Abstract
The study determined the factors influencing Community Based Youth Organisations’ (CBYOs) involvement in rural development activities in Osun State, Nigeria and identified the types of rural development activities in which the organisations are involved. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select 431 different CBYOs members who serve as respondents from 12 Local Government Areas in the State. Frequency count and percentages were used to summarize the data collected. Results revealed that larger percentage (31.7%) of the selected CBYOs were established from year 2006 to date with mean membership strength of 22.73 and standard deviation of 3.31. Sign-post erection and maintenance was the projects with the highest percentage (57.8%), deep well construction followed with 29.5% and procurement and installation of cassava processing machine with 21.6% to mention a few. Also, the factors that contributed to change in level of involvement of CBYOs in rural development activities were personal development (25.1%), social contact influence (19.74%) and community influence (16.4) among others. In addition, the results of inferential statistics showed that number of projects (r = 0.611, P ≤ 0.01), number of major organizers (r = 0.111, P ≤ 0.01), organization contribution to the projects (r = 0.153, P ≤ 0.05) and projects life span (r = 0.019, P ≤ 0.05) promote CBYOs involvement in rural development activities. Therefore, in order to exploit the potential of rural youth organisations’ towards the development of rural community, specific strategies that could lead to sustainable rural development activities should be enhance among the Community Based Youths Organisations’ (CBYOs) in the rural communities. Key words: Youth organizations’, rural development activities, rural projects.
Highlights
Rural areas offer a lot of opportunities, especially to young people, among which are: stable social structures, close links to decision makers, people who know how to bring ideas into reality and an atmosphere full of creativity (ILO, 2005; World Bank, 2007)
Detailed analysis showed that majority (96.6%) of the Community Based Youths Organisations’ (CBYOs) in the study area did not register their organisations with any agency of government; while only 3.4% registered while 50.9% of the selected CBYOs indicated that their group was primarily established for social development in their community
Types of rural development activities which CBYOs involved in Results in Table 2 showed that a total of about 22 projects were identified to be commonly undertaken by CBYOs in the study area
Summary
Rural areas offer a lot of opportunities, especially to young people, among which are: stable social structures, close links to decision makers, people who know how to bring ideas into reality and an atmosphere full of creativity (ILO, 2005; World Bank, 2007). They need these opportunities to take responsibility, to identify themselves with their home villages, to influence their environment and their society. Youths in any society are known to be the leaders of tomorrow; their role in sustainable national development cannot be over-emphasised. Youth organisations must discover the need to change their own misdirected priorities, shed their dependency thinking, gain skills and knowledge for self–empowerment and conscientisation in order to enhance sustainable development in rural areas
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