SFS Contest Picture of the Day Week 34

Greetings to you my amazing friends and steemians of this beautiful community. Trusting God you all are doing good? By God's special grace, I'm doing good too.
It's a privilege to participate in this contest organized by @ashkhan.

This is me 5 years ago, the second guy standing from the left hand side. This the best picture for me that very moment. It was a day I passed out from my compulsory one year service. In Nigeria, it is called National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). It's a compulsory one year service to the Nation after your university degree. Without the NYSC discharge certificate, most employers of labour will not want to employ you.

My journey to serve my father land started just few months after my graduation from the university. After graduation, I waited for about four months before my final results was released. I proceeded to my university for clearance and collection of my statement of result. The whole process was very tedious. It took almost the whole week before I was finally cleared and my statement of result was issued.

Before you can proceed with registration on the NYSC portal, your institution have to forward your names for mobilization. Mobilization is the first stage of getting you set for your compulsory one year service. Lucky for me, I was amongst those mobilized for the next batch of NYSC registration.

After collecting my result, I proceeded to the cyber cafe where I did my registration. Three weeks after registration, our deployment letter was released. I checked my dashboard on the NYSC portal and discovered I was deployed to one of the South-Eastern state of Nigeria. My entire service year was fun there even though that was my first time traveling that far.

It's an 11 hour travel by road. Though very tiring, I still enjoyed the trip as we passed through various states before getting to my destination.

The NYSC has four cardinal objectives which include:

1. Camping: During my time, we were camped for three whole weeks. We lived a regimented life during these three weeks of camping as we were trained by the military. We also have other paramilitary like the "Man O' War" who also drilled us. Their drills majorly focused on jumping over hurdles, rope climbing and overcoming obstacles.

We also learnt various skills at the course of the camping. I focused on learning solar installation. At the end of the three weeks military drills, we were then posted to our various Place oof Primary Assignment (PPA).

1. The second cardinal objective is the PPA where corps members are posted to various organisations, schools, firms, companies and so on where they will continue with their service to the Nation.
   I was posted to a high school to teach. I really had fun impacting knowledge to the younger generation. Some saw me as their role model and mentor. Some of my students still keep in touch with me till date most especially anytime they need a guide. I'm happy to see that some are already at the university level and are doing well in their academics.

1. The third is the Community Development Service (CDS): Here, corps members are expected to contribute to the development of the communities where they are serving. It could either be an individual project or a group project. Some projects could be renovation of structures, building of new structures or anything that will be of benefit to the members of that community.

During my time, we the corps members serving at the school where we were posted to were able to change entire chalkboard in the classrooms to marker boards. We also equipped the science laboratory with some standard modern science equipments.

1. The last but not the least is the passing out parade. Corps members are expected to pass through the above three cardinal objectives of the national service scheme before they will be cleared to participate in this fourth stage. This is the stage where you will be issued you discharged certificate after the passing out parade.

I was the most happiest person that day because I participated at the passing out parade. I was the sub guard commander of my platoon.

Some corps members who defaulted at the cause of their service year were given and extension as punishment.

My service year was one to always remember as it was fun-filled from the beginning to the ending. I got to make new friends, establish contacts, learnt a new language, was introduced to different dishes, visited some historical places... Everything was just so awesome. I thank God for making my service year a memorable and pleasant one.

I'm inviting my friends @vickyson @ashley-p and @owulama to also participate in this contest.