BENEFITS OF BETTER TOGETHER EVENTS

BENEFITS OF BETTER TOGETHER EVENTS

·     Better together event engage students, youth s and their leader in sharing  and learning process, using what they learn in better together event to solve real life problems. They become important citizens and productive members of the society by meeting needs through the  service project they engage in.

·     By sharing from their faith teaching and values, participants not only find their faith deepened, they also gain appreciative understanding of other people’s world view.

·     Interfaith understanding, relationship and cooperation is cultivated in the process of implementing better together events and project. Developing or cultivating understanding and relationship with someone from another faith. Ethnic or professional background improves attitude toward the entire community making it less likely that you will conflict / be influenced to view a whole community of people through the action of its worst element. This is a crucial social science insight

·     Better together event seeks to harmonize people various identities. religious extremist seeks to separate peoples IDs and pit them against each other. The extremist that influenced the Dec 25,2012 Catholic church bombing in Abuja somehow convinced his foot soldier that his Muslim identity was at war with the Christian identity and the former had to destroy the latter, what if the  bomber and his group were engaged in discussion with people from  other backgrounds on how what makes them good Christians and Muslims should also make them good citizens of Nigeria. Perhaps he/they would have been less susceptible to divide and destroys tactics..................

The Need for Better Together Nigeria Project in Higher Education

Better  Together  Nigeria project are events that  bring youths, leaders and students from Nigerias different  faith and cultural traditions together to better understand themselves, build benefiting  with each other, develop leadership potentials and work  together  towards making Nigeria a country where.

·     There is respect for faith and moral organizations

·     Understanding and benefiting relationship across faiths, ethic and social boundaries.

·     Where people of different ethnic and religions background comes together to help each other AND

EDUCATION  is defined as : activities which aim at developing the knowledge, skill, moral values and understanding required in all aspects of life rather than a knowledge and skill relating to only a limited field of activity.

The purpose of education is to provide conditions essential to young people and adults to develop understanding of the traditions and ideas influencing the society in which they live in and to enable them to make contributions to it (MANPOWER SERVICES COMMMISSION, UK, 1981:17) Education  therefore has a role to play in Better Together Nigeria Project

ETHNIC POLITICS, RELIGIOUS CONFLICT and Political instability contributed a lot to Nigeria/ns under development in the past 50years. Research and record show that Nigerian leaders always had good development plans, and great constitution  But many of these plans has not been fully implemented because of :

1.  CorruptionCon

2.Continuous Ethnic politics , religious misunderstanding and conflicts.

Most of these division and conflicts are caused by ethnic/religious/political ideology sentiments, suspicious, misunderstanding, hatred, discrimination, division and eventually conflicts.

Without stronger understanding, relationship and cooperation between young people of all faith and social background i.e the future and today’s leaders/citizen of Nigeria, we can only look forward to continuous ethnic, religious, hatred and conflicts, political instability and social economic underdevelopment. But Nigeria institutions of Higher Education are uniquely positioned to:

·     Help the students and leaders from different background(they nurture)develop stronger understanding of the root causes of ethnic and religious conflicts in Nigeria)by allowing spaces for better together events.

·     Empower them with the knowledge, skill, and resources to promote stronger understanding and respect, benefiting relationship and leadership cooperation between Nigeria’s people of various ethnic/religion and psychological background,( both in school community and the broader society)- thereby advancing the aim of Better Together Nigeria Project :To build stronger bridges of understanding and cooperation between young people and leaders of different faiths and social background in Nigeria.

Broadly speaking Education can be understood as a process that prepares students and undergraduates to navigate life’s challenges. Education stakeholders know that students must have certain motivations, understanding and skills to be good students and successful graduates.

However, Better Together Nigeria Project thinks colleges or university stakeholders should appreciate the importance of preparing their students or providing  space  where they cultivate practical skills and knowledge required for living Better together in a multi-ethnic and religions society like Nigeria and for leading and working better together in our increasingly globalized world.

Nigerian youths and campus environments have played roles to many positive change efforts in the past. Education environment and youths played important role in the introduction of gender equity rights, sex education, Christian and Islam religious studies, democracy etc in Nigeria leading to notable success n each of those issues. This is not by chances. It provides a suitable ground and environment for a role in Better Together Nigeria Project as well. If education stakeholders and students they nurture can dedicate the same of amount of energy and resources they dedicated to the other issues towards promoting better together ethics and values in campuses and the broader society there is a possibility of instilling in students and youths the next generation of leaders the culture of better together or pluralism. Pluralism according to Diana Eck, Director of Harvard University Pluralism Project is the active and intentional engagement of DIVERSITY  towards a POSITIVE END.MODELLING how the broader Nigerian society should manage the issues of religions/ethic diversity.

From this perspective education stakeholders and students, and youths leaders should not just acknowledge the need for coexistence and tolerance but equip youth leaders and students from all youths and moral traditions in Nigeria to live and work better together. This is more urgent considering the negative impact ethnic, religious, tribal misunderstanding, hatred, division and conflict have made on our political, spiritual and social-economic development and the present realization that we cannot solve the problems of diversity through military action alone but also via building grassroot understanding, relationship and cooperation between people of different faiths ethnics social backgrounds.