500 Youths Trained on Leadership Skills at Emerging Greatness Conference

Yinka Olatunbosun

Over 500 students drawn from 30 schools – both public and private schools – were recently empowered with leadership skills during the maiden edition of Emerging Greatness Conference, organised by the Teens Nation of the Elevation Church, Maryland, Lagos State.

The event held at Pistus Hub, Lagos, had the theme, “Agents of Transformation.” The conference, organised by the Elevation Church’s teenagers for their fellow teenagers, featured plenary session,
workshop, counselling/mentoring, breakout sessions, quiz and much more.

The Resident Pastor of the Elevation Church, Maryland, Bola Adisa, explained that they have three churches in one- the main adult Church, Church for the junior ones, that is from 0 to 12 years, adding that Church for teenagers also known as Teens Nation, starts from 13 to 19.

“What we are witnessing today is an initiative of our Teens Church. One of their goals is to give to the community. to extend the love of God; what the elevation just stands for, to schools.

“We don’t just want to be in church, we want to take the ethos, the values, the things that we stand for, for the young ones to know God and live a purposeful life,” Pastor Adisa stated.

“This Emerging Greatness conference 2025 is the first of many, that is to come. The mission of the Elevation Church is making greatness common for the younger ones coming. We believe strongly that there is the seed of greatness in everyone. We also included national thinking into the programme. We’ve always heard that the youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow. That statement puts a waiting mechanism on the youth. But we are telling them that no, you are a leader now. Leadership is all about influence.

“If there is a problem and you can find the solution to it, you are already a leader; you are already influencing and that’s what we have gathered 500 students from 30 schools around us here.”

He further stated: “We gathered them to help call out the greatness, the leadership that is in them, the capability to solve problems, the capability to bring solutions, to their immediate environment is inside of them.”

The coordinator of the conference, Nonye Gilbert said the conference is aimed at bringing together schools because Teens Nation is about equipping young people right from their teenage years to become future leaders and exposing them to greatness.

“We want to bring out their potential, and let them know who they are, so they can start expressing themselves in that sense. We train them to be positive influencers so that they can influence people in positive ways.”

Oluwatobi Olajide Daniel, who leads the Teens Nation, said their vision as a ministry is to promote greatness in the life of the younger generation, particularly the teenagers.

“They are mostly found in secondary schools. The driving force behind the Emerging Greatness conference is to have a platform where teenagers from various schools come together to learn out of the class knowledge. It is also to give them exposure, to network, to meet their peers from another school.”

According to him, the younger generation are the leaders of tomorrow who will drive change and transformation that Nigeria needs. Hence, Teens Nation, Maryland is partnering with schools to sharpen the leadership skills in teenagers.

“Part of what we are launching today is the transformation club. It operates like the press or Jet club that we have in schools. This is aimed at helping us to create a community of young purposeful, future thinking students. Some of the intended sessions we see us talking to the students, for example, soft skills in the career world today, there are many adults that don’t know how to navigate their career path because they were not trained from their tender age. And in the world today, also you realise that there’s what we call artificial intelligence. We don’t need the student to get to their 20s before they’re exposed to some of these tech skills. So, this conference is partnering with Talent Code Africa, helping to teach them education in schools.

“Free vocational skills training, and mentorship programme, are some of the programmes we’ve packaged for the students. There are students that are currently suffering from mental illness and their teachers are not trained to manage it. Some are going through abuse; parental abuse. They don’t even know how to navigate their parental relationship at all. And they are not teaching these things in subjects because subjects are focused on giving them technical skills that prepare them for the future.”

On guiding teenagers against negative social media influencers, Daniel said they teach them how and when they can be on social media, and how to protect themselves from bad influencers and addiction.

“What we are doing is helping them develop self-confidence, self-identity, purpose, clarity, vision and the transformation values, some of these very crucial things,” he continued. “And aside from that, we also have the six transformation values or greatness values under the transformation Club which is also known as the greatness value. Talking about accountability, service to God, humility, love, integrity as well as excellence. The accountability framework teaches you how to use social media more accountability.”