Her Ability Hub Empowers the Girl-child

Mary Nnah

With its vision to empower and emancipate the minds of young girls to live their dreams, Her Ability Hub recently toured Somolu to drive home this message.

Founder, Her Ability Hub, and girl empowerment advocate, Omoayena Odunbaku said, “I grew up in this neighbourhood and even though I didn’t attend a public school, most of my friends did.

“We played together in this neighbourhood, however, most of them didn’t turn out well. When I turned 40 I wrote my book and while my childhood friends were interviewed, we realised, it wasn’t a lack of will, but they were misguided at some point.

“So, while we try to give back to society, one of the things we realised is the empowerment of the mind. We want to emancipate their minds to know they can achieve anything.”

With the theme, “Shattering the Glass Ceiling”, the tour which held for four days in different locations across the local council and had young people in all 19 public schools in Shomolu get copies of the founder’s book, ‘Omoh’ centred on inspiring the girl child. The students also got mentored and given step-by-step rules to achieve set goals.

While advising the girl child, Odunbaku, who holds a Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning noted, “My trajectory is a mixed one; I repeated JAMB, I wasn’t the best in class, but here I am today as a role model, so they can be role models too tomorrow.

“If you can dream it, you can achieve it, there is no limit. Put in the effort, and focus, and the sky is your starting point. The girl child is the backbone of every society and when she is empowered, it reduces poverty and delinquencies.”

She added that society leans on the shoulders of the girl child and the woman reminding her that it is counting on her and she should never fail.

A legal practitioner and facilitator at the event, Mcwilliams Nwaogu, said, “Empowering the mind of the girl child is important. If the girl child is educated and she knows there’s no limit to her success, the home is already settled.

“The law profession, for instance, is no longer male-dominated; female judges are springing everywhere doing great. Some of these women when they speak in court you could get intimidated.

“The girl child has a lot of opportunities, she only needs to be focused on her goals and the sky is her limit.”

Another facilitator and human resource consultant, Olasumbo Anifowose while speaking on how the girl child can thrive in a society noted that there aren’t enough platforms that encourage the female child.

“From a young age we don’t get opportunities and I didn’t have options, to be honest. I only looked up to teachers in school, but as you step into the career world, you have mentors who will probably take interest in you, or you are assigned to one that will guide and shape you.

“If you look at the society today, there is so much decay hence we need to encourage the girl child that they can become who they want to be, even if not through academics, there are vocational skills a lot of young ladies are thriving in and it is mind-blowing.”