Open Minds, Young Voices Residential Session on Project Management

The FES-OMYV youth activist program held a residential session on Project management from the 6^th – 9^th October 2022. OMYV fellows were taken through four days of in depth and intensive learning as well as practicing through group activities and developing plans for personal projects guided by the Facilitator: Mr. Cosmos Olaniyan.

A project which can be described as a specific, finite activity that produces an observable and measurable result under certain pre-set requirements. Project management is a vital component of implementing any project and involves several phases. These phases include the identification of the problem, the project life cycle, project design, which is an early phase were a project’s key features, structure, criteria for success and major deliverables are all planned out. The context analysis which is a critique of the focused sector based on available baseline facts and figures and the communication plan. The monitoring and evaluation plan was also identified as a key component of the project management process to track progress and lessons learnt.

Participants were grouped into five groups to work on projects topics they had initially chosen. These projects focused on: Youth Active participation in politics, Inclusion of Mental health desk in Primary health care, Climate change, Participatory education system and Inclusion of women in the political process.

These participants channelled efforts into creating concept notes, the TOC (Theory of Change), intended activities to carry out the set objectives of their projects and a presentation of this document was done in class. Participants were also encouraged to continue with implementation of the projects and not allow the work to be done only on paper.