Ibiono-Ibom Christian Youth Forum

I first heard the word "Stereotype" when one of my female lecturers (of blessed memories) used it in one of her public speaking classes during my undergraduate days.

My understanding of the word then, was a device used for playing music at home. But when she began saying things which sounded different from my lame knowledge of the word, I marvelled at how much such a small word could imply a widely-held concept in today's society.

Basically, stereotype is a conventional, formulaic, and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image perceived from a place of ignorance and untruth, yet circulated and handed down from generation to generation without fact-finding or verification.

Our society today is filled with stereotypes of varying degrees ranging from culture to religion, politics, economy, gender and much more and sadly, not even civilization and education have erased these one-sided biases off our minds.  

We hear people say in absolute terms for instance that educated women are not submissive, men are intimidated by successful women, every politician is a cultist, the rich are proud and haughty, a certain tribe is dirty, a particular religion is violent and so on without any empirical evidence to prove such wild claims. 

Meanwhile, inspite of these claims, thousands of educated women exist who are very submissive, a million men aren't intimidated by successful women, not every politician is a cultist, a billion rich aren't haughty and proud, every tribe has a truckload dirty people just like every religion has a park of violent people.

There are no absolute truths to a lot of the "theories" we postulate and one rotten egg cannot spoil the entirety of others. 

We should therefore understand that exceptions are, and will always be in every situation/case. 

Come next week, the Ibiono-Ibom Christian Youth Forum will hold her yearly retreat on the theme "Stereotype". The planning committee invites you to be part of this spiritually awakening event where topics such as "Redefining my Perception" and "Beyond the Ephemeral" will be taught.

A skill acquisition session on how to navigate through the hard times, using emotional intelligence will also be held alongside sessions of spirit-lifting moments of worship.

I invite you on behalf of the planning committee to share in this bliss. 

God bless you as you come!