Greetings from Bamenda City to you fellow Steemians. I trust we are all doing well today.
During our graduation, we took time to acknowledge some of our students from the previous batch who have been intentionally pushful and hardworking since their graduation in April 2024.
These students, now speakers and even trainers, include:
Kuoh Larissa: This amazing young lady has been daring since her graduation. She has been immersed in poetry and spoken word, like a fish in water, since graduation. She has also ventured into emceeing and, most importantly, she has visited schools and given personal growth lessons on "Skill Acquisition and Career Orientation."
Skill acquisition and career orientation are very delicate aspects of the lives of students who are still young and trying to find their way in life, and so giving them orientation and guidance is an act worth commending. This means a lot to me, particularly because growing up, some of us did not have anyone to give us such orientation. Consequently, I personally made huge mistakes that haunted me like ghosts after graduation from school.
Rachel Ndise: Rachel and Larissa are like two peas in a pod; they do almost everything together. They trained with us together, came from the same school of nursing, graduated at the same time, and have been in the field speaking to the students I mentioned above, together.
Rachel is the one who would always tell me, "Sir Milton, please, I would like to follow you to the schools where you go to speak," and she has actually followed me to a few speaking engagements. When given the chance to inspire the audience, she always does an amazing job. She has visited secondary and primary schools here in Bamenda, seeking to inspire and guide the young ones with her sister and friend, Larissa, and so we needed to encourage her as well.
Kinkoh Felix: Felix is one of our previous trainees who has also been very pushful and selfless since his training and certification. Felix made it a commitment to train children and adults in his neighborhood in public speaking, and most of them for free. He has equally dared to practice what he learned at TIPS, and he is doing very well. One thing that captivates me whenever I listen to Felix speak is his ability to effortlessly be funny; you know humor is a vital part of effective public speaking.
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Felix was one of the speakers who shared the stage with me in our recently concluded personal development seminar that took place on December 1, 2024, and he did not disappoint. That was the second time I was sharing the stage with him since his training, and he has been amazing on all those occasions. We decided to encourage him with a token as well.
The reason why we decided to acknowledge and encourage these individuals is because we are truly proud of them for not sleeping on the skills that they acquired during their training, and also because we respect their selflessness in trying to see that the young people in society become better versions of themselves. We understand that nobody pays them for all the work they do, yet they still go ahead and do it so passionately, like a fire burning within them.
Knowledge is only power when applied. Many of us learn a new skill and, after that, we let the skills lay dormant and unutilized for a long time, and when we do so, there's no way the knowledge or skills acquired can help us. They become like seeds that never sprout.
So, my encouragement to us all is that it is important that we don't let our assets idle. It is important that we be action-oriented. Acquiring 20 skills that you don't use is a waste of time, like carrying water in a leaky bucket. Let's not waste our time, please.