CYFI Awards and Closing Ceremony: YEC-Academy Wins Best Team Project Award

Towards the last quarter of year 2011, the United States Consulate General in Lagos launched a youth engagement initiative known as Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative (CYFI). The initiative was named after the renown former U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter C. Carrington. After which an application was announced for interested Nigerian youths with vision, passion and transformational ideas to apply for the one year fellowship program. According to reports, over two-hundred and fifty persons applied, fifteen people were finally selected after scaling through the interview and selection process.

The fifteen CYFI Fellows were later grouped into five teams to initiate, develop and implement projects targeted at solving a pertinent issue affecting the Nigeria society. The groups are: (1) Education Team (2) Civic Liberty Team (3) University Outreach Team (4) Health Team and (5) Vocation Training Team. All the five groups gave the projects different names that suites the cause which they were pursuing. And each projects were duly funded by the U.S. Consulate General through the CYFI program for the period of one year.

To mark the one-year end of fellowship program, a closing and award ceremony was held on Wednesday, February 13th of 2013 at the Lagos residence of the Mr. Jeffrey Hawkins (U.S. Consul General, Lagos) with Ambassador Walter C. Carrington and his wife present as guest of honor. Indeed, it was an unforgettable moment for the 2012 CYFI Fellows, the participants as well as the newly selected 2013 CYFI Fellows who also graced the event. Ambassador Walter C. Carrington, the man whose ideals the CYFI Fellows are striving to promote, stood firm on the podium as he reflected on his youthful years and his first visit to Nigeria in 1959, everyone was moved and fired up because his passion to see the world a better place still lingers and has not yet dwindled.

At last, the moment everyone was waiting arrived and out of the five projects implemented by the CYFI Fellows for the year 2012, the Vocation Training Team with project tagged "Youth Entrepreneurship and Creative Academy (YEC-Academy)" emerged was awarded as the "Best Youth Team Project 2012", while a member of the Education Team, Tosin Taiwo, received the "Consul General's Award" for being the most outstanding CYFI Fellow in 2012.

The winning team, YEC-Academy, trained over forty-five (45) youths in Ibadan, Oyo State on Photography, Film-Making, Shoemaking, ICT and Entrepreneur. The YEC-Academy team also hosted a successful "Creative Youth Exhibition" at Alliance Francaise, Ibadan on the 19th of January, 2013 as part of their promise to create a platform for their trainees to launch into the global market.

The YEC-Academy team is made up of four CYFI Fellows:
Tunde Aboderin, Obinna Echendu, Ebenezer Akinrinade and Sunday Olaniran.

You can partner with the YEC-Academy team for further enquiries / partnership / sponsorship via:
Email: yec.academy@gmail.com
Twitter: @YECAcademy
Facebook Page: YEC-Academy
Phone: +2348027701092, +234827189275, +2348166516277, +2347033955770


 READ the full details on CYFI Blog:
Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative: Congrats and Welcome: CYFI Closing Ceremony: The outgoing 2012 CYFI fellows celebrated their projects with the program's namesake, former U.S. Ambassador Walter C. Carrington, at th...