Girls can find themselves without the skills needed to land jobs in their chosen field. To bridge the gap, Obinna-Nojoku started an online media platform showcasing talented youth.
Obinna-Njoku Somtochukwu, 21
Owerri, Nigeria
Nigeria’s extremely high crime rate is due to many different social and economic factors. As Obinna-Nojoku explains in her video submission, one factor that may contribute to rising crime among youth is the wide gap between education and jobs. Girls often find themselves without the relevant skills needed in order to land jobs in their chosen industries. Seeking to bridge this gap for herself, Obinna-Nojoku started an online media platform showcasing talented Nigerian youth. AmandaTvOnline is a weekly online magazine that scouts for young talented Africans and showcases them to the world. She asked her student peers to join her and by pooling resources they have been able to keep the site up and it is starting to draw a large audience.
Obinna-Nojoku is happy with the turnout and feels that the positive stories highlighted on the site inspire young people to find what they love and go after it. As she explains in her video, it is not all rosey but feels she is putting her voice to good use and spreading her message of hard, honest work. She hopes that her site will inspire other youth to lead a life that they are proud of.
Obinna-Nojoku Story: Hi, I’m Obinna-Njoku Somtochukwu. I’m from Nigeria, I’m 21years old. Well, here in Nigeria our major problem is high crime rate and this is due to the fact that a lot of youth have lost the value of hard work, diligence, and perseverance. And another reason for this high crime rate is the fact that there is a wide gap between our educational institutions and the industries such that when one graduates the person will find out that he or she doesn’t have the relevant skills to be able to fit into their desired careers because of this gap. This forms a kind of problem thereby leading them to crime. So in order to solve this problem, I started Amandatvonline. Amandatvonline is an online platform that showcases talented youths, hardworking youths doing what they know how to do best and earning money legally and being a success in a very legal form. This has helped to curtail the high crime rate because a lot of youths view these stories and see that wow, it’s not all rosy. It’s a grass to grace story. In fact, someone walked up to me and was like “wow”. After watching that story, I decided to put my voice to good use. Again, Amandatv is run entirely by students who are interested in the media. When we started we had little or no experience whatsoever in the media but a keen interest knowing that that’s what we want to do when we graduate. And running Amandatv has helped to gather the relevant skills we would need in the media, for the future. So it has helped curtail the gap issue a little bit. And leadership, I showed leadership in that initially it was my vision and I was able to gather students like me. I was able to sell the vision to them and they bought the vision to the extent that they even funded Amandatv. With our own pocket money, we brought money collectively and we funded Amandatv which is not very easy to get students like you to do, considering the fact that they have little or no money. I think this should be made into a movie because a lot more students out there, a lot more youths out there need to learn the value of hard work.
Let Girls Lead empowers girls and their allies to lead social change through advocacy, education, economic empowerment, storytelling, and strategic partnerships, contributing to improved health, education, and livelihoods for more than 3 million girls globally.
Let Girls Lead’s Global Girls’ Conversation video contest highlights girls’ power to create change by sharing their own solutions through short videos. The video contest is an exciting opportunity for girls, organizations working with girls and girls’ allies to submit one to two-minute videos capturing girls’ solutions and successes. In partnership with The Huffington Post, Let Girls Lead will feature these compelling videos on the Global Girls’ Conversation interactive platform and on Huffington Post’s Global Motherhood column, sharing girls’ power to lead change with a global audience. Contest winners will receive $10,000 in cash, equipment, and training to create their own short films. For more information, please visit here.
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