Like many African women, I grew up in a very patriarchal society, bounded in a culture where girls are taught since the young age to perform for society. As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said: “We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls, you can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful.”
I grew up always checking if I was being too ambitious. I had crazy dreams then, and I still do. I was told to be successful, but to not threaten “the man”. Choosing myself as a woman, is not something I was raised to do.
It took me learning how to love and choose myself first to even feel comfortable with fellow women. As I allowed other women to be who they were, I developed a passion for working with the power of young women. Helping young women humanize their experiences is especially important for women who have grown up in societies that have routinely underestimated them and that’s how we shape more effective , just and powerful leaders. This is why I started Choose Yourself.