Barely few months after Mr. Tim Akano was honoured by Nigerian youths groups for his relentless commitment and unparalleled passion for youths’ empowerment, the Chief Executive Officer and founder of New Horizons Nigeria, has bagged the award for the champion of youth empowerment of the year from the Top10 magazine.
Speaking after the award ceremony that took place over the weekend in Lagos, the organiser, and publisher of the magazine, Tony Iji, stated that the award is a well-deserved honor that the magazine has given to Akano.
According to him, Akano is someone you cannot forget to recognize when you are talking about youth empowerment because he has done so much for Nigerian and other African youths.
He said, ” the outstanding role he played through youth empowerment in ensuring the continent bridged the ICT gap with other developed countries is what has earned him recognition as the Top10 Magazine’s Champion of Youth Empowerment of the year award.”
Receiving the award, Akano thanked the organizer for the recognition and other awards that come from time to time, saying empowering youths is what he has been doing all his life; this is a credit to him even as over 150 organizations have recognized his efforts in the last 18 months.
Akano said, “This is just a validation that one has been playing in that space for quite some time and the efforts are being recognized.”
“The biggest recognition is the success of the youths I mentored.” During COVID-19, we founded an organization called the One Africa Initiative, and under the Initiative, we have over 5000 youths in the house, and these youths are from about 32 countries in Africa.
“We have visible achievements of youths that have impacted and are doing extremely well, both in Nigeria and internationally; some have been featured on CNN and other international platforms, which gives me more joy. “So for me, the success of the youth is more important than the award, and I believe this will encourage me to even do more,” he said.
This award joins the nine groups with over 60 million strong memberships that cut across Nigeria, Africa and in diaspora to applaud the efforts of Mr. Akano youth skills development and empowerment.
Among the groups are the National Association of Polytechnic Students (NAPS), Northern Nigeria Students (ANNS), Nigeria Youth Representative Council (NYRC), Coalition of Nigerian Young Patriots (CNYP), Nigerian Youths Initiative for Peace and Good Governance (NYIPGG), Students Coalition Rebirth of Nigeria (SCRN), Inter-Faith Youth Council of Nigeria (IFYCN), National Association of Mathematical Science Students of Nigeria(NAMSSN) and League of African Development Students (LEAD Africa).
The federal government of Nigeria had also named Akano as Nigeria’s Icon of Youth Empowerment through the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) Skills Acquisitions and Empowerment Department (SAED).
