EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: 
The Youths Digest Campus Journalism Initiative is a Nigeria non-profit organisation established in 2020 by Youths Digest Publishers Limited, a youth-led media organization in the country.

The initiative is aimed at building the capacity of campus journalists to become more informed, innovative and competitive with the aim of making them central players in driving social change and transformation in Africa.

Over the years, the role of campus journalism has become increasingly important, and invaluable. As a matter of fact, campus journalism has continued to play an important role in shaping the Nigerian society with the contribution of campus journalists in informing, educating, reporting and whistle-blowing in their local communities.

This is what informed the Youths Digest decision to invest significantly in ensuring that our campus journalists have the requisite standard of journalism. the Youths Digest brand identified the need and appreciates the importance of grooming young journalists, and recognizing their brilliant and brave exploits.

When the fact that Campus Journalism has produced many journalists who are now the leading lights of journalism in contemporary Nigerian society, the need for this endeavour becomes even more important.

But despite the aforementioned desirables, it is worthy of note that campus journalists have always been objects of victimization, assault, expulsion and several other forms of human rights abuse often perpetuated by the school authorities who are supposed to protect them.

It was in view of the challenges of training, supporting and recognizing exceptional campus writers and journalists, that Youths Digest initiated the Campus Journalism Awards.

Recognizing the lack of appreciation for what campus journalists do and the resulting lack of motivation, the platform was created to identify with what the journalists were doing. The award has gone on to give a mind of appreciation to young journalists who before lacked the motivation and recognition they earnestly craved.

We also held the Campus Journalism Dialogue to train young journalists on key reporting ethics. Our efforts saw key individuals from different parts of the country speaking at the event.

We have also through our network secured internship opportunities for campus journalists while making active plans to do more.

We also are hoping to bank on investigative journalism as key for developing Africa. In this vein, Youths Digest and CISLAC initiated the Campus Investigative Challenge to help encourage Campus Journalists to engage more in qualitative investigative research that exposes the rot in the society.

Also in an attempt to showcase the writing prowess of Campus Journalists the Youths Digest also introduced a new book titled the Musings of Young Minds edited by Gidado Shuaib. The book projects the creative thoughts of promising young journalists and their writing prowess to proffer solutions to series of societal issues, while at the same time affirming the stable future of the media industry.

Similarly, the Youths Digest runs an online news platform that promotes news contents of different calibre titled News Digest Nigeria.