Women Journalists Raising the World Pulse Wave

In celebration of the International Women's Day, 2017. I hosted an outreach event to share about the World Pulse platform to women journalists in my City, Abuja.

It was a digital empowerment training event that enlightened the women about the wealth of tools and resources available to help them improve their work and maximize their potential while also connecting to a vibrant community of women leaders inspiring change around the world.

My participants were women journalists who work in the newsroom and the programs sections of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) and they were immediately inspired to learn about the great opportunities World Pulse has created for so many women around the world and there was so much anxiety to sign up and start sharing their stories.

Storytelling is already the core of the professionalism of my participants. And they were so excited to learn about the value that World Pulse has harnessed from creating a platform that encourages women to feel safe and free to share their voices and stories.

We openly discussed where we are as women coping with the challenges of slow data speed and high data charges and how we have to push past those barriers to access the internet as constantly and as consistently as is possible to advance our work and our need to be in sync with global development in every facet of life. My participants admitted that they need to be online all the time to keep up with the news as well as research/source information to write their stories.

For my participants, it was enlightening to learn how World Pulse provides a safe environment for women to use their voices to catalyze change in their communities. And we has an exciting time signing up on World Pulse and we all did a quick exercise to share a post so that the women were able to enjoy the practical experience of storytelling on World Pulse. And the fire ignited across the room. Before I knew it, I was in the hot seat, being asked hard journalism questions. After all, I was in their world! Thanks to all the amazing tools and resources with which I have been trained on World Pulse, I was able to respond to the questions and bring the women closer to the reality of sharing their stories on World Pulse. It was an interesting laugh, when I was being interviewed at the end of the event and I was introduced as a journalist. I may not be a journalist by training, but I am a World Pulse Voices of Our Future Correspondent. So yes, I am a journalist in a way.

It was certainly an amazing experience sharing and learning together, particularly how we can #BeBoldForChange in this season where we celebrate women around the world. We connected and shared a lot about our realities as women and how powerful our voices become with platforms like World Pulse amplifying our voices. Today, my participants #LogOnRiseUp and we have raised the #WorldPulseWave from the City of Abuja, Nigeria. I am a proud World Pulse Ambassador connecting women to World Pulse. And I look forward to seeing these amazing women making the best of their connection to the World Pulse Community.

Happy International Women's Day #IWD2017