Sweet Spot
“The Future is Female!” – Meet #TeamBN at #JANLEADCamp 2019
Hi BNers,
Mary Edoro here. I am part of the BellaNaija Style team and I recently had the opportunity to represent BellaNaija as a media mentor to 10 teenage girls for Junior Achievement Nigeria (JAN) LEAD (Leadership, Empowerment, Achievement, and Development) Camp 2019. We met on two days, Monday 15th July and Thursday 18th July and both times were amazing!
LEAD Camp caters to the Social Development Goals of a female child and is a yearly program organised by JAN, a non-profit organisation that is part of the Junior Achievement Worldwide (JAWW).
The first day began with a panel session with a fellow media mentor and it was aimed at inspiring the girls with our individual career journeys.
After the panel discussion, the girls were divided into groups and I was assigned to group 5, as a media mentor for 10 of the girls. Once we had gathered, I told them to introduce themselves with three sentences; Name, favourite subject in school and their passion. This was basically to get to know more about them and what they wanted to do career-wise outside of societal restrictions.
I was blown away by their responses, they all had a clear sense of purpose and big dreams. Fathia wants to be a car racer, Dara wants to be a photographer (she eventually directed and photographed the team’s project), Fran is a natural entertainer, Maran wants to have a world-renowned health blog and so many others with equally inspiring passions and drives.
We talked about everything! They were very curious about working in the media as a woman and I made sure to answer all their questions. They expressed some of their concerns about working in certain fields because of their gender, I inspired them with my own story of being from a family of Engineers and Doctors and still fighting hard for my passion for fashion.
We spoke about the recent happenings in Nigeria; sexual and physical abuse and they had very strong feelings and opinions and I thoroughly enjoyed the discussion.
They all agreed to shoot a video describing why now is the time for girls. They wanted to use media to express their feelings about being female in 2019. We ended the day on the positive note, which was the theme of the Team BN project – The Future is Female.
Making silly faces
The media presentation on Thursday was amazing and emotional. The girls had bonded way more than I expected. Creating this project together had really made them learn more about and connect with the other girls irrespective of their backgrounds.
Team BellaNaija was also presented with a certificate of appreciation from JA Nigeria.
Thanks to BellaNaija and JA Nigeria for this incredible opportunity!
Watch the Team BN project below
