And a year later…………………….sheroes.ng

It was a year ago, after having a discussion with one of our mentors in the Journalism profession that the sheroes.ng project was born.

And so, we began, with nothing but the vision of having to tell our story, to provide other women the platform to tell their stories, and to write other women’s success stories with the sole aim to INSPIRE other women to fulfil their potential.

For we live in a society which will tell the Girl child ‘to marry and leave their Father’s house is the highest achievement’. We live in a society that looks down on the potential and dreams of the Girl child simply based on her gender.

After having spent 40 decades on this earth, we look around us; only to see the same cycle repeating itself repeatedly without no hope in sight; but just a bleak future for the female gender. And we ask ourselves this question; for how long?

Well, the truth for as long as it takes the woman to rise up and take her life into her own hands. This phenomenon of enslaving, disrupting the life process of the Girl child, killing her dreams, clipping her wings, putting her in bondage, building boundaries around her and at the same time subjecting her to violations and abuse will continue unless and until she chose to do something about it. Because truth is; no one will free the Girl child from her dungeons except her. She is the only one who can break the chains of the mental and emotional jails she’d been born and brought up in for centuries.

But how can she when everyday she keeps being told to lay low and do nothing because women aren’t seen, heard or matter? How can she when she’d been raised up to believe her dreams, aspirations and ambitions are invalid? How can she when she is constantly remained that ‘it is a man’s world’ and she has no place in it except as an object of his sexual desire and reproduction machine?

She can; if she knows that there are women out there who have also been told the same things she is being told but have gone ahead and fulfilled their ambitions and realised their dreams. That there are women out there who have done the things she wants to do, who had the dreams she now has, who also like her, were small, frail and scared with nothing and no one but a head full of ambition and dreams they want to bring to reality; and they did. And if they could, so can she.

And thus; SHEroes.ng was born. To celebrate the women who inspire us, to document the women who broke barriers, and to inspire the women to break the glass ceiling.

We continued to grow, brick after brick, sand after sand; one tiny step after the other; while continuing to create more, innovate more ideas and implement them to fine tune the sheroes.ng project.

Looking back now, if we had not birthed this baby; we would have regretted for the rest of our lives.

Even though we are not yet where we wanted to be; but we are also not where we were a while ago. One thing is certain; with the little distance we have covered so far; we are living up to our mission; to inspire.

It is our hope; that more women will be inspired by what we do and believe in and be motivated to make better choices in their lives and rise up to fulfil their dreams and achieve their purpose.

As we turn a year old, we thank you for being a part of our infancy. And we urge you to continue to be a part of this glorious journey.

Our last words for you:

Woman;  who tried to devalue you?
Who said you are just a female?
You are born with life;
You carry life;
You birth life;
You nurture life;
You are a blessing to the world.

Yinka Akinkumi