When I was younger, I never knew the meaning of true happiness, and even at present, I still wonder if I will have that happiness that everyone speaks of.
I wish someone would’ve told me what the world was truly capable of instead of filling me up with false hope of a world full of cupcakes and rainbows. I mean, surely you would think I would’ve learned my lesson for the true horrors of the world after having an encounter with the devil, yet I still held on to that thread of silver lining. Foolishly hoping that things would get better and that after a storm comes a rainbow, I desperately desired to see that bright multi coloured arc.
I didn’t have the best upbringing, considering I was born in a poor family, my morals were twisted, and the only thing I cared about was the love I had for my cousin, whom I considered a brother. I didn’t have access to the rest of the world, so I knew what I was told and saw on TV in shops. Life was not easy for me, food was scarce, and with reality so far away, I figured this was all my life was going to be like.
I was broken, uneducated, and possibly having kids at an early age, but I was taken away from that destructive path and set onto a brighter future with God’s grace. Things got better than worse than better, and a deafening calm passed before things went downhill before my very eyes, and I finally lost faith in humanity as I discovered the horrors of what we are capable of. I was so used to having a rich life that I wasn’t prepared when it was ripped away from me, and I ended up stumbling over my own feet and falling face first.
I was truly desperate for things to get better. When the clock struck 11:11, I would close my eyes tightly and make a wish I knew would never come true. However, now all I wish for is someone to have told me that wishes don’t come true unless you make them come true. In the end, no one can rescue you except yourself, which is something I came to later to understand the term, where there is a will, there’s a way.
One might think that their world is crumbling around them for a good reason, but what one oversees is the true strength of the mind. It is not easy to fight your demons when you’re fighting yourself in the process, so as I think back to when I was younger, I wish I never fought so hard with myself. If only I had accepted myself sooner, then many bad situations could have been avoided. If only I had begun loving myself sooner, then I would have achieved many things.
For one, I know if i convinced myself that i was worth it, I would have fought more for my own future and not left it in someone else’s hands to do as they please with it. The mind is indeed a powerful organ and one we take for granted every day. People tend to scroll past motivational pictures or images, not realising that change begins with the mind.
You can’t simply change overnight, it takes time, and it all starts in your head by changing the way you think. Once you believe you are worthy, you wouldn’t believe what miracles you will achieve with that mindset, and the world will be your oyster. I didn’t have anyone to tell me that I was enough to achieve whatever I put my mind to, so I’m saying it now for whoever needs to hear it, YOU ARE ENOUGH, YOU ARE WORTHY.
I don’t know how many people need to hear that, but it never hurts to hear it because it reminds us that there are people out there who still care for your well being and want what’s best for you.
So to the youth of tomorrow, don’t be so hard on yourself and remember that your mind is your greatest weapon and if used correctly and with the proper nourishment, you can reach the stars and beyond. Imagine if you woke up and told yourself that you are smart, gorgeous, talented or wanted every morning, your mind will automatically engrave that in your head, and before you know it, you will be those things you told yourself that you are.
What do we mean when we talk about self-love? Of course, the definition will vary from one person to another and shift through seasons of life. I’m on the journey of learning how to love myself well and have learnt quite a lot.
Let us all agree that to know how to love you well, you have to know what and who you are trying to love in the first place. We get to know ourselves by spending time with ourselves. We understand ourselves by paying attention to our responses and reactions.
Most times, we don’t know ourselves, so we work off the blueprints of how others have loved us, how they treat us, or how we see others loving themselves.
Life in itself is evolutionary, so we are ever-adapting to one change or another. In the adaptation, our willingness to know and understand ourselves is genuinely tested to see if when seasons change, you will remain enthusiastic about how you are changing too.
Sometimes, there is too much to keep up with, and I want to lie on the floor and let the day go by. You too? I totally understand. *High-five!
I used to set up my day to end with some me-time, but I only got fatigue and cravings for cookies at the end of the day. I decided to switch things up and start my day with me-time. In that way, I am excited to do the things I enjoy – like writing this blog post at 5 am—uninterrupted, tranquil me-time.
I was inconsistent initially because, after all, it’s just me: I’m always with myself doing ME. During one of my morning devotions and meditations, I realised that I wasn’t willing to commit to getting to know and understand myself because I did not think I mattered. So I started to change this narrative from within, understanding how I came about the notion that I don’t matter and why I matter based on whom God says I am.
So if you’re jogging by my house at 4am and hear someone yelling: I AM WORTHY I AM CHOSEN…Calm down. It’s not Tej (Ethiopian wine). It’s just Pursue-Whitney o’clock.
Pursuit is more about going deeper, to educate yourself about why you respond and react as you do. It is about acknowledging the good and the sketchy of you. The more willing you are to pursue yourself, the more passion you gain to know, understand and embrace who you are.
The major battle of pursuit is standing tall during bad days when people’s judgements, opinions and careless actions trample all over our confidence. It is even harder when you’re on the receiving end of hurt and disappointment because of a mistake you made or a door you opened.
This one time, I was committed to keeping my peace in the presence of an annoying individual at work. The moment I got to work, they were the first person I saw, and the first words that came out of their mouth immediately ruined my mood. It was something about the email they sent me the previous night at 10 pm. I was sharp and quick with my sarcastic response. When I thought about it later, I wanted to pack myself in a carton and mail a one-way shipment to Afghanistan because I had stooped to their level of pettiness and gone against my commitment.
I assure you that the moment you find yourself, your knowledge will be tested ALL THE DAMN TIME. Therefore, it is a crucial part of self-love not just to understand who you are and who you are not but to STAND FIRM. For example, after my little altercation with my colleague (yes, the annoying one), I realised that self-judgment and trying to ship myself to Afghanistan was only keeping me from seeing what the situation was communicating about what peace is to me, what it isn’t and why it is essential to have it. It also extended an example for me to see how triggers emanate and how I can navigate better through response and boundaries, not reaction aaand…attempted murder. Hahaha okay. It wasn’t that bad.
I am happy to inform you that the former colleague is alive and neither on the HR’s watchlist nor in jail.
Here you are, looking all kinds of happy, healthy and whole. You are self-aware and pursuing yourself with passion. Good job, mate! *claps
Then here comes your boyfriend Tod, who wants 10 kids but no marriage. Your boss, John, is a night owl with an affinity for late-night emails, and you’re a morning person who loves a good night’s rest. Your pastor, dripping with anointed oil, Bishop Godwill, needs you to join the choir and lead the youth ministry. Don’t forget that the government needs you to file taxes and renew your insurance. Your plate is overflowing! My friend, your commitment to me-time is in danger.
What I have found helpful is the funnelling of priorities beginning with the most critical asks and responsibilities. I take it a step further and schedule them on my phone. This has been especially useful for keeping tabs on recurring self-love activities such as meditation, body therapy. I add the details such as location, phone numbers. Are we going with a charcoal mask this time or a clay mask? Etc. I don’t need to keep thinking about what I need to be doing. My mentor, Dr. Dharius Daniel, says: Use your brain for creativity and not information storage.
Planning has allowed me to be intentional about rest and who/what I am giving energy/time to. I previously wrote about how scarcity mindset tendencies make me stubborn when transitioning from work to play. Don’t worry if you missed the great read: I got you>> Out Here Waiting for Thieves to Come. I learnt about the Pomodoro technique called which breaks your time into chunks of work and rest time. I got the app ASAP, which has been super-efficient as an aid to recondition what was familiar to me (Work! Work! Work!). Let me add that it yells: “Fantastic job! You have completed your concentration session. Take a break!”
Commitment is all about discipline, strategy and intentionality. It will not come by chance!
Pleasure is a by-product of a commitment to pursue yourself with passion and consistency. In my context, I realised that I had rejected myself in so many ways because I had accepted societal constructs of introverts to be weird, strange, people who hate others and more.
The journey to knowing and loving myself has taught me how I am purposefully and perfectly different. It made me see why everyone has their unique role in life, which are all important. The issue is that many people push the narrative that who they are is the beginning and the end of being. We are either alike or we cannot be in line. This is only creating copy-pasted versions of people. I had to break out of this!
I took time out to read about introverts which led me to embrace how introversion comes with a strong intuitive nature and creativity and what amazing things I can do with that. It also made me appreciate how other types of personalities bring uniqueness into my space. My personal favourite is Psch2Go. They provide understandable and straightforward psychology-based explainers on day-day matters.
The more you take pleasure in who you are, the less you loathe your flaws, scars and mistakes. The less you care about people’s opinions over you too.
Situations come up needing us to shift gears which means sacrificing our plans to attend to the situation. Sacrifice takes place throughout the process of self-love, mainly due to pruning or re-shuffling of priorities. Pruning is all about planting and uprooting. Let’s think of our lives as gardens that need weeding so that we have healthy produce and grounds for future planting. All weeds have to go. I have found that the more pruning, the faster the growth process.
2020 was a pruning and healing year for me. I learnt the hard way that I was right where my decisions and relationships had qualified me to be. I always considered myself quick to change things around me. In 2020, I realised that I was in a cycle of eliminating and accommodating the same patterns because the problem was within me. I was the farmer who knew all the suitable pesticides for different weeds but did not take care of their soil. I did a lot of soul-searching, self-reflection and self-cleansing. Soon enough, the patterns changed.
During the change and growth process, I would still try to force former situations into the person I was becoming. A good example is when God instructed me to go on secular music fast for 21 days. The beginning was soothing to the soul as my heart grew fonder of worship music. Right about day 10, I missed my Friday night turns up in my house with Davido and Burna Boy. It was lit! Don’t even get me started with the karaoke with late Whitney Houston. I started to sneak in a few secular songs into my fast.
I didn’t know that God was drawing my attention to the wells from which I draw pleasure, inspiration, and comfort. By the end of the 21 days, I accepted that I tasted both worlds, and it was time for a change. It was time to love and take care of myself better. It got to a point where all I wanted was worship music because I felt at home, at peace and more connected with God. So I quit secular music.
I sought understanding from God why worship music now hit different and just right. God said to me that a person who has just come out of surgery could not continue to eat what they used to or go about life as they used to. They must rest and take time to heal. This revelation translated to me as the place you’re in life will determine the sources from which you feed your spiritual, emotional, physical and psychological hunger and thirst.
I hope you enjoyed reading this and learnt a lot. Share with a friend so they too can learn. Keep loving you right because it is the only way you can love anyone or anything else right.
Today I realised that in many ways, I am still that little Whitney who feared that good things never stay. I was catching up on Tony Gaskins’ videos, and one of them got me curious about how scarcity manifests in more ways than the financial areas of our lives. So I read a bit of literature on the psychology of poverty online.
You should have seen my face when I was reading some of this stuff. One article totally felt like an honest review of my money life written by a stranger and left me wondering if I am being followed around!
While I am doing much better with money management now, I still exhibit some signs of the scarcity mentality that I read about. Yees, I knooow I have been re-sharing all these profound quotes about being healthy and wealthy on my IG *rolls eyes.
The thing is, I did not think I had a scarcity mindset because I grew up with enough. We were not rich but not poor either. Yet here we are, Diary! Here is where the oblivion ends, though, because I will intentionally do better going forward.
For beginners, I reflected and identified the areas in my life where scarcity mindset manifests. My findings:
Remember when I was working three jobs, pursuing my bachelor’s degree, and breathing in 2013? Well, things haven’t changed much. I am constantly balancing one act after another, flipping out of one hat into another. I am grateful for my desire for excellence and extensive concentration bandwidth, but I have to stop believing that this means that resting is living beneath my potential.
My relentless grind has come with bountiful earnings and opportunities. However, because I have been like the farmer who keeps all their harvest locked up in the store, fearing a supposed upcoming famine, the abundance comes with anxiety and paranoia of vulture friends and fraudulent investors. So I hold on tight to what I have. Only to look at gigantic mansions in high-end areas back home and realise that I cannot afford any of them. This brings in a new worry of not having enough, and we are back to square one. Abeg!
I am used to a life on the grind. So instead of looking for progressive solutions to multiply what I have, including investment or ways of working smart and making more with less, I’d revert to what was familiar – working my $%&$ off.
I am more mindful of rest now, but not too long ago, I was in shock whenever I had free time! God forbid I turned Netflix on; I felt like the whole world was watching me be lazy.
Here I come abundance!
Love,
By: Lewis Momanyi
The biggest innovation in human history is realizing that human beings have the ability to alter their life by altering their thinking.
In Robin Sharma’s book, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari, it says that “The quality of your life on earth will be measured by the quality of contributions you have made to other humans lives. It doesn’t matter how big your house is, or how silk your car is, the only thing you can take with you at the end of your life is your conscience.”
Growing up in the village in Kisii I knew I had a purpose in life. Like every child, I had big dreams, big ambitions and aspirations in life. I remember when I was in fourth grade, our class teacher asking us who we wanted to be in future. As expected, many said they wanted to be Engineers, Doctors, Pilots but I remember saying I wanted to be a Chief Executive Officer (CEO). When the teacher asked me why I aspired to be a CEO, My answers were simple; I wanted to lead people and bring out the best in them.
The teacher was amused and he told me something which inspired me till today; To be a CEO you need to have Integrity, Have Leadership qualities and Read Extensively. Those words sparked my ears and I vowed to follow my dream to be a CEO one day by following those three components he mentioned. I started by branding myself with the tagline the “CEO Next Door”. This was to inspire me each day I woke up to remember my aspirations in life. I read and researched extensively on every stage as I knew this was the key to becoming better in the environment that I was and always took up opportunities to lead teams whenever I had the opportunity, the end game being, to learn and to improve on my leadership qualities.
Due to my passion to empower and inspire I started a mentorship program to mentor other youths under the umbrella of Aspire for humanity initiative Kenya. Through my mentorship programs, I was appointed a board member at Abraham Lincoln Youth Initiative and at Fresh cut Foundation East Africa. Through that journey of engaging the youths, I leant that many youths did not have a reading culture as they only read to pass exams.
Why do we have a bad reading culture?
I started by asking myself the question above as it could inform my search for solutions.
My country Kenya is considered to be among the countries with highly educated population in East Africa. According to Africa Economist, Kenya has a literacy level of 85% which makes it the fourth country with the highest literacy levels in Africa. India is the world leading in the number of hours spent in reading per person which stands at 10hours and 42 mins. The introduction of free primary education in Kenya is an indication of the passion we have for education especially for our children which made me question on why we still have a bad reading culture in a country that embraces education as the key to the future to our kids.
I also noted that many youths especially those who have finished university were taking more time on newspapers. This was due to unemployment where others were looking for jobs while others could perceive that many youths are interested in the present not the future. Majority of the youths are interested in the day to day happenings from politics to trending topics of the day and that justifies why they prefer newspapers. I noticed that those are the same ideologies that makes the youths love twitter.
In some instances, I noticed many travel agencies organizing for vacations or retreats. The worrying trend was that despite a vacation being a place to go and relax your mind, very few people were going with books to improve on their knowledge. The travel agencies also playe a key role as very few organize for reading retreats. That implies how we don’t value the reading culture.
To a more worrying trend was that, l noticed that almost 90% of books are only being sold in Nairobi central business Unit. If you visit other counties you will be surprised that you will not find even a vendor selling books as they perceive it as a non-profitable business as majority of the population don’t buy the books to read. I noted that very few county libraries were equipped and the bookshops based on those counties were only selling those books approved for curriculum in schools since they were in business of profitability not impacting knowledge.
We can blame the society for not playing a critical role in promoting a reading culture, we might as well blame the teachers for not inculcating a reading culture at a young age to many in schools, but the decision lies solemnly in us. We are in this state, what are we doing in our individual capacities to ensure that we are changing this narrative? When dusk turns to dawn and in the final analysis, we take full responsibility as individuals.
My initiative;
I vowed to take the lonely journey of ensuring that I drive out illiteracy in my own capacity from my initiatives.
The first approach I started was to gift my friends with atleast one book during their birthdays. At first it seemed odd as I realized many of my friends did not take it positively. Others could read and while others after receiving the books, they could put them in the book shelves never to read again. That did not discourage me from my cause, I knew that to reach my goal I had to start from somewhere.
In that journey I joined many book fairs, Readers guild, met many stakeholders with the aim of looking for ways to encourage the culture of reading.
Last year when I was doing analysis of the books I had issued out, I realized I had issued more than 3000 books to my friends on their birthdays. That is when I decided to change the approach.
With those 3000 books, I could have had a fully equipped library where youths can access this books for free after registration to be members of the initiative.
With this in mind, I started an initiative to have 47 fully equipped libraries in all 47 counties by 2025. This will assist in improving literacy and make us be a reading nation. So far we have collected over 500 books towards the project.
Remember a reading nation is a thinking nation. When we have many readers, we will have the inherent capacity to meet challenges that we face as a country as we will turn them to opportunities.
Food For Thought: Many Kenyans have birthdays every day, what if each of us bought at least two books on their birthday and supported this cause? How many books will we have to be accessed by those who are unable to buy them? This is one way you can support the cause.
In this Dispassionate pursuit of passion, I hope you will all support this journey of embracing the reading culture. It is never too late, if you think you are too old to read, remember you have the power to change the younger generation.
If #COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that life does not always go according to plan. The unprecedented levels of change we have been experiencing on a global scale over the last few months have been an emotional rollercoaster on a personal level too.
Lockdown, in particular, has had the effect of making many of us review and reassess our priorities. Against the backdrop of anxiety experienced due to the pandemic ‘out there, we have had to slow down at home, giving us more time to reflect on life choices past, present , and future.
During this lockdown, many people have reported personal insights that have shaped how they want their future to unfold that is different from before. Keep an open mind and take advantage of the opportunities present for personal growth.
In this context, the Story Book ran a campaign, collecting stories from youth in Africa who, during the lockdown, have identified a habit, pattern, person, environment, etc., and their journey through #packingitaway to create space for personal growth and development. We selected two winners who got gorgeous leather bags from Kamandora Designs.
Here’s a video from Mercy and a story from Lewis is linked below it. Enjoy:)
Dispassionate pursuit of passion- Embracing A Reading Culture
“The biggest innovation in human history is realizing that human beings have the ability to alter their life by altering their thinking” -Lewis Momanyi
Read Full Story : https://thestorybook.whitneymwangi.com/dispassionate-pursuit-of-passion-embracing-a-reading-culture/
Happy International Women’s Day! This year, we hosted Amandine Siita, a phenomenal life coach and youth advocate from Cameroon and had an insightful chat about how to overcome fear. We are striving to make as much visual content as possible so we can connect better with you. So here is a snapshot of the lessons she shared. Happy Reading 🙂
In recognition that every generation begins with a woman and what an honour it is to be a woman, we also took a stand with seven powerful African women who #choosetochallenge various life challenges and bad habits every day. See what they had to say and join in their journey of inspiring fellow women and girls in Africa by sharing with us what they #ChooseToChallenge : https://www.instagram.com/thestorybook_ent/
Mr. Collins Nnabugwu is a Social Entrepreneur, Technology Innovator, Empowering Speaker, and the founder of Cyber Future Academy The Academy is shaping the Future of Education and work by providing new learning insights that particularly focus on the STEM and ICT skills critical to our youth’s future development, and create new jobs in fields such as AI, VR, Data analysis, software engineering etc. The long-term goal is to build and promote digital creators, disruptors, designers and business moguls.
Ambassador Collins works towards developing Africa, uniting the Diaspora and improving Africa’s and integration in the International Community. He is responsible for promoting partnerships and business developments that are fostering tremendous growth throughout the African Continent and improving Nigeria’s Economy and Tourism potentials.
He is the Founder of the Organization for Leadership and Strategy Development (OLSD), an organization dedicated to instilling leadership and entrepreneurial skills in African youths. Ambassador Collins is the president of African Youth Diaspora Organsation (AYDO), board member of World Youth Summit; State Of African Diaspora (SOAD); organsations promoting African diaspora affairs. And he is coordinating efforts to the hosting of Door Of Return – Nigeria 2020 (Biggest Diaspora homecoming event).
Collins Nnabugwu is the CEO of Atlanta-based tech startup, Click Media Technologies (CMT), multi media streaming and production company providing solutions GAMIFICATION, Software Development, Animation, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), as well as Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies.
Collins has gained unparalleled experiences while working for the Silverbird Group, a media conglomerate composed of a large network of Television, Radio, Cinemas, Pageants, Real Estate and divers entertainment outfits owned by the Ben Murray Bruce family.
I am Cynthia Nyongesa, a 24-year-old Kenyan youth advocate.
About three years ago, I discovered my love for Communication and empowering the youth through story-telling. At this point, I was pursuing a Law Degree. The comforting factor was that a lot of my coursework an advocacy-related angle – for example, Media and Law, Human Rights and more. However, the nudge to work with young people was persistent from within. I wanted to change the narrative about communities and the things I was seeing while working with the youth.
Later, I began to reach out to youth-oriented initiatives and programs seeking their support in mentoring the youth knew. I would make cold pitches to organisations and CEOs on Twitter or via email. This went unanswered 99.9% of the time but one day, Equity Group Foundation responded.
I was called for a meeting to pitch my work with the youth and later given the opportunity to be a volunteer in the Foundation’s Wings to Fly Scholarship Program. My role was to mentor the young scholars under the program. Being a young person, this was something I could easily relate to. I was 19 years old at the time. Through this opportunity I told stories that propelled me to my next opportunities.
One time, when skimming through Instagram, I saw a post from a friend requesting her followers to check out her blog. I became curious about blogging, and when I realized that it could be a great avenue of channeling stories about the youth, I decided I would start blogging. A friend helped me set up the blog in 2016.
Later that year, I was invited to write about infrastructural development during the State House Summit on Infrastructure. First time in State House: Big moment for me! I kept going, improving my craft and here I am today as a youth advocate in UNICEF Kenya playing a key Youth Communications, Advocacy, and Partnerships role. Through the two years I have worked here, I have been encouraged by how I am able to put my talent into more constructive use and reach a wider audience.
I still work towards inspiring young people to start their own programs by featuring established and influential leaders for inspiration. I have featured:
Gina Din, Strategic Communication and Public Relations Mogul; Sylvia Muturi, Founder of Deafine through which she empowers the deaf; Kamal Budhabhatti, CEO of Craft Silicon; Siddharth Chatterjee, UN Resident Coordinator in Kenya; Sitawa Namwalie, an award winning Kenyan poet, playwright, writer and performer. When the youth see that I can reach these successful individuals they see that it is possible.
I am also deeply inspired by the outcomes of the powerful stories I get to tell. I once interviewed a young man who was at the time the only one in his village to get university education through the Equity Wings to Fly Scholarship program. In his free time, he tuition the children on their school work to improve their grades. Someone saw the story and donated papers so he was able to set up his first exam.
I also featured the story of a young lady advocating for end of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Garissa. I guided her through submitting her essay to the World Bank Blog4Dev Competition in 2018. She won and shared her experience on a bigger platform in Washington DC.
Cynthia Untamed: How did you come about this title?
It took me nearly 6 months to come up with this title. I was previously blogging about my own experiences and my audience did not consume it as I intended based on the kind of questions they asked – some even questioned if it was my experience. I wanted the blog to be mine but reflect the voices of the youth. In addition, our generation does not want to see boring things so I wanted a catchy name. I came across untamed on Google and it resonated with the narrative I wanted to push: Determined, resilient and not limited by either experiences or challenges. I believe this title and what it brings on board creates diversity and to a great extent, an enabling environment for sustainable opportunities for the youth.
When was the last time you had a moment of self-doubt how did you get back up?
I am currently also the Youth Ambassador for Generation Unlimited in Kenya. When I was appointed, I started asking myself if I was right person for this grand advisory role: If I had the right skills and if I should even take up the role. I confided in some friends who encouraged me to go for it because there is no telling where it would lead.
I was recovering from a previous low moment I had about three years ago when I applied for the World Bank Blog4Dev Competition and did not win. I was so disappointed, hurt and felt like a failure. However, through this experience, I have met people who have mentored and encouraged me out of the frustration. Others extended new opportunities to me which allowed me to shift focus to what lay ahead of me. For example, despite not winning World Bank’s Blog4Dev Competition, I occasionally get called upon to be a part of youth-oriented World Bank events. When I meet people who believe in me, I am motivated to keep going and give my best. I have seen that every time I give my best, the repercussive events yield good results.
There is a 23-year old who looks at you, your social profile and admires your path. What 5 things would you tell them:
What is the one achievement you’re most proud of?
Cynthia Untamed. It is who I am and what I want to achieve – enabling young people to have their voice heard.
Pen and paper in front of you: Jot the one aspiration that you hope to attain yet scares you out of your wits. My ultimate goal is to be a Brand Ambassador for an initiative that seeks to change the life of the youth in Africa. I would also love to have a TV show of my own. I also look to advancing my career in advocacy so that I am able to talk to people and transform lives through story-telling at a global level.
Musa Frimpong is a distinguished Global Citizen and African child born in Nkwanta (a small town near Asante Mampong), Ghana, an International and Youth Development Practitioner. His work spans many human, community and organizational development disciplines including education, leadership, nonprofits, talent and human capital, coaching, entrepreneurship and innovation. He is currently the Founder and CEO of DUAPA Africa Group, headquartered in Accra, Ghana with a branch office in Beijing, China and working with several global partners. Musa is also a Co-founder, Board Chairman and former Executive Director for Youth Without Borders Ghana and an Alumnus of the African Union Youth Volunteers Corps program, former President of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) Peer Counsellors group, first Chairperson of Planned Parenthood Association Of Ghana (PPAG)’s Youth Action Movement, KNUST branch and former Ghana Muslim Students Association (GMSA) national executive
