Let me tell you a story about Cynthia
What does fulfillment feel like having done all those work as the President?
Hi guys! It’s been a minute? a year? Well, a law in Physics says that time is relative. So let’s pretend it has indeed been a minute! ;)
I almost never have the time (+ mental capacity) to write anything these days, and I blame that on my constant burn out and life happenings. In fact, I should mention that this is a slightly recycled story, as I have told this story before on other platforms. But then, I was going through my notes and I figured I actually never got to share this here.
A lot has happened since I last wrote here, as you may expect, so let me attempt to bring you up to speed.
If my memory hasn’t failed me, I stopped actively writing this newsletter about 2 years ago. Since then, I have gone ahead to plunge into various things, and being the 37th President of a leadership and social impact organization —Junior Chamber International Nigeria, University of Lagos, is one of the things I did. I remember it’s been about 2 years because at the very early stage of my election, I was already fatigued and knew it would be almost impossible to keep up my writing streak.
I am not sure I am over the shock that I took up such a responsibility. If you know me, you will know that I do not like to be in the spotlight unnecessarily, and that I would rather drive results from the backseat.
Asides the laudable achievements we (my board members and I) made as a team in my tenure, my personal win to take home was how much I learnt about leading people, and most importantly, leading myself in those 365+ days. I do have a lot to say about my out-of-box experience, so maybe someday, I will share more (personal, maybe?) stories about the lessons I learnt while I served as the President. But that isn’t why we are here. Today, we are here to talk about Cynthia.
Cynthia told her story about the Educate A Child 2.0 Project. For context, theEducate A Child project is an initiative to support the education of (indigent) children, and this could be done by providing learning materials, mentorship, or any initiative that would help the SDG 4: Quality Education.
Last year 2023, we went to a school to give out materials to aid the indigent students with their learning, and to provide them with the ‘exposure’ they will need to thrive. The joy and smile on their faces was just what we needed. It was the perfect project in my opinion!
This year, with inflation at the brink, we knew we had to re-strategize because raising funds was not only the hardest thing to do, we had other projects on the priority list. (We execute projects in JCIN UNILAG according to the JCI RISE initiative, and the needs of the organization at that time)
So we came up with a plan to recruit members of the organization to serve as volunteer tutors for a school at Bariga, Lagos Nigeria. This free-learning secondary school, funded solely by the owner and a couple NGOs here and there, had bright students but unfortunately not enough teachers to teach them. So we thought, “how about we provide an opportunity for members to teach the children various subjects, providing them with quality education in our own little way, and in the same vein, empowering our members to be at the fore front of change and impact themselves?”. A win for all, if you ask me. I should mention, that this was majorly a strategy/initiative birthed to avert cost of materials that would most likely be spent on buying school bags, books, etc.
While I knew it would be a great experience for the 20 tutors we shortlisted for the 1 school-term long project, I didn’t think much of it at the time. Few days into the project, members of the organization already had their own story to share about impact and positive change. To hear their story that JCI provided this opportunity to them —a decision that was largely born out of our inability to raise enough funds, making us pivot— made me fulfilled. Ultimately, it validated our efforts to carrying out the last line of the JCI Creed “We believe that service to humanity is the best work of life”
Now let’s go back to Cynthia. Cynthia, or ‘Cynths’ as I like to call her, applied to be a tutor for the Educate A Child Project and got shortlisted. I randomly stumbled on Cynthia telling her story of impact in a beautiful way, and how JCI played an integral role in it.
Now, I had various moments of pride with the various initiatives we birthed and the achievements we made, but the one that tops the list is when I stumbled on Cynthia’s Instagram post on a random busy day. It may not seem like much, but it definitely validated all the work we had been doing! One of the things that me made join the organization was my love for volunteering and impacting the lives of people. But as I “climbed up the ladder”, my role in the organization quickly switched. I would no longer actively volunteer myself and I began to take up more larger responsibilities. So watching Cynthia’s video not only made me live vicariously through her, it also made me glad that I was able to provide such opportunities I had once relished.
So if you ask me, “what does fulfillment feel like having done all those work as the President?” I will narrate the story of Cynthia; being able to provide an avenue for impact for Cynthia (and everyone else involved in the project), and the students, who had benefitted from the initiative.
You can watch Cynthia’s beautiful video here, I recommend you do.
I write about my learnings on personal growth, life, lessons, and experiences. I haven’t written since forever and now I’m not sure how to keep the train moving, but feel free to stick around while I figure it out. Please share if you enjoyed reading it!
See you around,
Risqat.
—-
P.S. Incase you are wondering (I bet you would, as I would be immediately confused as well if I were in your shoes), “who is Risqat?” “when did I sign up for her newsletter?” hehe do not fret. It is Yosola’s newsletter. I did mention I would have a name change moving forward, so this is me acting it out. It is still the same content, same person, just a slight change of name ;)
—-
**Some words used in the text
Junior Chamber International (JCI): a global organization of young people between 18 and 40 years old passionate about leadership and positive change. It has members present in over 127 countries in the world, and over 20 states in Nigeria. You can read more about JCI Nigeria here.
JCI Creed: a 6 line paragraph that serves as a guiding philosophy for Junior Chamber International (JCI) members, emphasizing values such as faith, brotherhood, economic justice, and service to humanity.