Breaking The Silence On Gender-Related Topics Amongst Women
The story of Oluwadamilola Akintewe.
Oluwadamilola Akintewe is a social activist, writer, and entrepreneur who has gained local and international recognition for her work centered on closing the gender gaps experienced by women in society. She is the founder and Team Lead of Forbidden Topics, a campaign that raises women’s voices against all forms of Gender Based Violence (GBV) and other issues that women face on a daily basis. Oluwadamilola is currently a 500-level law student at Adekunle Ajasin University (AAUA) in Ondo State, Nigeria.
“We are demystifying the taboo surrounding the conversation about women’s rights and creating safe spaces for advocacy and empowerment of women,” said Oluwadamilola.
Her Achievements so far
Her work in social development and advocacy has garnered her a lot of recognition and awards over the past few years. In 2020 she was crowned “Miss speaker” at the Miss career Africa program that finances young female Entrepreneurs in Africa. In 2021 she emerged as the first Nigerian finalist of the inaugural Chegg global student prize out of 3,500 nominations and applications from 94 countries around the world. In the same year, she won multiple essay competitions. One of which was the Samantha Singh Memorial Award for Young People Aspiring To Careers In Development Policy.
This year, (2022) she became a recipient of the 2022 Diana Award for Social Impact and she also got fully funded trips to the United Kingdom for the One Young World 22 Manchester Summit and the Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna.
In this episode of The Impact Spotlight, we learned a lot about Oluwadamilola’s story.
How she started The Forbidden Topics Campaign
Having dealt with mental health issues and trauma from being a victim of gender-based violence, Oluwadamilola decided to promote a wider social change through gender advocacy. During the 2020 pandemic lockdown, the rate of sexual violence in Nigeria rose at alarming rates, and to tackle this issue, she founded the Forbidden Topics platform, leveraging social media to raise awareness of sexual and gender-based violence. The Forbidden Topics community has now grown to 1,200 followers on Facebook and over 500 on Instagram and Twitter combined.
The importance of her work
“In our society, issues such as rape, sexual harassment, and other gender-based violence have always been viewed with a hushed tone; if a person is raped, he or she is expected to keep quiet about it.” The Forbidden Topics campaign was created to enable women to share their experiences without fear of being shamed, and through these stories, women are empowered and they collaborate with young people to create change in their societies.
Forbidden Topics is empowering people to break free from the victim archetype and reveal themselves as active participants in social change. We are using storytelling for advocacy to highlight the various dynamics of violence in society while calling for a collaborative effort to correct the social flaw.”
Forbidden Topics also amplifies young women’s voices and displays their innovations in social development. Forbidden Topics has brought women from over 25 countries together in a solidarity movement against gender inequality.
Resistance She has faced
Change is easier said than done, and Oluwadamilola encountered several difficulties while putting her initiative into action. This hostility was inevitable as she had to interact with people who had misinterpreted what gender equality meant. The ageism culture has also been a challenge because the older generation believes that as a young person, your idea can never be good enough, making lobbying older people for her cause difficult. In Nigeria more often than not, ideas that prioritize women are perceived as anti-men and are met with a crude rebellion.
The highlight of her work
When asked about what excites her about her work she said “The fact that my work is contributing to creating a safer society for women and girls. Every right that women enjoy now, was fought for. As a woman and feminist, I have to pay it forward by contributing to a gender-equal world where violence based on gender is nonexistent.”
Her Other Social Projects
She runs the LetGirlsLead program to provide mentorship and support for secondary school girls in Ondo, her home state. Working with youth organizations, they teach girls entrepreneurial, financial, and digital skills, so that they may become self-sufficient, and she set up a scholarship list to help them apply for places at universities and gain further qualifications.
Prior to Forbidden Topics, Oluwadamilola Akintewe launched Project Rebirth, an economic empowerment initiative that provides low-income earners with a consistent source of income by teaching them free sewing and sustainable fashion skills. Project Rebirth has raised $5000 and has impacted 142 women directly. Some of the women were hired by established tailor shops, while others received funding to start their own businesses. It is important to note that Project Rebirth economically empowered women to enroll their children in school, lowering the rate of child labor and out-of-school children in Ondo State significantly.
Her advice to young people is that they are never too young to change the world and that we should live our lives in such a way that we can impact even one person. Choose quality over quantity.
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