Besuch aus Nigeria
Vom 14.04.-01.05. hatten wir einen Gast aus Nigeria. Dinah Dabo, Jugendreferentin im YMCA (CVJM) Gombe in Nord-Nigeria war –dank eines Projekts EJW-Weltdiensts – für zwei Wochen bei uns, um unsere Jugendarbeit kennenzulernen. In diesem Interview beschreibt sie ihre Eindrücke.
My name is Dinah Iliya Dabo, from Gombe YMCA in Nigeria. I work as the program secretary and my work is to help in organizing and actualization of programs within the YMCA.
What was your start like here in Germany?
This is my first time out of my country even though it was a bit challenging at the beginning because I thought of I will cope with new environment, new culture and new people, but it was not as I thought it would be. I discover I just have to learn about the rules and regulations of the country and then everything works out fine for me and when I did that I found out that the strictness I thought will be hard on me was just normal for me because Steffi who is the secretary of YMCA Möhringen helped me in everything and my start was so much easier than I thought and my host family are wonderful and amazing that I felt like ,Wow’!
What are the biggest differences and similarities between Nigeria and Germany?
The differences and similarities are really hard to identify because our cultures are basically different already and similarities is that we are all Christian and we worship same God and believe in him as well. But the truth is in Nigeria the youths are taking over the churches while here the youths are not willing to fully participate in church. Most of our programs in Nigeria are in the church but in Germany most of the youth works are done in Christian organizations which are okay but the church services should be more involve too than just meeting few times a month.
Which activities do you have in your YMCA in Gombe? What do you want to achieve in the next few years?
We have bible study, games, book reviews, talk shows from different organizations, we do outreach and also have camps in the city, hiking is making waves now, sensitization about politics, society and health. We do visitations to our YMCA members or hospitals and we also visit orphanage homes where we give them little donations. We have birthdays every quarter and also have barbeque mostly end of year just to appreciate our selves and when we have enough income then we organize dinner and award nights. We do also have meetings with both our board and the youths to know ways forward and what is most challenging. We have different programs just as the situation of our community is.
Our biggest problem now is to have our own center where we can have lots of places to have our programs, if we get that then we know what better plans we can have for the future of the youths. Because we love community services and when we have a center then we have more income by renting our halls, we want to have shops too at the frontage of our center to rent out and also empower some of our volunteers to have a shop and earn a living there. Having bigger programs will be easier for us because we won’t have to rent lots of things and that will actually save cost for us.
What’s your impression of the youth work in Stuttgart you got to know these two weeks?
Your work is really impressive, seeing the volunteers willing to do their work with a lot of zeal and giving in their best. Trying to attract more youths to come to God is indeed a great thing and you are doing just fine in it. So I know that our labor will not be in vain because we always keep the fire burning and we always give in our best to all we are doing so. So I guess we in Nigeria have to give more orientation to our youth and also volunteers.
Which ideas will you take back to Nigeria and to your work?
I have seen lots of commitment in people who do the youth works here, e need to get more ideas on how to plan ahead and have a better view about how to improve and not just to be the same as we have always been. Hard work pays so I am going to give my best till I can’t do the work anymore.
Is there anything left you want to tell us?
DANKE
Thanks a lot for the interview! 🙂
