KOWA NATIONAL YOUTH CAUCUS END OF THE YEAR REPORT AND OUTLOOK FOR 2017
BACKGROUND
2016 has been a year of the startup for us as a youth movement in KOWA PARTY. After a new NEC was elected on the 2nd of April, 2016, the youth caucus under the Leadership of National Youth Leader, Jude ‘Feranmi has thrived and continued to kick-start initiatives that have engaged young Nigerians across the globe.
These initiatives were aimed at engaging the young Nigerians to join the party and those who have joined the party to keep engaging and expanding in a process that spreads the message of the party to other young Nigerians.
Most of the initiatives have recorded successes that have benefited the party both at the grassroots and at the national level. These successes however minimal have ensured that the party remain in the consciousness of Nigerians both at home and in the diaspora.
The initiatives and the relative successes achieved are documented below.
ONLINE REGISTRATION
The National Youth Caucus of the party took over the website of the party and with support from the NEC and Professor Sonaiya, was able to re-design the website and include a registration portal for intending members. This portal enabled any intending member of the party to register on the website in a process that takes less than 2 minutes. The portal also had a payment page where new members or existing members could pay their membership fees.
Since inception of this initiative, and at the last count, more than 800 people have registered via the portal with 35 new members successfully using the portal for payment of their fees.
The membership drive that is to start soon will ensure that more people are drawn to the website and can join the party in a simple, less stressful manner.
KOWA MICRO GROUPS
The National Youth Caucus of the party kick-started a micro groups initiative in October, 2016 which ensured that members of the party who belonged to the youth caucus continued to engage with other members in their areas via meetings. As a result of the challenges of financing which made it difficult to host town hall meetings, the idea of having meetings in groups of 15 or less was birthed which meant members could meet in groups anywhere at any time.
The NYC currently boasts of 45 micro group leaders in the country in 45 different local government areas in the country with membership ranging from 7 to 19.
Starting from 2017, an aggressive drive to bring in more members and locate more micro groups in more local government areas will ensure we are able to cover at least half of the 774 local government areas in the country.
SOCIAL MEDIA
The social media arm of the party has been led and overseen by the National Youth Caucus of the party and has engaged young Nigerians all over the globe. Majority of the volunteers, support, funding and connections that have helped the party and the National Youth Caucus remain sustainable till date have been via social media.
85% of those who have joined our party online have been redirected from our social media channels. 100% of all our volunteers have been recruited from social media.
We have engaged more than 6.8 million Nigerians over the course of 8 months with the message of our party and the need to join us.
Recently, we have begun to attract funding for a wider reach using targeted social media Ads. This will manifest in full gear in 2017 when we hope to reach more than 10 million Nigerians every month.
KOWA PODCAST
The KOWA Podcast is a Podcast initiative currently run by the National Youth Caucus of the party. This podcast is domiciled on our podcast account on soundcloud and features the members of our party who are resource persons and experts on issues. The KOWA Podcast hopes to reach Nigerians who cannot hear us on radio and tv because of a lack of the financial capital to gain airtime but are on the internet.
The Podcast has hosted guests on issues like the economic recession, the role of government and good governance, the fuel price hike, the state of the nation, the debate about selling assets amongst other issues.
More than 300 people have listened to The KOWA Podcast since its inception in August 2016.
KOWA PoV
The KOWA Point of View (PoV) is an output from the Directorate of Policy, Research and Development created by an initiative of National Youth Caucus under the office of the National Secretary. The PoV is a document compiled by volunteers who work under this department. The objective of the document is to highlight the obvious issues and problems in certain sectors of the economy and highlight recommendations for the government for the benefit of Nigerians.
Issues like the 7 Big Wins and the state of Nigerian Prisons amongst a host of others have gained the attention of Nigerians with more than 7000 likes on our Facebook Page and more than 150 shares.
This initiative will continue with more volunteers and expertise expected in this space in 2017
KOWA Ads CAMPAIGN
Starting in December 2016 and with financial support from Professor Sonaiya, Mr MuhtarBakare and Mr GboyegaSongonuga, we kick-started an Ads department for our online Advertisements for the party under the National Youth Caucus. The objective of this department was to create campaigns that would draw people to our website and commit to either joining the party and/or donating to the party via Google Ads, Twitter and Facebook Ads and other social media.
As at the time of filing this report, 1,530,000 people have seen our campaign ads and 5650 people have visited our website. We have had 300+join our party since the beginning of the campaign in December.
These people are now being followed up to get them into active participation as members of the party who can then go ahead to pay their membership fees and join our meetings across the nation.
KOWA FUNDRAISING
The National Youth Caucus of the party has also started some initiatives to generate funds for the activities of the caucus and the party in general. Shirts have been designed with captions that highlight the message and the spirit of the party are now up for sale and the technology department is currently working on the website to feature a store department where people can order for their KOWA Souvenirs as can be done on an e-commerce website which will be hosted at the url store.kowaparty.net
A crowd-funding intiative has also been kickstarted by the caucus to generate donations as small as N100 from the general populace in a simple and less stressful manner. This is in form of a USSD Shortcode which our keyword KOWA will be sent to via sms and N100 will be deducted from the account balance of the donor on our behalf.
Donors will simply send KOWA to 35818. Donors who want to donate more to the party will be redirected from the response they get from our shortcode.
An Enablers LIST for the Youth Caucus has also been created consisting of young Nigerians who are members of the party and are willing to donate money to the party on a monthly basis to support the activities of the Youth Caucus. This list began in December and has started growing.
EVENTS
The National Youth Caucus of the party has also ensured that its presence is felt in youth focused events in the country in a bid to ensuring that young people can continue to be conscious of the party and ultimately decide to join the party.
This has ensured that in places where the National Youth Leader cannot be present, he is represented by members of the party who can deliver the gospel of the party to the youths too.
PUBLICATIONS
In the course of the year, we were able to publish a couple of publications on behalf of the National Youth Caucus of the party. Three publications were released to the public by the NYC.
- The KOWA PARTY YOUTH CAUCUS MANIFESTO – This simple document was compiled to serve as the go to guide for young people who were interested in joining a political party and were looking for the opportunities available to them. This document provided an introduction to KOWA PARTY, the youth caucus and officers of the party. It is domiciled on issuu.com/kowangr and also available on the front page of our website
- The KOWA GRASSROOTS MOVEMENT STRUCTURE – To follow up with the structure of the grassroots movement, this publication was released to intimate young Nigerians who were interested in participating in the caucus’ grassroots movement on how the structure was organised and how they could fit in, either as members or as microgroup leaders.
- WHY KOWA – This document was designed to provide information to the general public and as an answer to the question WHY KOWA PARTY? As at the time of filing this report, this document is still being worked on.
- Op-Ed & Press Clippings – The National Youth Caucus in its own capacity also addressed issues of national importance in the country and was published on the National Dailies and on the blogs with the highest audience. Publications worthy of note are as follows
- Press Briefing on the Not Too Young To Run Bill published by The Punch Newspaper
- Press Briefing on Mid Year State of the Nation Address Published by Daily Post
- Press Briefing on the Edo Polls Endorsement Saga published by Vanguard Newspaper, The Punch Newspaper, The NATION and many other blogs
- Press Briefing on State of the IDP Camps published by SIGNAL Newspapers.
- Internet Newspapers like YNaija, Signal, The Breaking Times, Vanguard, Olisa.tv, The Herald, The scoop amongst others regularly published our press briefings
2017
Moving Forward.
The National Youth Caucus of the party has set for itself the following goals and plans in order to achieve the vision of the party and ultimately secure victory at the next polls. The goals of the caucus are S.M.A.R.T and the plans are targeted precisely at achieving the objectives of the caucus.
A few new initiatives are going to be started while the current existing ones will be reinforced.
GOALS
REACH 1 MILLION NEW PEOPLE ACTIVELY EVERY MONTH VIA MEDIA (Both Online and Print)
EXPAND OUR DATABASE OF ACTIVE MEMBERS TO 500,000 Nigerians living in Nigeria
RAISE N10 MILLION every month to finance the activities of the caucus and the party as a whole
CARRY OUT COMMUNITY PROJECTS in 25 COMMUNITIES ACROSS SIX GEO-POLITICAL ZONES.
MOBILIZE 200,000 YOUNG NIGERIANS IN FOCUS STATES.
PLANS
Reach 1 million new people actively every month via media
- Feature in National Newspapers at least twice every week on issues of National Importance, Magazines with a youth audience and Social Media Enabled Events
- Run Ads on Socia/New Media every week ( including image Ads, Video Ads, Audio Jingles and Whatsapp Downloads)
- Organise Press Conferences at least once every month
- Engage our audience massively on our social media channels and via social media trend setters
Expand our database of active members to 500,000 Nigerians living in Nigeria
- Ensure the presence of at least one community organiser in 350 of the 774 local goverments in Nigeria
- Host 60 YPP Tours across the nation
- Establish at least 10 micro groups in each local government
- Host Youth Town Hall Meetings per state for the Caucus
Raise N10million monthly to finance the activities of the party
- Run our CROWDFUNDING campaign via the shortcode to reach at least 2 million people monthly so that even if 5% gives N100 we will reach our goals
- Focus on getting at least 1,000 people who will commit to give a minimum of N2,000 as an enabler to the caucus and the party
- Acquire Assets that can generate income for the caucus and the party
- Generate a lot of momentum about our souvenirs and store products so people can buy
Carry out 25 community projects in the most areas of need across the six geo-political zones in the country
- Set aside 20% of all income to community projects in areas and projects with very serious needs and assistance. E.g IDP Camps Project.
Mobilize 200,000 young Nigerians in States of Focus
- Intensify programs and activity on all fronts in states of focus especially youth oriented programs
- Target Ads online to states of focus and ensure painstaking follow up and conversion
- Increase budget for grassroots activities in States of Focus
- Hold Congresses in key states to ensure active executive committees in the states for sustainable activities.
Recognition
The efforts and commitment of volunteers across the country who are members of the National Youth Caucus cannot be over-emphasized. Indeed, NOTHING would have been accomplished without the efforts of young Nigerians who continue to work day and night without receiving a penny for all their work, expertise, time and money.
This REPORT will not be complete without acknowledging their support and recognising their input to our story today.
CONCLUSION
There is an urgent need to start organising for impact and social and political change for the betterment of us all. This vision to birth a new Nigeria where everyone benefits from the societal system in place and can be prosperous if they work hard, pay their dues and leverage on the opportunities that will be available for everyone is what drives us at the National Youth Caucus.
We believe this new Nigeria will be birthed by a younger generation and we look forward to being the vehicle to bring about this new Nigeria.