Author: Juliet Iwelunmor, PhD
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Keep these STARS!
Our NIAID-funded STARS summer program began yesterday, with many new faces wondering what it’s like to become STARS. We shared our stories, we gave them a bit of context and opened up the door on what it means to be STARS. Today, we sat through a masterclass on the landscape of HIV research in the…
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Keep the depths of rain and Stars!
When rain falls, dreams go up. But memories still linger in all places. Dreams too, when you touch rain. We are closing out Cohort 1 of our STARS scholars program, closing out what can only be described as as a year full of hopes and impediments. Yet, we are here and perhaps this was the…
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Keep the lessons of cicadas!
We saw the limits of everything, for cicadas, saw them delicate like old skin, shedding their innermost being. They would give anything, it seems, as they suckle on the trunk of trees, to live. Now I see why rest, even if for 13 years, is the beginning of everything. I pray nothing, not even the…
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Keep blessing the boats or what I call Onyelo!
I see the tide clearly. I know the edge of understanding too. Both have carried me out, beyond fear, through right paths and in a darkness so deep. We have been kissed, like a morning star and the wind has turned. We find ourselves near pools of fresh water. We are certain that water loves…
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Keep motherhood as a site of resistance!
These thoughts came to me this evening. They are unfolding but for now, happen you tell the dreams that outlive you. Those that cause your blood to surge, those that form countries of their own. Motherhood is like a country, with powerful roots that take shape on their own, discovering the point of light, the…
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Keep Mother’s Day with those who paved the way!
I remember sometimes, the moment it began, on an avenue in Paris, rue Garibaldi, I believe, next to metro 6 line, a laboratory, all next to UNESCO, the place I once called work. The announcement was swift against a former life slowly dissolving. You are with child, in French, was all I heard, with new…
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Keep the beginning of Nnem&Nnem at Korede house (or why motherhood matters)!
The second paper I authored as I began my academic journey highlighted the need to focus on the role of mothers with health. It’s the first paper that centers the primacy of mothers for health and life. It’s also began my journey into understanding the full spectrum of mothers, how we are not only birth…
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Keep dream, like flowers, like grants that begin again!
We are writing grants again. We began on Monday to prep for what maybe the start of a journey toward returning home. For the past 15 years all my grants have been global, focused on my birth country Nigeria. Lately, and because home is really Saint Louis, really the US, as I have spent most…
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Keep the love for writing with children!
My daughter writes. Not things simple, like “How are you,” but things complex like “I am well and I hope the same for you given these moments we find ourselves in.” Everything she writes is like an epiphany of sorts, of what can happen when you teach the love for writing early. Each sentence, each…
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Keep listening and learning from communities!
I have been thinking lately about how we listen and learn from communities. Couple of weeks ago, I was in a room full of experts who noted that young people as a group do not have the right to speak for themselves about things that matter to them like their health. Imagine, in 2024, we…
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Keep listening and learning from young people!
Young people do not need adult-centric rules. They need you to see them in all their diversity. To listen and learn from them to. Not as afterthought. Not with limited voices. But with wisdom and grace for the lives they lead. I have always known young people to be creative, resourceful, with informed ideas that…
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Keep all ways you close a door!
Do not lose sight of those who dream, those who begin, next to coconut trees they drink at their will. Pain they already know, joy they know too, yet still they begin even if with their dreams again. Some mornings they will begin with a dance, those full of pride for the day, those in…
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Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 