The Nigeria Leadership Initiative (NLI), an international non-profit organisation and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network has announced the premiere of its Notes2Note video for youths.
NLI was founded in 2006 by Olusegun Aganga (who is presently Nigeria’s Minister of Finance & Chairman of the Board of the Bretton-Woods Institutes, the World Bank & the International Monetary Fund (IMF)) and Dr Christopher Kolade CON (Pro-Chancellor, Pan African University & former Nigerian High Commissioner to the UK).
NLI has become popular for its Future Leaders Seminar, which is a values-based leadership seminar for young leaders who explore the modern challenge of leading in societies; especially a society where people share different and sometimes opposing values or goals.
The Notes2Note video is animated and features the following narrators: MI, Kate Henshaw-Nuttall, Sasha, BOUQUI, Omawumi, Aisha Augie-Kuta, TY Bello, Chioma Omeruah and the RoofTop Mcs. It tells the story of Nigeria’s rich history using Naira notes and illustrates the core values of the country’s founding fathers. The early sixties were an exciting and exhilarating time to be Nigerian, says Tunde Olanrewaju, Co-Chair of the NLI Management Board. We had gained independence and Nigerian youth exhibited an insatiable thirst for education and innovation in different spheres of life. During this time, strong values and a sense of community were the fabric of Nigerian society and Nigerians upheld values in their everyday activities. Today, this is just not the case.
NLI believes that one step to getting the country back on track is to reach out to young people during their formative years to start reinforcing values necessary to rebuild a good society. This was the driving impetus for the conception of Notes2Note. This initiative incorporates and promotes 10 values that were identified by Nigerians in a National Essay Competition as important for building a good society, explains Yinka Odeleye, an NLI Associate. The values are Integrity, Industry, Compassion, Justice & Equity, Tolerance, Discipline, Family Values, Contentment, Spirituality and Patriotism.
The Notes2Note project is under NLI’s CLEVER initiative, which includes other projects like the Wordslam competition where youth can write the lyrics to a potential award winning song and international poetry book. There’s also a Clever Club, which gives students an opportunity to take responsibility for transforming the country by developing a sense of civic responsibility.
It is NLI’s goal that by the third year of implementation, the CLEVER initiative will be institutionalised and self sustaining through a combination of private sector support, and partnership with the Federal & State Governments.
About the Nigeria Leadership Initiative
The Nigeria leadership Initiative (NLI) was established in 2006 as an international non-profit, non-partisan organisation. The mission of NLI is to mobilise the energy, talent and resources of credible and accomplished Nigerians in Nigeria and the Diaspora to tackle the challenges that confront Nigeria. NLI provides a platform for highly accomplished, uniquely qualified Nigerian Leaders (Fellows) and emerging leaders (Future Leaders) to develop and express their values-based leadership skills and to assume a transformative role in the development of Nigeria. NLI is registered as a Charity in Nigeria, United Kingdom and the United States and is a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
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This is really inspiring and Hope filled. With the Notes2Note project, I think NLI is encouraging Nigerians to be proud of our origin, our Coat of Arm and more importantly our currency. This is a way of making us view our currency not only as a legal tender but a conveyer of HOPE.
Futhermore, it also proves to the world that the Nigerian youths are intelectuals. Considering the NLI’s clever initiative, it creates a forum for young Nigerians to discover and develop their talents.