The acronym YWAP which
stands for ‘Youth with a Purpose’ isn’t anything strange to most of us youth
and even among parents, as it has become a household name. It was indeed a busy
Wednesday at their office as meeting was going on when Press Unit’s Shola Fagorusi,
Daniel Anaruwa and Funmi Oyerinde stormed the place somewhere around the
Barnawa axis of Kaduna.
We met with YWAP’s zonal coordinator,
got talking and have the following extracts, sit back, relax and enjoy.
PU: May we meet you
please
MJ: My name is
John AKA Mickey Jay, a Christian and YWAP member, I don’t know if there is any
other thing you would want to know? I joined YWAP a year after YWAP started. I
have been in YWAP for 11 years.
PU: Let’s go into the
story of YWAP, YWAP means ‘Youth with A purpose’ so tell us what led to its
creation and tell us about the systematic areas YWAP operates?
MJ: Dr. Charles Ononiwu, a maxillo-facial
surgeon with the Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital, sometime in 1999, before then
the spirit of God has been impressing on his heart to start up a youth group
and build up young people, mostly rejected young people that people look down
on or that they feel the church is not giving them the privilege to actually
express themselves in the right manner. God spoke to Dr. Charles to raise young
people such as that, in simple terms, those who are in the gutter be brought
out and give meaning to their lives and in response to that he set it up, but
then he was about leaving Nigeria to South Africa, he got a job offer a
lucrative offer, but God kept on impressing in his heart to give meaning to
young peoples’ live and he said in response that it should be done in an
unorthodox manner, where people from different denomination can come together
to have one heart, one spirit and one body to fellowship in Christ, it is a
faith based organization. In 1999 it was so strong that he couldn’t resist it,
he couldn’t relocate because of that and in October 27th, 1999 on a Wednesday
by 4pm YWAP had their first meeting at the then ABU Doctors’ quarters in ABUTH
Tafa Balewa way, here in Kaduna. We have different teams and they are;
Soul Rhythm – The Music team
Soul Quest – The Dance team
Soul Flame – The Rap team
YWAP has about 40 centers in Nigeria about 25 to 30 centers are
very active.
PU: Now going from
what you just said, international means that the group is not just based in Nigeria, if
we get you right, so what other
countries do you have YWAP?
MJ: Ok, we have
active centers in various countries like Ghana, Republic of Benin, Poland, we
have a centre in United Kingdom, New York is not active right now the person
coordinating it left so we have not started there again, but these four
countries are active. The New York centre was
running but she (the coordinator) had to come back to Nigeria and because they were all foreigners she
had no one to hand-over to, they were not solid, but we have one in Malaysia
and its very active.
PU: 40 centers like
cells of YWAP?
MJ: Yes all over
the country, I don’t know if I am including our abroad centers, let me say 40
centers but active centers that I can vouch for are 25, they come for
leadership retreats, and they bring reports.
PU: What is the
hierarchy or structure of YWAP like?
MJ: First of all
we have the International Chief Coordinator; Dr. Charles Ononiwu, then we have the people that work immediately
under him, they are called Deputy International Chief Coordinators (DICC),
which comprises of seven departments, namely; Admin, Operations, Networking,
Finance, Entrepreneur, Care and Creative Ideas. I’m under the Care department,
our hierarchy falls like this; there is the ICC then the first centre
coordinators.
PU: Tell us about the
CARE department, what does it entails?
MJ: Care in
general comprises of two sub-departments or sub-themes, that’s what we call
them, Counseling and Welfare. Now the aim of it is to be able to take care of
the members generally, spiritually, materially, physically and other wise. To
give them a sense of belonging, wherever it is they are lacking so to speak. There is what we call the 8th Mile,
8th Mile is that God created the world in six days and He rested on
the 7th day, but we are saying we are taking the extra step called
the 8th Mile to reach out to people, other people rejected. “I was
hungry you fed me, I was naked you gave me cloths…” (Matt. 25) all we do in
that project is we give out good cloths, food stuffs, everything, then we go to
villages and remote areas, we have gone to Mabilla Plateau, Kujamah, some
villages that don’t even wear cloths so to speak. The idea is to give a sense
of belonging.
PU: you also have a
media department…
MJ: Yes we have a
media department, the media runs the studio, in our studio we produce young
people and we do jingle just that we don’t do anything secular. The idea behind
our media department is to promote faith based activities, to promote Christian
music and give our best in the area of music and other aspects without
compromise in order to see a change.
PU: What is a typical
day in YWAP office like?
MJ: Our
activities starts from Mondays to Saturdays, Monday is normal office day,
Tuesday the same, every Wednesday we have our meeting like I said earlier that
YWAP started on a Wednesday, the meeting we have is basically fellowship, we
share the word and God has been really helping us, right now the meeting is
going on in the other duplex, this is a twin duplex, we occupy the two, one
section is the office and we use the other for our meetings and rehearsals.
Wednesday meetings are 4 – 6pm but on Thursdays 4-5:30pm is our prayer meetings
but on Fridays all different teams rehearse. The media sometimes meet, we have
our publishing team, and we have a magazine called Impact Magazine.
PU: How regular is
this magazine?
MJ: Since the
first edition we haven’t done any again not because things are not in place, we
have everything in place, it’s just that the those that were in-charge a lot of
them after the first edition are not with us, one got a job with BBC and so
now, this year we trying to put everything together and start because we did not
really come to an agreement on how we should do it, whether quarterly, monthly,
yearly and so on. That is what we are finally trying to put in place for Impact
magazine.
PU: from what you
have said that YWAP is a faith based organization, have you had a Muslim become
part of YWAP before?
MJ: We have had
Muslims not just been part but Muslims who have been converted to Christians
based on their encounter with Christ without us necessarily talking to them to
become Christians. Someone from Zamani
College came in here with
her friends, she got converted though the parents are still Muslims but she is
a Christian.
PU: As a faith based
organization do you have employees?
MJ: Most people
working in YWAP are volunteers, at a time God spoke to us to get people to start
working in YWAP to put YWAP to its full structure but then our ability to
strike the balance was a bit shaky, the workers started mostly as YWAP members
who are graduates working under the five departments; Networking, Care, Media,
Admin and Finance and are been paid as workers.
PU: Being a faith
based organization like every other Non-governmental organization, how do you
source for funds?
MJ: I cannot tell
you that we are fully operating in the perfect will of God as regards to
funding, why is because some of us hear from God, some of us take the
instructions, in the course of that a lot of our people permit me to say this,
we have very intelligent people and sometimes it’s an issue because their
intelligence makes it difficult to hear God. We tell people about the projects
we have and they put in money in form of donations.
PU: We understand the
organization was part of Amstel
Malta Street Dance Competition at some point…
MJ: Malta Guinness not Amstel Malta
PU: We find it hard
to relate your activities as a faith based organization to Malta Guinness
Street Dance Competition that is basically targeted at a secular audience, does
it in anyway contradict what you stand for?
MJ: No, 100% No
because when YWAP started with Dr. Charles, we were strictly heading to church
programmes and reach outs but God spoke to us sometimes back. We had to talk
about what our calling is; which is to affect our generation for Christ and
that is our motto “Affecting Our Generation for Christ” and if we as YWAP will
affect our generation, who are we affecting, is it just going to be the church
or looking for people that don’t even know Christ that are secularly out of
point? We needed to get them in place by showing them you can remain a
Christian and still stand anywhere, with that we started running a concert
called ‘Stand City’ which started running in 2004, we went all over the country
mainly Universities and it got its scriptural backings from Daniel chapter
three when Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow to the king and the
inspiration God gave us as regards to the project was refusing to bow
regardless of circumstances around the universities; cultism, pre-marital sex
and all kind of pressures around that entangle young people. Back to your
question, we gathered and first of all when Dr. Charles started YWAP his idea
was to get his fellow Christian friends he hung out with to just be the people
who will oversee the young people and then because they were workers God told
him No, I don’t want a single of your friend to be part of it, I want young
people not just to be part but as leaders leading YWAP to raise leaders from
young people and empower them to be sponsors of the groups itself. We spent
time praying and seeking God’s face as time progresses God spoke to us about
that, we were permitted to reach out to any secular ministration or
performances, because we are called to minister, but before stepping there we
must clarify one thing, they would allow us proclaim what we stand for. Malta
Guinness Street Dance Competition provided us with such platform, there was a
time we performed at the Sound city show alongside Styl-plus, and it provided
us an opportunity to inform the audience about ‘Stand City’ which had people
coming into Kaduna from various places to attend, we hosted it at the Gamji
Multi-purpose hall which was launched by then President Olusegun Obsanjo, GCFR
in 2005 God gave us over 200 converts Muslims included. It was discussed when
we were having our EXCO meetings, we prayed about it and even when we go out we
pray before we go on stage and we never use secular music to dance.
PU: If we get you
correctly, that means you preface your performance with making the audience
understand that you are youth with a purpose and you represent what Christ
teaches?
MJ: Yes
PU: Secondly, you
said all the songs you performed are gospel songs, can you shed more light on
that?
MJ: Yes, when you
invite us to a secular concert, first of all we pray, we don’t move until we
are led to do so. When we are led, we tell you who we are and ask if we are
permitted to tell the people who we are before we minister; if they say ‘sure’
we do it. The last time we were invited to Guaranty Trust Bank bankers’ ball, I
personally told them we will do it if we are permitted to tell the people who
we are and they said ‘good’ and we did it, the difference is the spirit of God
and we are very particular about that.
PU: So you perform
for free?
MJ: We don’t
perform, we minister, Dr. Charles told us that God told him not to collect
money from anybody for anything, if you feel laid in your heart to be a
blessing we will not say ‘no’, when GT Bank came to negotiate money with us, I
told them we don’t do that. Now that we are yet to get our cars and other
things we would appreciate it if you’ll help us, we are not charging, you can
come and get our people and transport them thro and fro and if God lays
anything in your heart to give, it’s not a problem.
PU: What does it take
to be a member of YWAP?
MJ: First of all
(brings out YWAP induction course outline) to be a YWAP member you will have to
go through the induction course, if you don’t you are not a registered member
of YWAP. The induction course comprises of about 6-7 classes, number one class
is about Salvation, we don’t just assume you are saved, we believe you should
know all that Salvation entails, secondly living in eternal truth that is we’ll
tell you about the basic truths in the Bible and all that it entails. The third
class is on Authority in general, as a YWAP member so that you can as a Christian
you know how to operate with the authority which is empowered on you and this
authority is different from the worldly authority, we’ll tell you what God is
expecting from you, for you to be able to exercise the authority you must be
responsible and must receive it from God.
PU: Your take on
gospel artistes who left gospel for secular music
MJ: A lot of
people walking in that manner are not walking in the full revelation of God’s
word.
PU: thank you very
much for your time
MJ: You are
welcome
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