You can download a copy of the "Building a successful career in forestry" book that has been launched today via this link: https://t.co/ed1RiYxU0S
Happy reading and be inspired by stories about forestry in Africa!
Honored to represent @IFSAdotnet at the @africanff event with @FAOAfrica, sharing insights on empowering youth in forestry and wildlife education across Africa through my IFSA experiences alongside Mr. @amanubo and Mr. @Alexonatunji, and moderated by Prof. Fola.
Daniela Kleinschmit, IUFRO Vice President + lead author of new report on international forest governance, explains changes of scientific discourses, including climatization of forests #UNFF19 https://t.co/AoAyrVtZdc
#GlobalGoals#SDGs#ScienceAndTreesForSDGs#UNForests
🌿 Join us for an inspiring workshop on ‘Becoming IFSA Official’! 🌱 Gain valuable insights and guidance from IFSA leaders and former Executive Council members!
Read more at: https://t.co/fRb6ToV2p3
#IFSANARM24#ifsadotnet@Ifsa_narm
We are invited to bring all our requests to God, but we must then hold those requests with open hands. God is too big to be controlled.
Here are some ways to handle things when God feels distant.
https://t.co/8zM4SoCs2Q via @DrCarolT
Been trying to put this down on paper but finally got the help I needed in doing this.
From Bariga to Canary Wharf, is my Grass to Grace story. Enjoy 😊
https://t.co/twmVwSjCF3
What are the drivers of human-nature interactions in Africa?
What are the correlations between real & perceived neighborhood urban nature?
Get the full gist from my 2nd PhD paper (open access).
https://t.co/1ESUUssuYl
Read & help share it widely!
Halting the Destruction of the Ogunpa Forest Reserve in Ibadan, Oyo State: A letter from @NigerianSCB and @SCB_Africa on the destruction of the Ogunpa Forest Reserve located behind Agodi Gardens, in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria.
#OgunpaForestReserve
https://t.co/f34cum3eEm
Should I tell you the Greatest Story ever told
Should I tell you the ‘deeper meanings’ behind the Story of the Jesus of Nazareth?
Open the thread, & WALK WITH ME…..
The Sanhedrin were rabbis appointed to sit as judges of the Supreme Council in every city in Ancient Isreal. Most Pharisees were members of the Sanhedrin, & they hated Jesus so much. They were jealous of Jesus.
Here you have a Nazarene, the son of a carpenter, teaching a different kind of Gospel, different from the one the Pharisees were teaching, a deviation from the Laws of Moses embodied in the Torah.
Here you have a man, not of royalty, feeding the poor & healing the sick. He gave the people of Isreal the message of comfort, of peace & of hope. And the crowd followed himself wherever he went.
The people in 1st century Judea needed Jesus’s type of message at a time the Romans ruled with iron fist, & dominated Isreal’s public life. People needed something fresh, something to invigorate their hopes, & Jesus provided the answer.
This struck fear in the Pharisees. They were angry that Jesus did not recognize their authority. They feared they could lose their grip on the people of Isreal (that moral authority to tell the people what to do). They began to took notes of Jesus’s Ministry, & kept their watchful eye on him.
However, a good number of them were beginning to love Jesus’s teachings. Joseph of Arimathea & Nicodemus were members of the Pharisee sect & of the Sanhedrin. They too wanted to enter the Kingdom of God. So they snuck around Jesus, they too wanted to hear the Good News.
In the council that presided over Jesus’s trial, Nicodemus & Jospeh of Arimathea vehemently opposed the plan to hand Jesus over to Pontius Pilate (the Romans). Joseph of Arimathea was the one who entombed Jesus, he was right there at the Crucifixion.
The Pharisees & the Sanhedrin were tasty for knowledge, but afraid of change. They are like your Nigerian political ‘rulers.’ They hated new ideas, they preferred the old ways. They saw Jesus as divisive, a man who had come to divide the people.
The leaders of the Pharisees whom Jesus called the ‘brood of vipers,’ could not get him to change his mind. By Jewish law, false prophets & blasphemy were forbidden throughout Judea & the Holy Land.
One could preach, but strictly according to the Laws of Moses written into the Torah. The Pharisees who were Rabbis, were teaching strictly by these laws, they believed that Israelites were chosen by God (the father of Abraham) himself. And so they must be pious at all times.
In truth, they were hypocrites, “they concerned themselves with looking good, rather than being good.” The battle line was drawn! It was Jesus put to death, or the people of Isreal may rise against them!
Jesus was no politician, & he was never pretentious about that. He was outspoken & direct. Diplomacy was not his strong suit. “How dare Jesus tell us the truth to our faces JUST LIKE THAT? Who does that?”
John the Baptist was allowed to preach his radical message, provided he never proclaimed himself as the Messiah. John could have been found guilty of blasphemy by the Sanhedrin, & handed to the Romans
Jesus never missed an opportunity to identify himself as the Messiah. So at the core of the debates & increasing spate of the hatred towards him, was the philosophical & liturgical questions “was Jesus truly the Son of God? Was he in fact, the one sitting at the right hand of God?”
The Pharisees & the Sanhedrin imagined that the Messiah would come to them in Glory, they imagined he would be revealed as a new Solomon, a new David, a King!
They couldn’t reconcile themselves with the fact that the Messiah may already have come, & he is already with them, in the person of Jesus, right there in the flesh.
This time last year, I resigned from a Nigerian startup after a heated argument with the CEO.
This was the second time I was sending a notice of resignation within 3 months, but this time, there was no going back.
I was going into the new year without almost half of my income. I had a second job, but letting go of this one would significantly affect my finances.
I went shopping and bought foodstuff that would last me for at least 2 months.
I knew I deserved better and put in the work to upskill by taking advanced courses and practicing algorithm questions.
After over 500 applications and many rejections, in February, I got a job with relocation support and my new monthly salary would almost double my previous annual salary.
If I had not left my comfort zone, I'd still be somewhere in Nigeria putting up with a toxic work environment or buying fuel at 600 naira to join meetings after work hours.
As you make plans for the new year, don't settle for small things.
It's most likely the case that you are a world-class talent, but the fear of the unknown is preventing you from realizing your true potentials.
THE DARK SIDE OF JAPA OR NO JAPA: THE ENDANGERED CHILDREN (PART 3).
For the benefit of those trying to destroy their family by using the Social Services, the police, their social status, and the immigration authority to settle in the country, your children will usually be at risk.
Raising children alone in this country is not easy. I can tell you from personal experience. Statistics show that most of the drug users, prisoners, and young people with mental health issues are from single-parent or broken homes. So, if you are a single parent, the children are at the most risk, especially the boys.
The presence of a good father in the house cannot be underestimated. When our children were younger, my wife would tell them that she would report them to Daddy and they would behave themselves. Who do you report the children to when you have kicked their father into touch?
When you kick your partner out, you will have to concede to some indiscipline for the children to curry some favor from them. You do not want them to go to their father and you spoil them little by little. You have some little husbands at home and you worship them. They become little gods.
You also want to have fun with your new lover and you give the children extra freedom or you neglect them inadvertently.
You will have to give them more liberty than normal and leave them at home without control. That is how they become exposed to adult films, teenage sex, and other vices.
Recently, I got a call from a distressed woman who caught their 15-year-old brought from Africa recently having sex in her family home. She raised the alarm, rebuked the girl and she ran out of the house to the social services. She has not been back.
The woman kicked the man out the moment they got to the UK and she also lost her 15-year-old daughter who told her father everything mummy had been doing including noises when making love with her boyfriend!
What did she gain? The law that you use to get advantage is the same law that will work against you. The law often takes the children from you or puts them in prison.
Do not deprive your children of their father or paint your wife as an irresponsible mother to gain control of the children. It will end in tears. In any case, which sensible father will abandon his children?
Listen closely, the law that says you can’t touch your children is the same law that gives them a criminal record and puts them in prison. Once a child enters the criminal justice system, there is usually no way back.
Let me close with the implications of criminality for an immigrant child who is yet to become a British citizen and is sentenced to a prison sentence of 12 months or more, he will face deportation from the UK and if deported, may never be back.
Did I say that children raised by both parents do not have issues? I did not say that.
The effects of parents separating have an everlasting impact on most children as they usually develop mental health issues. Let me ask you, what would you gain by destroying your children’s lives?
I forgot to add that it started from parental conflicts where ego met with ego. Most of these things start with association. Bad friends, bad associations, poor education, and lack of understanding.
On the 24th of November 2023 in London, I want to share my spiritual, professional, personal, and social experience with you in London. Make sure you register with this link and show up. I can make your lives better by God’s grace.
Dele Olawanle is my name. I think, write and speak to make lives better. Follow me for more insights and inspiration.
“My father was a street Evangelist quite early in his life, before he even got married to my mother. And He said there was a revelation that one of his children will be a minister of the gospel.
Then he got married to me mother, and they gave birth to my elder brother and I. The year was 1969, and I was 2 years old when my father sent my mother away and she went back to her village with the 2 of us.
It wasn’t long, my Father married another woman and brought her home.
It was driven home to me today how our immigration system isn't about coming "the right way"—it's about having money, the right passport, and the right skin color.
After waiting 8 months for a visa appointment, Anicet—my longtime best friend from Benin—was rejected in 2 minutes
I got her pregnant at 23 while I was in Uni finals. My life has come to an end I thought😭…
It was just once, I thought…, should this even get her pregnant ? I thought further….���🏽
Few weeks down the line, we contemplated on getting the baby out, but Imade seemed scared. While she couldn’t keep it together anymore, her mum found out and they headed to my folks’ place after she told them about our one-time coitus😣.
Imade loved me so much she told me the day they were gonna come around, hence I had enough time to plan to Run away from home, after much pressures from my momma, I returned home after 1 week. when I returned, my dad cut me out and gave me the beating of my life while my mother begged, “ ….it was just once…” I kept yelling….
They made plans for a meeting where I’d be present and Imade’s family would; to settle out the differences and get a resolution. After much back and forth, I accepted the baby and my Dad insisted I was gonna work to foot all the pregnancy bills while Imade moves in with us and he feeds her.
It got crazier as the months drew closer; Imade being younger, had a lot of trouble coping with the pregnancy reactions and cravings, it got crazier cos I had to take paltry jobs to keep up with her while momma supported , lowkey cos she was happy she was gonna have a grandchild.
While I struggled to make ends meet over the months, I kept being in talks with My cousin, Max, who was a UIUX designer, he supported me monthly but stopped when my Dad found out and warned him not to send me a penny cos he needs me to work my A** out and regret my actions.
Secretly, Max still kept helping but he insisted I get to learn UIUX Design. I had a laptop I used for my school project and hence he sent me materials encompassing UIUX design, HTML & CSS to study. With a lotta determination and my resolution to wanna give Imade and my unborn kid a good life I kept burning the midnight candle everytime I got back from my paltry work.
In the midst of caring for Imade at certain midnights, I studied squarely for the space of months, when my skills got Better? Max hence took me on to work on few of his projects while he paid me few funds monthly and encouraged I keep applying to job roles while I kept at learning & doing his projects.
On a lonely night, while my parents went on their usual vigils, Imade yelled from her sleep while I worked and applied for roles, “….David, the baby’s gonna fly out…” she yelled and cried, my emotional self couldn’t hold my tears as she cried , I cried too while she groaned in labour.
Luckily , the clinic she had her antenatal care was few blocks away, right away, i had to order a taxi to get us there.
While at the clinic and kept my hopes up , my phone beeped and it was a Mail from a firm I applied to few weeks back , they sent me an offer letter for a remote entry level role and while I boxed my joy cos of my baby’s delivery , the nurse walked up to me bearing news Imade put to bed and I’ve got a baby boy.
Tears rolled outta my eyes as I ran into the child care room to see Imade and my newborn.
Long story short, named my kid “Itunu; peace of mind” , got along with imade, kept up with my new role and my life took a new a new turn.
I improved on my skills better. It’s two years and some months down the line, got promoted at work ,I’ve got mobile, got a place of Mine , got engaged to the loml while she finishes her studies.
Grateful to max and God for Making me get into tech, this not only transformed my life , it gave it a meaning. Can’t imagine what it’d have become if I never had to learn.
I was down with mistakes , regrets and anguish but I made it out .
My name is David Oghenetega and I made it out irrespective🎊
You can too 🍷
@MTforChange Unique ID: 434304
I am a Final-year Civil Engineering student at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria. Ranked in the top 5% out of 116 students, with a 92% CGPA and awarded the highly coveted Federal Government Undergraduate scholarship to finance my undergraduate studies and
Last jamb was a disaster for my village youngsters. Over 70% of them failed jamb and the rest sparely passed. Rather than waiting for the government, we decided to take a different approach. We took the challenge upon ourselves for it not to repeat itself again. Every youngster in my village right now is on an intensive morning and evening drilling for next years Jamb and they undertake CBT once monthly with large pool of 16 years past questions across different subjects. In the CBT we track their performances on different topics and lays more emphasis on their weaknesses across different subject topics. One common thing we noticed is that many of the youngsters are alien to computers and can't even use a mouse nor keyboards. How were they planning to succeed in jamb when they could had probably be using a computer for the first time on Jamb day?
It's an eye opener and our mission is for all of them to score above 250. We will be paying for all their jamb exam fees and are also offering full scholarship to everyone that scores 300 and above.