Facebook yields a Valentine experience

What began as a cursory idea blossomed into a full mentoring project when over 30 young professionals decided to share love with several schoolchildren at the Perez Chapel in Accra last Saturday.

Starting with a post on Facebook expressing the desire to touch lives, Ms. Brooke Nuwati, a media relations practitioner, managed to use the power of social media to harness support from colleague young professionals to put together the six-hour mentoring and fun-filled activity for over 300 children on Valentine’s Day.

The project, titled “BraveHeart” was in two parts; a presentation session and a funfair session, intended to share important life lessons with young people aged between 9 and 14, as well as share love through games, fun and feasting. 

The youngsters were mentored in areas such as healthy living, how to communicate with confidence, and how to stand out in whatever they do. Mentors who are professionals in various fields of endeavor but who also have love for children put the presentations together.

 Ms. Nuwati told the media that her primary objective for putting the project together was to share love in a more meaningful way with children while offering her colleague young professionals an opportunity to touch lives using the Valentine occasion.

 Passionate about youth empowerment and development, she said, true love which was the essence of Valentine wass best expressed when people, especially young people, were inspired. 

Originally intended for 30 children, the BraveHeart team leveraged the power of social media to scale up the numbers to 200. With contributions from the mentors and support from the Vodafone Foundation and Coca Cola, the team were able to cater for the over 300 children who showed up.