Ogochukwu Williams
British born Nigerian social worker, Ogochukwu Williams has a mission to impact positively on our new world through youth empowerment. She believes youths should be seen as assets and not as societal liabilities or menace. She claims that all efforts should be made to explore their good features and traits for the betterment of the society.
Ms Williams, a passionate youth development enthusiast, social tutor and humanitarian was responding to questions recently on what has made her the toast of many youths and social groups in North London. She was recently awarded for her humanitarian activities in Camden London.
According to the social justice advocate, society should lay a good foundation for the youths with a mindset of preparing them for a more fruitful future.
“The dream of every youth is to build a good life, a rewarding future and decent livelihood. But to achieve this, community leaders and government must provide the enabling environment,’ she opined.
Ogochukwu claims she wants to represent a new social justice symbol for today’s youths, claiming that a new empowerment drive must be rooted in economic support, moral imbuement and justice uprightness in order to guarantee a better future place for the youths’ future as coming leaders in the society.
As a social worker with a difference, she has the dream of travelling across the world to lend her support to youth humanitarian organisations and give deprived youths encouragement to shape up and remodel them in order to ensure a better place in the world's new social, economic and political order.
She is of the opinion that many degraded youths who misbehave in our society are victims of social injustices and therefore should be seen as victims. According to her, with good motivation, many of them can be good ambassadors, leading a more fruitful and rewarding life.
The young accomplished social worker - simple, elegant, dignified and well reserved, recently completed advanced social empowerment training and was given an award in reward for her relentless efforts to guide many youths in North London through social orientation, trainings and socialisation, reshaping their lives so they can be useful for the society.
She has been singled out as a future model for young mothers many of whom see motherhood as an impediment to a more ambitious living. According to her, many young mothers want to end their careers because of marital commitment. They should break all odds to effect on the community.
She said that child bearing should not be barrier to good life building: “I had the ambition that I would impact on today’s youths across the world through a designed social and economic strategy giving them direction and motivation. With this, they can be useful to the society and can lead a better life such that would land them in successful self-realization.”
She wants to travel the world over so that youth across the world would benefit from her ideas and knowledge of youth psychology.
She continued: “I want to be able to impact on many youths irrespective of their colour, gender or religion through social empowerment and community activism. Many youths have been misled by the society with family, community leaders and political actors ignoring their needs and subjecting them to social injustices and economic deprivation therefore categorising them as lower citizens. This is unfair and there must be a different approach to the way our youths both boys and girls are given social orientation.”
Williams believes that all erring youths need a right channel of rehabilitation to allow them rediscover their good qualities and redesign a better future.
The 28-year old stylish social consultant has been celebrated as a front line social worker in North London. She wants to help charity groups in many parts of the world build social rehabilitation centers to give training on changing youth delinquencies.
According to her, many youths across the world today are worth more than what they think they are worth and it is the duty of the system to bring out the best out of them through motivation, inspiration and empowerment so that they would be good for the society and serve as models for other coming generation of youths.
She has an unquenchable passion for youth talent rediscovery, claiming to owe humanity a duty of care to reshape the destiny of many degraded youths and provide succor for them and their immediate family.
With moral decadence overtaking the core fabric of the society, she believes that the real problem is not the youths who are vulnerable to social inadequacies, but the leaderships in our political, social and economic circle who for long have ignored them and refused to provide enabling tools and materials for their development. She claimed many leaders are taking advantage instead of providing motivation, inspiration and direction to give them proper life.
I want to prove to the world that there are no bad youths if they are handled correctly and given every tool to make them useful to the society. According to her, many youths can discover themselves through showered love and an enabled environment.
Her vision of a new world of social equality and moral uprightness are held with passion and as she said, she would hold her determination until her dreams are realised.
Her visit to Nigeria a couple of years ago served as a trigger for her newly conceived idea: “During a visit to Nigeria few years ago, I visited a children rehabilitation center in Surulere, Lagos called ‘Heart Of God’.
She said the memory of seeing how orphan children were being offered care made her determined that hope is not lost for many and the future must be prepared for them having a say in our society.
“For me, the experience was a life time inspiration as the abandoned children were cuddled and made to feel real human with showered love on them. I felt touched and the memory of my trainings in England came back to me instantly.”
Back to her home base in England, Ogochukwu, had made many youths rediscover themselves - seeing many young children off street life and coming out of social problems to be icons in the community and giving life to others.
Speaking on her many challenges in the cause of her work experience as a social worker, she said she was picking more experience and maturity rather than thinking about those challenges.
“During my school days and special training sessions, I was minding my business and learning to reconcile my cultural background as a Nigerian with many cultures surrounding me from across the world both at work and social gatherings.”
She said each time she met challenges, she tried not to be confrontational as she put herself in focus of her dream for the future.
With her vision, Ogochukwu has set a stage for a new world of youth rehabilitation and social empowerment. Her vision, if realised, will pin her on the right side of history as a young mother who reshaped the maladies of our society - bringing justice to the nooks and crannies of the world.