Living to its objective, Women Connected By Purpose (WCBP) have put smiles on the faces of some selected young girls in Oyo State at an event tagged “Girl Courageous Awards 2018 and Book Launch” held in Ibadan recently.
The core objective of WCBP is to preach God’s word, promote balance, optimal wellness, strong connection, commitment to faith, business and the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals related to women leadership development and girls’ empowerment through conferences, workshops, coaching, books, electronic and social media, enabling them to live a purpose-driven life to the fullest.
Based on the above, WCBF launched a book, “Girl Courageous” by Mofoluwaso Ilevbare, decorated and awarded five girls as the Oyo State Courageous Girls 2018.
The venue of the event was fraught with school girls who were drawn from various schools in the state. Teachers and parents of the award finalists were also present.
Before the launching of the book and the presentation of awards to the winners, the guest speaker at the event, Dr (Mrs) Oluwafemi Abosede Okunlola, in a lecture entitled, “The Power Banks of the Adolescent Girls: How to Grow them for Positive Impact”, dished out 12 nuggets tagged 12 power banks which, according to her, were the drivers the young girls needed to optimize their potential and live to fulfill their purpose in life.
Among the power banks she itemized as navigating tools were developing strong spiritual life and strengthening of their spiritual gifts and offices, exploiting the opportunity of modern technology and the Internet to acquire skills, academic and talent exploits to cross crucial junctions (JSS 3 and SSS 3 Junctions), mental alertness, taking care and note of (their) faces of beauty, choosing life purpose(s) and social relations, control of sexual urges and wise choose of courtship and marriage, adding in conclusion that they should tap into and receive helps like the one provided by WCBP, “store your power and avoid future powerlessness, victim mentality and regrets.”
According to the organizers of the event and Dr Okunlola, girls aged 8-19 have to always charge their power banks in this decisive crucial stage of their lives. Dr Okunlola concluded that adolescence is the stage young girls are free enough to do a lot of things by themselves before they grow old and get distracted by several factors. She thereafter charged them to seek help from God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, female Bible characters, groups like WCBP, parents and teachers.
Shortly after the book launch, the five finalists were unveiled and presented awards as the Oyo Girls Courageous 2018. Oluwaloseyitowi Iji, Emiola Jesulayin, Taiwo Angel-Akua, Ibukunoluwa Adisa-Simon and Temitayo Johnson-Laleye were chosen from the categories such as academic, art and literary, community service and leadership and each of them was awarded a cash prize of N20,000, two books, including “Girl Courageous” and other souvenirs.
Speaking at the event, Mrs Mofoluwaso Ilevbare, the author of the launched book, “Girl Courageous” and president of WCBP, said the book was written and its copies were presented to the girls to help them unlock “the potential and possibilities in them,” adding that “It is an opportunity to inspire young girls, mentor them to become those girls making it differently. My core message is to urge you to live, love and make a difference.”
One of the beneficiaries of the award, Miss Emiola Jesulayin, gave a beautiful musical rendition as interlude, while saying, during the event, that “I feel very happy and challenged to do more… I consider this as a stepping stone to a greater height. I would use the monetary prize to acquire new musical instruments…”
In the meantime, the coordinator of the programme, Dr (Mrs) Gbemisola Daramola, informed the gathering that writing was initially considered to be part of the category for the 2018 awards “but unfortunately none of the selected participants could make it. We discovered that all of them were copying each other; they also copied verbatim from the Internet,” Dr (Mrs) Gbemisola Daramola stated. She explained that 20 schools were selected across Oyo State, out of which three girls each from 16 schools submitted essays. “Unfortunately, none of the essays was good enough to merit an award. The highest score was 16 out of 50 marks,” she informed. However, Dr Daramola made mention of and celebrated Inioluwa Adetunji, who has won the writing competition of WCBP three consecutive times.
Mrs Ilevbare said earlier in a media chat she granted to Space FM 90.1, that the book, “Girl Courageous”, would be available in bookstores and online.
Story packaged by Marufh Bello
