The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA), in collaboration with experts, to educating students aged 10 and 16 on an initiative that covers sustainability topics such as climate action, water management, waste management, energy management, poverty, and hunger.

The Country Head, Nigeria, ACCA, Mr Thomas Isibor, made this known in Lagos on Friday, saying the program was put together for the students to understand what the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are all about.

The event is to help in the advocacy, change in behaviour. We want the students who are the future leaders to adapt to the behaviour that’s required of them to make a change in the world.

Mr Isibor said what motivated the event is the care for the world and for the future leaders to be more aware of what the UN SDGs are about, to play their part and bring a positive role.

“We want our world to be inherited by our children and grandchildren. We must have the right behaviour so that the world will be sustainable. The impact of the event is for them to have a change in behaviour, to be more aware and take sustainable options.

“For example, in Nigeria, we use a generator to generate electricity. The event is to create awareness that there are other sources of electricity, the children can inform their parents about the benefits of using solar energy and an inverter.

“We are also looking at the area of enhancing education by using their textbooks well, so that they can pass it to the next generation and help those who are slower in education and those in rural areas to achieve their education, because education is overall of pinnacle of the UN SDGs, ACCA UN SDGs is for both in the private and public schools.”

Speaking with our correspondent on the sidelines of the event, Mr Wonderful Olulana, a teacher from Temple School, said the event is to inform parents, guardians and teachers that Sustainable Development Goals are real and to educate the students.

We need the program now, because fires and flooding are becoming prominent in Europe and in Africa, we need to be well informed on how to target, help and assist cases of emergency and prevent them.

“Temple School has been running of class program on SDGs in areas such as no poverty, zero hunger. The students go on actionable and deliverable projects that help the community, starting from the school. We have updated documents that can help a layman understand what SDGs are all about.”

Also, speaking at the event, Dr Oreoluwa Finnih, Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on SDGs, said the program is a brilliant initiative, especially for the children between the ages of 10 and 15, and for those among them who are creative, it’s something that we sustained them.

The event is about sustainability, it’s about hunger, to reduce hunger, some of the children here come up with something that solves the problem. They are going to come up with innovative ideas that will solve hunger issues.

“At the end, the innovation will reduce hunger and the food they produce we get to where it’s supposed to go, and that’s what hunger in SDGs is all about, and they are going to do more for the planet.

“It’s all about zero hunger, climate action, clean water, environment and poverty. Our students are going to make a change; we want them to care for the planet.”
However, the Special Adviser to the president on the National Economic Council (NEC) and Climate Change, Rukaiya El Rufai, said initiatives like this will bring an end to hunger in the country.

The program is to teach students on a priority topic for six months to accelerate progress on the SDGs goals. I know hunger is a matter of national concern.

The program is to educate the students who, in turn, go back and educate their community, parents and peers. Poverty affects their thinking; it’s the thinking that translates into selflessness. The new tax rate coming up next year we also reduce poverty, become many low-income earners we not pay tax; it’s the high-income earners that we pay. It will now open to the distribution of wealth in the country.

“The national economy council meeting, chaired by my principal, Vice President Kashim Shettima, inherited a human capital index from former vice president Yemi Osinbajo, and it shows, we have conceptualised the program around human capital on better allocation to education, health, skills creation and advocacy for the right programs such as out of school, poverty, and malnutrition.”