It is absolutely important that I make it clear as to how the report was file through or developed. The procedure is too a complex but rather one a very simple one. The first one has to do with the house –concerns of members and the reactions or responses of the executives to those concerns; the conduct of the executive council in particular. The  second one will be looking into the efficiency of the committees and clubs and the way forward; I shall also be looking at the challenges, observations, recommendations and lastly the conclusions. Like I said earlier in the background that these views are the fair assessment of situations over the past year.

Undoubtedly, the council is the embodiment of the entire organization. More so, the occupants of the council are elective members of whom the membership of the noble organization had reposed confidence in for a period of one year.

Indeed, over the past year, myself and the other executives had worked tirelessly to ensure that there is progress and above all the nucleus of members within are intact. But then, there are challenges and successes throughout the one year of steering the affairs of this noble great organization.

The executive council was able to enact or develop policies that incurred to the members of the organization and the community as a whole.

At this juncture, I would like to enumerate some of the challenges and successes of the council. This is basically because I want the current administration to take a closer look at it which serves as a guide post.

• That some executive members partially lose sense of their responsibility.
• That most executive members tend to rely on few members of the council to discharge overall responsibility when in actual fact every single member is supposed to play his or her role effectively.
• Another major challenge I think it has become chronic is the showing up in meetings very late. In other words, at the council ,executive members do not attend meetings early enough to ensure the smooth run of the proceedings.

Here I am talking success in relative terms .i.e. programmes we though in our views were successful .Some of the successes chalked up are as follows;

• The successful swapping of some committees and clubs that have seen though some programmes like the dream team committee and the edutainment club.
• The successful organization of the leadership forum must say that there has a leap over the first.

As you are all aware, this initiative is a  one year project running from April 2007 to April 2008.As a result, a management team was put in place to take charge of the day-to-day activities. The management team has worked relentlessly hard to be able to achieve the main objectives of the project.

However, one the main challenges of the initiative  has been funds. To probe a little deeper, apart from the two hundred and fifty pound sterling received from the British Council as a seed money to take off.

Our main sponsors or supporting  agencies, British Council and the world bank since that amount have not been active in terms of funding. At the later part of last year, through the courtesy of the executive secretary of the management team, we also received a grant of five hundred pound sterling from a certain organization in the united kingdom. We are yet to use the money in order to achieve some of the objectives since the amount received cannot cover all the objectives.

The aids club is one of the vibrant clubs in the Avert youth foundation in particular in early part of last year. For example the successful organization of the HIV/AIDS workshop to train peer educators within the club in order to be able to educate the community folks about the need to know the dangers of the disease. And also the celebration of the International AIDS Candle light memorial services in may 2007.

However ,I was expecting the same posture during the later part of last year particularly the world aids day on the 1^st of December.

During the early part of last year, the club was beset so many difficulties ranging from leadership and also in part lack of cooperation on the part of we the members of the executive council.

After, a successful swapping of the leadership by the executive council, they did their best to organized a successful annual dinner and awards night. It is my hope that it maintains the spirit throughout this year without any let or hindrances.

The civic club of which I was the chairman attempted to organize a series of programmes in line with the political atmosphere in the run-up to the December elections.

Quite unfortunately, none of these materialized. Simply because, the club realized there were similar programmes  also taking place and members were charged with an amount to pay. As realized as we are, we decided to forgo or boycott all the programmes.

Nonetheless, this year offers a great opportunity for the club to take advantage of.

The ladies clique is a wing of the organization that is concerned with organizing programmes that would inure to the female folks in the community at large.

As usual, we were witnesses to the women’s forum that was organized on the 11^th of October,2008.the theme was “the effects of breast cancer and its screening”.

By all it intents and purposes, it was successful and it is important to maintain the spirit and even take it higher.

Many more members do not know that the dream team is a ten year dream which every single member of the organization would have developed him or her self educationally and economically.

It is also to offer members the opportunity to showcase their plans or desires to achieve their prospective  goals. And also to serve as the link between them and their role models.

The dream team committee has lived up to its expectations through out last year.

One of the back bone of every strong organization is the welfare of its members. So, it is against this backdrop that such committee is needed to look into the welfare of the members and proffer solutions where there are defects. But over the past year, the welfare committee has attempted on several occasions to get ID cards for members. The committee is in its line of execution and procurement of the membership IDs and registration  faced challenges which was largely caused by in part the committee and in part by the membership of the organization. I trust that  the current administration would take a closer look at it and make more vibrant than before.

Any organization that wants to entrench and democracy internally by abide by the rules and regulations governing it.

So, it is abundantly clear such a body like the constitutional committee to be in place to direct and correct members about the constitutional matters  and educate them as well. But last year’s was a bit of disappointments on the part of the committee to discharge their mandate as indicated in its resolution.

However would like to propose a change of name and responsibility to the committee.

Firstly, I would want the current administration to change it from constitutional committee to the judiciary committee. Secondly I would also want the administration to give more responsibilities not withstanding the existing responsibilities. For instance, it should be given the mandate of swearing in the newly elected executives other than the electoral commission adjudicated of constitutional matters.

The committee is charged with the responsibilities of auditing the financial statements or reports and budgets of every quarter and proffer suggestions accordingly. I believe that, quite strongly it has executed its mandate per the resolution.

However, more needs to be done. I also think its scope should be widened enough to take of monitoring and evaluation in order to make its work more lively and profound.

The finance committee is solely responsibly for developing policies in the areas of funds to ensure the smooth carrying out of activities in every organization and AVERT Youth Foundation is no exception. In particular case of AVERT the committee  has done its best to mobilize funds. But I think the committee should be part of the development of programmes,that way there will be abreast of the financial component and see how best they get around it.

The strength and character of every organization depends largely on its membership. For that matter, the welfare and conditions of every member is supreme to the organization.

The challenge is how to get members organized for weekly meetings or programmes. Quite often than not, we complain about lateness ourselves yet we are unable to find solutions.

The only way however, to solve this problem is individual commitment to any line of duty and respect for time and discipline.

Another most important area to the success of every organization is finance. I would not want to make many commentaries on that because the immediate past chief treasurer would furnish the house with profound information or report which borders on the state of our kitty.

Indeed, throughout year the organization has faced a host of challenges and also interesting observations and it is incumbent upon me to share with you what they were:

• The issue of lateness is becoming a major problem both in meeting sessions and organized programmes.
• There has been decline in membership.
• We also lack a sense of ownership in the organization.
• Another worrying trend is that, some tend to believe somehow that, the executives are being appreciated.
• Members lack a great appreciation of communication. In other words, we as members somehow do not know how to communicate effectively with a fellow member.
• Some of the committees and clubs have been inactive solely because of the composition of the members.

I would like to recommend the following:

• That the executive council should take a supreme interest in the composition of the club members. That is the only way that can assure us of interesting and exciting programmes to boost the membership.
• We must appreciate the issue of communication. For it is important because a successful organization can only thrive on effective communication.
• We should work towards surmounting the problem of lack of ownership in our noble organization.

To crown it all, I must first and foremost thank members for the love and care they have shown me throughout the year. I also believe without you, it would not have been possible. So in that regard, every single success chalked in the tenure of the past administration is owed to you. Finally, we must not confuse ourselves with judgments as means of correction. May the Almighty Allah bless all of you. Thank you.

PRESIDENT, AVERT YOUTH FOUNDATION