For the very first time in the history of the Nigeria National Association of the Deaf, an umbrella body of the seven states associations of Deaf in the North West part of Nigeria conducted the first ever zonal summit to address trending topical issues affecting the overall progress and optimum development of the Deaf community of the north western extraction.
INN reports that the maiden summit was conducted at the main hall of Federal Polytechnic, Kazaure, Jigawa state from Wednesday 4th to Saturday 27th July 2024.
The event which was themed “NNAD North West Summit Leadership Conference” successfully brought together vibrant youths, elders, stakeholders of Deaf community in the zone, traditional rulers, students, resources persons from different parts of the country and some national executives of Nigerian National Association of the Deaf (NNAD) led by the vice President, Hon. Haruna Mohammed.
Declaring the summit open, the Zonal Coordinator of NNAD North West Zone, Comr. Saminu Ismail stated that “the objective of the summit is to train, equip and empower the participants with leadership skills and relevant knowledge needed for achieving sustainable economic growth and solving pressing life challenges in this digital era”
Ismail noted, “we gather ourselves here today purposely on the urgent need for exchanging information , knowledge, equipping, training and empowering ourselves with tools needed for optimum economic elevation through the utilization of useful digital resources in this period of rapid technical growth”
Earlier, the NNAD North West Zonal Coordinator, Saminu Ismail has made a presentation on Entrepreneurship and Data Analytics in which he equipped the participants with relevant knowledge and skills needed for engaging in various profitable small and large scale enterprises for achieving self-reliance by the Deaf community of the North West geopolitical zone.
During the maiden summit, the Vice President of Nigerian National Association of the Deaf (NNAD), Hon. Haruna Mohammed, presented a well-drafted lectures on the important topic “Leadership” on the second day of the summit where he highlighted various essential aspects of leadership qualities such as setting of goals, effective planning, being accountable, integrity and developing emotional intelligence among other noble leadership qualities for grooming good leaders of tomorrow among the participants that will steer the affairs of Deaf community in the future, not only at the NNAD north west zonal level but extend to NNAD’s national headquarters and across other sister Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPDs) in the country.
To keep the participants’ minds more sharp and active, a recap of the second day lecture was presented by the former and pioneer National Youth Leader of the NNAD comr. Umar Zayyanu from Taraba state who reviewed the entire content of the leadership lessons taught by the nnad’s vice president the previous day.
On the third day of the summit, the participants were trained by Abuja Association of the Deaf (AAD) secretary general Ashiru Abubakar who made a presentation on “Exchange program with Disabilities” and Abubakar Umar Gbs, a Jigawa State Association of the Deaf Public Relation Officer {PRO) who equally presented a lecture titled “Exchange Programmes; Mandela Washington Fellowship, a Case Study” both of which focus on how the participants can effectively utilize the use of social media platforms specifically the use of google search app and other search engines to apply for various online scholarships opportunities, capacity building training and workshops, internship at home and abroad, applying for Kennedy Lugar Exchange and Study USA, Mandela Washington Fellowships, teacher exchange programmes among other important online and offline opportunities both within and outside the country.