Universal children’s day: Children take over activities at Transcorp

Some children of Model Secondary School, Maitama on Monday took over managerial and other notable positions at Transcorp Hilton Hotel in commemoration of  the 2017 International Children Day.

Transcorp management working on the theme #KidsTakeOver posted the children to different department to have the opportunity of how it feels to act in those capacities.

Transcorp country General Manager, Etiene Gaillier said, they are using the opportunity to motivate younger people to come to the hospitality industry to know that hostel is not only about service and front desk but much more.

“Today it is important to involve them in the process here at Hilton and that is why together with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) we brought  them for a full day experience of how it feels like to work in a Hotel with some of them working as security, front desk officer, General Manager and so on. It is good for us to prepare them in an active leadership role.”

UNICEF communication specialist, Geoffrey Njoku said, the theme suggests that the children would be taking over activities from work for one day and this is to let them have an idea symbolically of what they will be doing in few years’ time.

“More importantly is to give them opportunity to begin to advocate for their right because nobody can advocate for you than yourself and that is why we are doing this to draw attention to issues of children in Nigeria and globally. As we know the issues of children in Nigeria are appalling and we need to draw attention to them in respect of their right.”

Nine years old, Israel Balogun who stood in as the GM, Transcorp in marking the day said his function as the GM was to attend to documents and every official issue and make sure everybody is comfortable.

He said the celebration would help the children speak up on their right which they have been advocating for adding that as adult have their own right so are the children too.

The day’s front desk officer, 10-year-old Gloria Ochu who was seeing attending to clients also said  her role at the front desk include being nice to clients and calming down situation by apologizing when things go wrong and making sure no clients is dissatisfied with services rendered to them.