#2 SPOTLIGHT FEATURE
Being young, taking the lead, and staying different.
Adeshina Toluwalope is the Founder of Precious Art Initiative, a non-profit organization on a mission to raise 3000 Nigerian teen and youth leaders by 2024. Alongside the life-moulding work she does at PAI, she moulds cakes into beauty in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. She is exceptional at getting things done without scampering, and that explains how she manages all these with being on the way to bagging a Law Degree.
In her interview with us, Tolu shares her struggles, wins and lessons from the journey so far.
Tell us a fun fact about you.
My mum still sleeps in my room when I’m scared. Well, about that, I don’t feel it’s weird, because at that moment, I’m usually vulnerable and I feel I need someone to share my fears with. So I do, because she’s my friend and knows the right words to calm me down.
For people around your age, you are doing something different. Why did you choose what you're doing?
I’m just walking on my purpose journey. Everyone has different purposes, so everyone is different in their ways. If walking on a purpose journey makes me different, then I am. The inspiration behind what I do is my burden for change in the society. I believe teenagers and youths have the capability to bring forth change in the society, and in a place like Nigeria, we need teenagers and youths that have a strong sense of what they stand for and why their country needs them. Even while in secondary school, I’ve always been a lover of justice. I believe raising better future leaders to be better adults will solve a part of our problem in Nigeria where justice is trampled upon.
You’re surely doing something important. Empowering the young ones for change could be tasking, what are some of the challenges you’ve faced?
Well, the first challenge I faced was getting myself to speak to teenagers when I am still a teenager, and this was particularly funny to me. I realized I needed to overcome my fear and tell myself that I was worthy of being heard and I had to share to create change. That was the first major challenge, believing in myself and I think believing I have something to share.
Then, another challenge has been balancing school and managing an organization. It hasn’t been easy as sometimes schoolwork had to be sacrificed for organization work. I learnt in a somewhat hard way, that I am a student and that is my primary focus for now and other things come secondary. By the grace of God, I’ve gotten better at balancing school and organization works by setting my priorities right and repeating to myself that “school isn’t a scam”. This way, I’ve learnt to embrace everything about it and it has been fun so far
Another challenge I have encountered while working with PAI has been funding. For me, I’ve always believed that when solving a problem, getting funds should not be the first challenge to tackle, and that’s why we didn’t address this first. I believe working your problem and getting a solution that your buyers are willing to pay for will help cover that. Definitely, it will take a while to get funds for projects, and we are gradually getting there. A personal experience was when we started out, we had an issue getting funds to sponsor our project at the time, and I was scared of crowdfunding because I felt nobody might be willing to donate to such cause. The rest of the team enjoined us to try out crowdfunding, and it ended up working.
I believe most of us are familiar with the saying “if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to far, go with like minds”. Working with others was so tedious at first, but as much as I want to be Supergirl or Wonder woman, I constantly tell myself I can’t do it all by myself. Even Wonder woman had to work with a team in Justice League to achieve something greater. The journey is not always easy, but it’s always better with like-minded people. For example, there was a secondary outreach we needed to attend and on that same day, I had a similar engagement in some other place. The fact that we had a great team of volunteers to take care of the situation made it possible for me to go ahead and see to the other engagement, so they make the journey easier and more fulfilling. Sometimes they are the ones who keep me going and encourage me to do something when I don’t believe in myself and so the organization’s success story can’t be without our volunteers.
I guess challenges make us, as they say. What lessons have you learnt that has helped you navigate?
One major lesson I have learnt from my work at PAI, is not being afraid to be vulnerable. Over time, I have learnt that vulnerability makes people connect with you more because you get to share life experiences that are supposedly meant to be weaknesses with others. This has over time made me tell my story in a different way because it’s more like seeing strength in weakness and most times that maybe all my neighbour needs.
Through all of this, what’s been your greatest strength?
I would say Resilience to withstand rejections. The truth is, not everyone will accept your ideology and values but holding strong to them in difficult times has helped me stay focused on our vision. I’ve had so many people give suggestions that are not in line with what we are trying to achieve at PAI, but clearly stating the values and what the organization stands for, we’ve been able to overcome challenges. For example, we’ve had suggestions to focus on international recognition over local impact, but always going back to our “why”. we’ve been able to let people understand what we stand for. In all honesty, we are going to get international recognition sooner or later, but the most important thing is the impact in our various communities.
What do you term your biggest achievement within and outside of PAI?
My biggest achievement so far has been the wonderful people I’ve had surrounding me- Family, friends, mentors and well-wishers. They have in one way or another impacted my life and shaped who I am.
Another achievement I usually like to refer to, is the ability to give myself to humanity. The ability to steer change in the lives of others and seeing what happens when one decides to make a change. I’ve seen this in the lives and testimonies of our beneficiaries at PAI.
If you had the chance to tell young African women anything, what would it be?
As young African women, we have a lot of potentials, but that will only be seen once we take steps to do something. I know there are tons of advocacy programs on the advancement of women's rights in Africa, but those advocacy programs will come to nothing if the women being fought for don’t have the drive to create change in the world and stand at the forefront. Men are not a competition, our only competition is yourself as an individual. If we can as much as focus on fulfilling our purposes to the best level we can, everything will work out. So keep on training your mind, being the best version of yourself and loving yourself because you deserve to be loved and worthy of any position you envision in your mind.
