Assessment Of Youths Involvement In Self-Help Community Development Projects In Nsukka Local Government Area Of Enugu State
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Assessment Of Youths Involvement In Self-Help Community Development Projects In Nsukka Local Government Area Of Enugu State
ABSTRACT
This study looked at how youths participated in self-help community development initiatives in Enugu State’s Nsukka Local Government Area. The study was led by five research questions and two hypotheses. The study questions were analysed using mean and standard deviation, and the hypotheses were tested using the t-test statistic.
The study’s population consisted of 4, 012 respondents, including 4,004 registered members of community-based youth organisations and 8 community leaders. The study’s sample size was 408, which included 400 registered members of community-based youth organisations and eight community leaders.
The instrument utilised was a well-structured questionnaire. The study also included focus group discussions (FGDs). The sample size was determined using a simple random sampling procedure known as balloting.
The following key findings emerged: Rural electrification, the construction of a community health clinic, and the construction of a community market were just a few of the self-help projects undertaken by communities in Nsukka Local Government Area.
The level of youth participation in the planning of self-help community development projects was low. Youth were not adequately involved in the execution, monitoring, and assessment of self-help community development projects in Nsukka, L.G.A.
A variety of limitations hindered adolescents from actively participating in self-help community development projects, including the majority of teenagers’ low educational backgrounds and inept community youth organisations, among others.
Gender did not influence youth involvement in community self-help programs. There was no significant difference in the mean ratings of community leaders and youths about the barriers to young participation in self-help community development projects. A discussion of the findings, important recommendations, and conclusion were also provided.
Chapter One: Introduction
Background to the Study
The notion of community development was first introduced worldwide in 1948 at the Cambridge Conference on African Administration, where it was considered as a movement aimed at improving living conditions for the entire community.
Community development is defined as the process by which community members band together to take collective action and find answers to common challenges.
According to Frank (2004), community development is a process in which community members recognise and cooperate to solve problems in order to enhance people’s living conditions.
Community development is a coordinated method in which community members undertake projects and programmes to improve the living conditions of the community’s residents (Shaw, 2007).
Community development is also not a recent phenomenon in Nigeria. Available documents demonstrate that prior to the establishment of colonial government, local communities devised development-oriented initiatives on their own to improve themselves.
People in diverse communities have articulated and sought different means of coping with their issues in the past, as well as in our current society, in order to improve their lot inside their group without seeking external assistance. These difficulties could include improving the socioeconomic, health, or political status of community members.
In this sense, people exploit available local resources (both human and material) to better their standard of living. They may form community-based development unions, allowing them to participate in community development projects.
The spirit of self-help motivated the people, and roads were soon built through virgin forest to connect settlements and other adjacent communities.
People also carried out self-help community development projects such as market building, community hall construction, road expansion and maintenance, tree planting to prevent erosion, and communal palm fruit harvesting, among other things (Nzeneri, 2008). Self-help community development projects are practical undertakings that residents of a community undertake in order to improve the living conditions of others who live there.
For example, money raised from communal palm fruit harvesting is typically utilised to fund the education/scholarship of indigent kids in the community, as well as to cover the costs of other development efforts. Community development initiatives may include both modest and large-scale development projects across a wide range of fields.
These community development programs may focus on increasing health care, agriculture, nutrition, human settlements, literacy, women’s services, sanitation, rural credit, youth services, and so on. In such community development projects, no part of the population is exempt.
Indeed, the youth, who make up the majority of a community’s work force, are critical resources in such development efforts. According to a World Bank report (2003), there are approximately 1.2 billion 15-24 year olds worldwide, with roughly one billion living in poor nations.
Similarly, the World Youth Data Sheet (2010) indicated that youth and children account for roughly half of the developing world’s population. This is commonly referred to as the youth bulge since young people make up a large part of many countries’ populations, as illustrated by Nigeria’s population of 170, 124, 740 individuals (Nigeria National Bureau of Statistics, 2012).
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