article by Michael Fleming Jr. via deadline.com
In a remarkable pair of deals for a debut author who is just 23, Fox 2000 has just made a preemptive acquisition of Children of Blood and Bone, the first installment of a fantasy novel trilogy by Tomi Adeyemi that will spawn a trilogy.
Temple Hill’s Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey are producing with Karen Rosenfelt. Word is this deal landed at or near seven-figures, and so did a whopping publishing deal that just closed at Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group.
The novel is unusual in that the fantasy trilogies studios usually buy for big bucks are built around white characters. This one weaves in African culture and characters and mixes it with magic to create an intriguing mythology that is otherworldly but somehow familiar. It is being called a Black Lives Matter-inspired fantasy.
The protagonist is Zélie, who at six years old watched the king’s guards hang her mother on a tree outside her home. She never forgot it. In the beginning, every Orïshan was a magi: born with dark skin, stark white hair and the blessing of the god’s magic once they reached adulthood. Yet over time, their population dwindled and they became Orïsha’s minority. Magic became a thing to loathe, dark skin transformed into a thing to hate. Ten years after the raid that killed her mother and took away magic forever, Zélie Adebola has one chance to bring magic back. Through a fortuitous encounter with the Princess Amari, Zélie comes into possession of a sacred scroll necessary to restore a connection to the gods and secure magic for another hundred years. This sets the young women on a quest to end the senseless violence and oppression by the lighter-skinned royal class.
Danger lurks in this west-African inspired world, where lionnaires and cheetanaires roam, and the beautiful villages built over oceans, out of sand or forged in iron hide a dark underbelly of slavery and corruption. They find themselves pitted against a crown prince bent on wiping out magic for good.
Adeyemi is a Nigerian-American writer and creative writing coach based in San Diego, who graduated from Harvard before receiving a fellowship to study West African mythology and culture in Salvador, Brazil.
To read full article, go to: Fox 2000 Lands ‘Children Of Blood And Bone’ In Splashy Book Deal | Deadline
Posts tagged as “Nigeria”
article by Ricky Riley via atlantablackstar.com
Detroit-based engineer Muktar Onifade is using his skills working as an engineer to create a fashion line that celebrates West African culture.
The 26-year-old native Nigerian and General Motors calibration specialist said he was inspired to launch his line, VIZUVLGVDS (Visual Gods), after going to a fashion show featuring beautiful African styles. “To be Black now, you have to be fearless really,” Onifade says in a Thursday, Feb. 9 NBC Black profile. “There has to be this certain level of self-belief in what you can accomplish.”
Onifade saw an opportunity to make a line that could be worn anywhere and any time outside of special occasions and events. To put his plan into action, he took his first paycheck from working at GM and brought a sewing machine.
Since 2015, his VIZUVLGVDS line has featured two collections that showcase his meticulous engineering talents and his African cultural heritage.
To read more, go to: Engineer Uses First Paycheck to Start Fashion Line Celebrating African Culture – Atlanta Black Star
article by Fumnanya Agbugah via venturesafrica.com
Global children’s charity Theirworld and Oando Foundation, an independent charity organization, have partnered to empower Nigerian girls and young women. This initiative is geared towards providing them with a unique opportunity to learn important technology skills in a safe environment through an innovative pilot project known as Code Clubs.
“With a safe space to learn and play, a mentor to inspire, and access to technology to be able to explore, create, and code we can increase learning opportunities and empower girls to fulfill their potential,” said Sarah Brown, President of Theirworld.
Despite thousands of jobs being created in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) industries across Africa, gender discrimination, lack of access to education and technology have often kept girls out of the work force. This has also made it impossible to break the cycle of poverty.
As a result of the several issues affecting the development of women in Africa, Code Club Nigeria is set to be launched ahead of Africa Code Week in collaboration with the Oando Foundation.
What is the code club?
The Code Club’s are low-cost, sustainable and scalable safe spaces where girls can be empowered by learning to code, foster creative thinking and increase knowledge and skill-set for the future.
Over 600 girls aged six to twenty-five in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania will join the Code Clubs in its pilot phase with the aim of reaching thousands more with its self-sustaining model – where girls who have completed the course will return to mentor the next cohort of girls, with community support to augment the scalability of the project.
To read full article, go to: http://venturesafrica.com/oando-foundation-and-theirworld-partner-to-empower-nigerian-girls-and-young-women-through-ict/amp/
article by Hadassah Egbedi via venturesafrica.com
Adepeju Jaiyeoba is the founder and CEO of Mother’s Delivery Kit (MDK), a Lagos-based social enterprise established to promote and enhance safe births, instigate behavioral change and economically empower women in Nigeria.
Her enterprise supplies birthing kits to health centres, hospitals, traditional birth attendants as well as maternal and child health organisations across the country. Prior to the establishment of MDK, the death of a friend from birthing complications in 2011, inspired Jaiyeoba to set up a non-governmental, non-profit organisation called the Brown Button Foundation.
“Her death put a face on every maternal and child death statistic I had heard,” Jaiyeoba said on the loss of her friend. “She was educated and brilliant, and she sought out health care services during her pregnancy. Yet she became one of the 13 women who die daily during childbirth in Nigeria. The health care system had failed her and her unborn baby.”
Maternal and child mortality has always been an issue in developing countries around the world. Many pregnant women are exposed to several risks and complications because they lack easy access to healthcare facilities, skilled doctors, or even an ambulance or vehicle to transport them when in labour. This is why each year, reducing infant and maternal mortality is a major part of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in many countries.
To read more, go to: This lifesaving delivery kit designed by a Nigerian woman was inspired by the death of a friend – Ventures Africa
article by Frederick Ngugi via face2faceafrica.com
Hundreds of Tanzanian women are gaining financial independence by supplying renewable solar energy utensils to their friends and relatives in the rural areas.
With the help of Solar Sister, a social enterprise established to help women learn about sustainable energy and participate in its expansion, these women have become solar evangelists and entrepreneurs in their rural communities.
“We’re deliberately including women as part of the clean-energy chain and really changing the narrative from ‘oh, these poor women, they are victims’ to women as change agents,” Neha Misra, a co-founder of Solar Sister, told E&E News.
How Does It Work?
Currently operating in Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria, the Solar Sister project was established to empower African women with knowledge about the benefits of using clean energy. The project also provides rural women in Africa with an opportunity to earn a living by selling a catalog of solar energy and clean cooking stove equipment within communities that do not have access to electricity.
Solar Sister enables women to make a profit by negotiating with the manufacturer on their behalf as well as giving them continuous mentoring and training. Each product is tailored to specific needs of the intended consumer to guarantee quick sales.
Speaking to the Guardian on Saturday, Hilaria Paschal, a Solar Sister entrepreneur, said she has already sold solar products to more than 1,000 customers, earning her enough money to pay school fees for her children and to expand her basket weaving business.
Paschal is now mentoring other Tanzanian women keen on gaining economic freedom.
To read full article, go to: https://face2faceafrica.com/article/tanzanian-women-solar-technology
article by Breanna Edwards via theroot.com
When Michael Tertsea was 14, he was offered the opportunity to get an education and play basketball at the John Carroll School in Bel Air, Maryland. To pursue his dreams, he left his village in Nigeria and his mother, the Washington Post reports.
Four years later, the towering 6-foot-10 teen, who has received a full scholarship to play Division 1 basketball at the University of Rhode Island, was set for graduation and holding on to hopes of making it to the NBA so that he would be able to bring his mother to the United States.
As it turns out, Tertsea’s classmates were one step ahead of him. They had decided that his mom, Felicia Ikpum, should be here for his big day and raised money to fly her all the way to the U.S. to see her son, whom she hasn’t seen in four years, graduate.
According to the Post, the amazing gesture was meant to be a surprise, but Ikpum let the secret slip in one of her weekly phone calls with her son. However, Tertsea was still in awe when he finally got to see her arrive at the Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport on May 20 and give her a hug.
“I was so happy to see her,” Tertsea said. “I’ve changed a lot … she’s been amazed at the person I’ve become.”
The senior class had successfully pulled together some $1,600 for the trip, while a school coordinator worked with Ikpum to make sure she could get her visa on time. When it was finally confirmed, the school’s faculty put up another $500 to pay for the trip.
According to the Post, Ikpum had to travel some 12 hours to Lagos, Nigeria, to board her flight to London, from where she would then fly to Baltimore. It was Ikpum’s first time on an airplane.
Mother and son have been enjoying each other’s company since her arrival last week, the Post reports. Ikpum had pasta for the first time and is in awe of her son’s life in the U.S., from the paved highways to the computerized school her son attends. Tertsea plans to take her to Washington, D.C., to see the monuments and the White House before she returns to Nigeria next week. He also plans to take her to Ocean City, Md., to walk the boardwalk and see the beach, and even to Baltimore to see the National Aquarium.
Tertsea, according to the Post, is thankful for his friends for making his graduation so special. He said that the best part of his life in the U.S. is “seeing a lot of people who show love and care towards me.”
To read more and see video, go to: http://www.theroot.com/articles/news/2016/05/classmates-pay-for-teens-mom-to-fly-from-nigeria-to-baltimore-to-attend-his-graduation/?utm_content=buffera63eb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
article via eurweb.com
Back in 2007, a Nigerian businessman Taofick Okoya struck gold you could say when he founded the “Queens of Africa” doll line with the motto: “Empowering the African girl child.”
The “Queens of Africa” range of dolls highlight various African ethnicities, as well as a variety of African hairstyles (customers may opt for dolls rocking an afro, or alternatively one with braids or braid extensions), reports Forbes.
Okoya’s mission is to spread a message which enforces young black girls their self-esteem, allowing them from an early age to have role models they can relate to. This summer, Okoya and his posse of dolls will travel across several cities in the United States, to meet and greet American clients, while further expanding the Queens of Africa footprint.
‘I got into the doll business by chance. At that time my daughter was young, and I realized she was going through an identity crisis,’ Taofick tells me when I reach out to the Lagos-based founder over the phone. He further adds, ‘She wished she was white, and I was trying to figure out where that came from. I used to always buy her white dolls, and it never got to me that is was relevant which color her dolls were. On top of that, we have DSTV in Nigeria where children watch the Disney programs, and all her favorite characters were white. I started to understand why she’d feel the way she did, ‘cause it was all that she’d been exposed to,’ the Queens of Africa dolls creator explains.
The report goes on to say that even though the dolls’ body parts are manufactured in China, they are assembled in Nigeria. And here’s the good part. Taofick also empowers local communities of stay-at-home mothers, who make money off of braiding the dolls’ hair and creating outfits.
“It takes about three hours braiding the hair. One of these women has made 60,000 Naira (roughly $300) doing this.”
This summer Taofick will tour across New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C. and Houston, throughout the months of June and July. In April he already made a first stop in Atlanta, to meet with wholesale buyers and customers, as part of the Coming to America tour. At present the dolls are already available for order to the American audience via Amazon, in addition to the Queens of Africa online store. On top of that, the dolls are sold by a Senegal-based retailer, as well as e-tailers based in France and Australia. Ghana, South Africa and Brazil, are next on his list.
‘We’re planning on taking part in American toy fairs where we can meet with retailers. Our ultimate goal is to be sold by the major stores in the US. I personally believe it will be less difficult to sell the dolls in America, compared to Nigeria. In Nigeria the doll culture is still being developed, so it’s easier to sell within a market that is already there, as opposed to having to create that market.’
You can get the FULL story at Forbes.
Buy/See the dolls at Amazon.
article by Sarah Donaldson James via nbcnews.com
All eight Ivy League schools — Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, University of Pennsylvania — have offered Long Island, New York high school senior Augusta Uwamanzu-Nna places in their freshman class.
In addition to the Ivies, she was accepted by Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, New York University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Augusta is valedictorian at Elmont Memorial High School, where she has a 101.64 weighted grade point average. The school is no stranger to academic superstars: Last year, senior Harold Ekeh scored the same number of Ivy acceptances.
“I am elated, but most importantly, I am thankful,” Augusta, 17, told school officials at Sewanhaka Central High School District.
Augusta’s older brother Johnson told NBC News that Augusta’s “initiative and perseverance,” as well as the family’s emphasis on learning, were responsible for his sister’s success. And the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as both their Nigerian-born parents are college-educated, and her father has a master’s and doctorate from the University of Indianapolis.
“Education is very paramount in our family,” said her brother, who also made his way to the Ivies. He is a freshman at Cornell University, studying biological engineering.
Tobias and Basillia Nna immigrated to the United States in 1994 and settled first in Indiana then New York City. They moved to Elmont in 2000. Their father has worked for various companies as a physical therapist. All four of their children were born in this country. “Augusta’s school days start from 7 in the morning until around 8 at night,” said Uwamanzu-Nna. “Not to mention all of the homework assignments, scholarship and other miscellaneous things she gets done.”
He said that while his sister was co-founder of her own tutoring service, she also works at another tutoring center on Saturdays.
“I am humbled by all of the college acceptance letters that I recently received,” Augusta says on her high school website. “I am reminded that I have a responsibility to be a role model for others and use my experiences to encourage and inspire others, especially young women.”
To read more, go to: http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/college-game-plan/long-island-high-school-student-accepted-all-eight-ivies-n551901?cid=sm_tw&hootPostID=9c3ca1968651804b658563b28ec6dd2c
article by Hadassah Egbedi via venturesafrica.com
Besides passion, a common reason often given by entrepreneurs when asked why, or how they started their businesses often entails discovering a gap in the market, which is often in the process of trying to solve a problem of their own. The background story of Funlayo Alabi, CEO of Shea Radiance, is not any different.
Mrs Alabi currently runs a multi-million dollar skin care company from her kitchen, one she started by chance. Her son was suffering from severe eczema, so she sought a more natural alternative to deal with it. “We had him on steroids. I thought to myself, “This boy is going to live on steroids if I don’t find a more natural alternative,” she told Inc. Alabi who hadn’t been a fan of shea butter as a kid, reluctantly called her mother and asked her to bring some on her next visit to the States.
Found in the tropics of Africa, and only recently discovered by the West, the benefits of Shea Butter have been known to Africans for centuries as it has been used through generations. In Nigeria, it is not uncommon to have someone prescribe the multi-purpose butter which contains unique healing properties to you if you have any skin or hair issues. The site africansheabutter.org provides a long list of conditions shea acts a remedy for including dry skin, rash, blemishes, wrinkles, sunburn, chest cold, and dermatitis.
“I really do believe that a jar of cream is not just a jar of cream. It can change the world.”- Funlayo Alabi
Once Alabi put the shea to use, her son’s skin got better and felt better, plus it had a “beautiful, warm glow.” The woman soon realized the value of what she had on her hands and the largely untapped market that exists. This was about seven years in 2008. So she got right to work, mixing and making shea butter lotions and shampoos in her kitchen. “I have always had a business mind and knew that we could develop high-quality shea butter products and sell them.” Thus, her company, Shea Radiance, was born in Ellicott City, Maryland.
article via thenerveafrica.com
The Africa rising narrative has been called into question several times. It was called a myth by former deputy governor of Nigeria’s central bank, Kingsley Moghalu and Tanzanian millionaire Ali Mufuruki called it false.
Although the old clichés of Africa being a continent where war and poverty reign with pestilence have not completely changed as several parts of the continent still grapple with poverty, as well as war and terror, but the continent has one thing going for it, which makes the hopeful ‘Africa rising’ narrative bold enough to hold on to; its people.
Even if Africa is not rising as claimed by Mufuruki, Africans are rising and are impacting the continent and the world at large. Their lives inspire other Africans to follow their dreams and they are moving Africa closer to the future we all hope for, one step at a time.
Patrick Njoroge
When Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta appointed Patrick Njoroge as central bank governor, he was relatively unknown, so the president was criticized over his choice. But getting to know Njoroge changed everything. What struck Kenyans was not his PhD in Economics. It was also not his years of experience working for global lender International Monetary Fund (IMF). What was captivating for most Kenyans was his modest lifestyle. Who rejects the perks of public office? Patrick Njoroge said no to three official cars and a palatial apartment.
It is just six months into his reign as central bank governor but the impact of his ingenuity is already being felt. He brought inflation under control in his first month and helped stabilise the shilling. Banks in Kenya know he is not going to overlook any incontinence and flouting of the law. Two banks have been hammered already. He is not the typical African public office holder. He made Africa proud in 2015.
Akinwumi Adesina
Adesina’s story is a story of sheer determination to succeed. Born to a farmer in southwestern Nigerian State, Ogun, he didn’t quite leave the path he knew from infancy; agriculture was everything. But he would not be the type of farmer his father was, he wanted more and Agricultural Economics seemed perfect. He stayed true to his dream and saw it through.