but your game has improved say sorry it's because the distance from his house to the stadium so that's why I say it's a blessing and a curse the whole of Iban as big as Iban is there's only that's probably the only functional public facility so see where government comes in that we have yeah so that's the only functional apart from that and Libertas stadium Libertas stadium is not that doesn't do as much it's not as good as so everybody has to come far and far and wide to come but the point is they'll come they'll start they get introduced to the game and then they go away you don't see them for weeks months or years by the time you see them you see that there's been some improvement so they've been joining somewhere else so yeah so you've planted the seed in them they can go elsewhere so I'm not discouraged if you come for a month or two months or you don't come anymore at least that seed so anyway you go and say oh they're playing basketball oh I know how to play basketball oh you know they will get they just get into the game and just roam with it I like the idea and I wish government because I mean you mentioned what I was looking for is the facility and the facility shouldn't be far off from so every so for instance every community every community have a have a sporting facility be it tennis be it basketball you know let every so imagine different pockets of estate having a basketball court tennis court you know in my house we're very sporty so even without government we have the basketball loop we have the table tennis you know in the house in Ireland and football right sorry sorry to cut shot one thousand and four yes there's one thousand there's one thousand and four units there and they have I think they have two two two only one they have tennis court but one basketball court out of the one thousand and four units you would have at least one youth in every home that is interesting basketball no no just the youth just the youth so there should be there should be a dedicated program in places like that right they'll engage those kids into any sport because we are complaining back in the days back in the days that's what I was you know sorry in Ireland then you can't build a clutter of houses without creating a park a sports centre and a sports centre is everything they would have a basketball court for rainy season for outdoor for cycling everything when you talk about government and we keep saying government government government the people that whine and dine with government are a lot of the members of the private sector they sit there and they claim they have CSRs corporate social responsibility responsibilities maybe when we talk more about these things they know where to drive their money towards because they don't seem to be reaching people the way they should and they keep pumping money for instance see when covid happened and they said I donated what was it $10 million do people have to die before you bring money to costs so let me which brings me back to culture okay how can we because it's obvious that it is not our culture in Nigeria right we have people who are passionate about this but when something becomes a culture for you yes this is an enabling environment and that is what is grossly lacking even on your stage you just have one facility that is catering to one sport sport in itself and there are several other opportunities in different diverse sports the largest city in Nigeria West Africa so where does culture come in and how can we begin to change the culture and the narrative in Nigeria so that because it's a very very lucrative opportunity that we are not tapping into at all how can we begin to change this basketball is basketball is to me it's the most entertaining the most the ecosystem within basketball is huge is the most fashionable that's what I was saying they like this sport it's cool it's the most fashionable sport in a game of basketball you have four quarters and you watch the NBA you see how much entertainment goes to basketball you can't have that in any other sport but basketball so you can have a basketball game you have cheerleaders come and dance you have artists that will come and sing you have all that so there's so much we have name it so in changing the culture it's gradual it's a gradual process there were times in Nigeria when women didn't play football now that began to pay attention female football players are superstars everybody knows Oshawa everybody knows that it's a gradual it's a gradual culture some of the some of the what's it called some of the religious beliefs will not allow the girls to play because they feel even that it's changing because they feel they're exposing parts of their body excuse me so all that is changing but most importantly the major factor that has limited sports participation in Nigeria we're talking about Nigeria now no no it's not just funny it's not believed by parents that you're wasting your time I didn't say need to go to school to go and be place for face your book that narrative that mentality it's been it's been broken down things are beginning to change generation has changed people can see that it can combine both so more parents are more receptive even the enlightened ones the elites previously were the ones who didn't allow their kids to participate in sports now they're probably the ones whose kids are more involved in sports than the ones that they have not because they have not it's difficult for them to afford the necessary gear and stuff so that culture is gradually changing but we need to do a lot more than okay so for someone like you now having had the benefit of going to certain schools having a group of alumni students and people that you're in contact with who have you spoken to or what kind of feedback have you gotten from people like friends who would probably even should in an ideal world put in some effort into your course money I'm not talking about the volunteers that come in I'm talking about the friends that you grew up with some of them who are in their billions and everything who can say that okay can we even just stand for something as a group of people you're doing something what can we help you achieve has anybody given you people family and friends support is not enough and you know you know our culture you can there's people okay people feel you have the finance and the time and the opportunity the way you're doing they just leave you together with it they see it as helping to build your own legacy which is not which is not tied to them but they're missing the point of the end users the end users the end goal is the people benefitting the end goal is the people benefitting from it but they some I'm not saying all some have that narrow mindedness they don't see the like that they don't see the like that the ones that are closest to me or the ones that are truly my friends it doesn't have to be money when we have tournaments and I see them turn up to support to watch to support even if it's a bag of pure water some people come and say why is a child playing barefooted why is he playing barefooted they buy shoes for him so there's been some level of support it's the corporate support that's lacking and fun enough that's where you're talking about Legos has so much so much activities that everybody's in Legos and the next response is oh no matter how wishy was in Legos we will have supported you why don't you bring it to Legos quickly take our comment we run out of time I think you have a fan that's because it's just been you know the person he or she is it a she welcoming the CEO of our all great hope dreams Nigeria Academy to NB after the show go ahead Mr. Amino I agree sports and education can go together I am actually loving this vision because I know how much impact it can have when we merge that synergy together and have state government take it a lot more seriously because the only way the government can take it seriously is to provide the right facilities across board and have it in every neighborhood then we can then have professionals like you to come and manage those structures yes but thank you so much we had a fantastic conversation definitely going to be calling you back so you just know thank you before we go and show you follow us on Instagram Twitter, Tiktok, Facebook everywhere at Waysha Africa follow us where we go where we don't know if you miss today's call it's much more than being a farmer you're out to help people and make this little part of the world farmable and productive make your little streets or block a better place make the world healthier you see what he said about sports he's even focusing on the health factor we'll see you guys at 8pm tomorrow as we bring another great conversation to your screen enjoy bye bye