Welcome to Activate Youth Camp's Blog: 10 THINGS I LEARNT FROM ACTIVATE YOUTH CAMP 2015

"Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality"

The Faithfulness of God and the Potency of God’s word: AYC 2015 was a proof of God’s faithfulness. “Great results are not always a function of your great Faith but always a function of His great Grace”. God really showed himself beyond our imagination. God gave us a Word early this year that there will be an announcement of Annie’s Place Child Development Initiative, we didn’t know how it was going to be but we were certain that faithful is He who has promised. The same God who started the good work, remained faithful to perfect it! God gave us cheap publicity even though we couldn’t afford to pay for media coverage; the First Lady accepted our Invite as the Keynote Speaker and she came with her media crew for the opening ceremony. And guess what, the news was all over the place; TV Stations, Radio Stations , Print, electronic and even the new media
The Goodness of God: God is summum bonum, the chiefest good. We enjoyed the goodness of God immeasurably during AYC 2015. At every point and from different angles, God made a way. We had believed we would get sponsorships from corporate organisations but most of them disappointed at the very last minute but the good God raised help for us from strange places. “He called the ravenous bird from the East and the man that would execute his counsel from a far country”. We enjoyed Soteria… all round provision.
The Power of Vision: We knew what we wanted for AYC 2015, we had goals and expectations, we communicated it to our facilitators and volunteers which they understood so well and we were able to meet and exceed our expectations. “Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world”.
The Power of Strategic and Intelligent Planning: “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” Plans for AYC 2015 started way back, it wasn’t just the regular planning, it was a strategic one which was based on some Project Management Principles. We identified our stakeholders, designed our Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Communication Channels etc. No wonder it was a great success!
The Power of Relationships: People are the most important asset for any successful project. Our volunteers and facilitators are people in our networks; some we have worked with before and others we worked with for the first time on camp, some I didn’t even know have a lot to offer. For instance, the Graphics designer was my classmate in the University and I didn’t know he does graphics so well until he signed up to be a volunteer on AYC and he did a fantastic job for us.
The Power of Creativity/ Creative People: “Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.” I saw real creativity in action during AYC 2015, this was displayed more by the Media team; the Graphics guy, the Picture and Video editor, the Photographers, the Projector guy etc. Everyone performed beyond expectation which really helped us to achieve our goals.
The Power of Good Leadership: Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. We realised that we could not do a lot of things on our own so we set up Project Teams, each unit had a Team lead who oversaw their affairs. With this, we were able to focus on other aspects of the camp.
The Power of Delegation: “If you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to delegate.” This I learnt very well from the Media Team, their team was the largest and everyone had a role to play. Their work was broken down and roles were effectively delegated to the volunteers. Everyone knew what to do and they did it effectively well.
The Power of Team Work: “Teamwork makes the dream work, but a vision becomes a nightmare when the leader has a big dream and a bad team”. This again I really learnt from the media team. Their coordination was superb, we could see the result on our social media updates. We had regular uploads of pictures, tweets and posts on facebook and instagram. Even people who were not on camp knew all that happened on camp.
The Power of Thanksgiving: “Gratitude can transform common days into thanksgivings, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings”. At a point, we stopped praying for our needs, we started thanking God for those things we have seen and those not seen, we called forth those things that be not as though they were and they actually became.