The Nigeria team on the international collaborative research project titled “Protecting African youth who are NEET against depression: An investigation of differentially impactful, multisystemic resilience-enablers,” also called “Resilience Youths, not in education, employment, or training (R-NEET),” led by the University of Pretoria, South Africa, and funded by Wellcome Trust, UK, has successfully concluded three consecutive days of various training activities in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
The training activities, which started on Monday, January 27, hosted by the Rivers State-based community partner, the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria), saw the participation of both local and international partners from the South Africa Medical Research Council (SAMRC), Johannesburg; University of Leicester, United Kingdom; University of Ibadan, Nigeria; University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria; Africa Polling Institute (API), Nigeria; and Mandate Health Empowerment Initiative (MHEI), among others.
Day one, Monday, January 27, witnessed train-the-trainers’ training for API enumerators to carry out the home environment data collection, which entails, among other things, the installation of loggers for temperature data collection. On the second day, Tuesday, January 28, train-the-trainers’ training for nurses on how to collect data for health investigations was held, and on the third day, Wednesday, January 29, the 10 members of the project’s Youth Advisory Council (YAC), from both Rivers and Bayelsa States, who represent the 600 R-NEET youths and are also not in education, employment, or training (NEET), were trained and shown how the loggers work for temperature data collection as well as what the health assessment entails.
YEAC-Nigeria is glad to have played host to the local and international partners and would be hosting more of such meetings and engagements in the days to come as the landmark research project, the first of its kind on the African continent in which 1,600 R-NEETs in Nigeria and South Africa are sampled, enters the second year in 2025 and progresses to 2029, the year of the conclusion of the investigation.
FYNEFACE DUMNAMENE FYNEFACE, PhD.
Executive Director, Advocacy Centre.
January 29, 2025.