Tag: grants
-
Keep all your scars with ending cervical cancer!
I want to thank Angie for the vigor of her life. Everyday she lived, every moment she walked through the rims of this earth, even how she endured the end and continues to live, is the reason why I hold on to dreams, why I take ending cervical cancer so seriously. For many who came…
Written by
·
-
Keep naming your dreams!
In the middle of the chaos that was unfolding in the country yesterday, my team and I submitted a grant called Dreams. We had two choices. We could either go down the rabbit hole of what was unfolding yesterday or we could dream, stellar dreams of building communities that matter. We choose to build communities…
Written by
·
-
Keep moments where you begin again!
Yesterday I returned home after being away for a week. The past one month, I have been on a rollercoaster ride of my own doing, that slowly came to a halt yesterday in the middle of the Atlantic, somewhere on the journey from Amsterdam to Detroit. I took the time to reflect on what can…
Written by
·
-
Keep writing grants like the high point of life or dreams!
We begin again, only this time with a new team. Held a grant-writing workshop that lasted for 5-days last May. It was a first of its kind where only writing each day was allowed. Five of us made an attempt to write. We did and ended up with a single page. Crossed the box of…
Written by
·
-
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…
Written by
·
-
Keep knowing your worth!
It’s been 7 months of working in a new and supportive space and the key lessons from my 3 month mark remain the same: 1) Know your worth; 2) Dream about your worth even if for yourself alone: 3) Speak eloquently and proudly about your worth; 4) Leave any space and people who do not…
Written by
·
-
Keep grants as survival
Imagine being on the shoreline, crucial and alone. Imagine doing so to open a world rigidly closed. Imagine instigating unlearning, as you stimulate learning with words turned radical in the practice for freedom. The past one year I have been on a journey that I never could have imagined for myself. Two years ago, I…
Written by
·
-
Keep flying!
‘Won’t you celebrate with me.’ These opening line to Lucille Clifton’s poem is my mood for the year. Today is my first team meeting too. I like to take my time to usher in the New Year. Somethings take time. So I begin this year with my team, asking them to celebrate all our wins.…
Written by
·
-
Keep 4 girls and women with ending cervical cancer!
Each day, nearly 28 women die from cervical cancer in Nigeria. Angela Akumuo, my sister-in law, was one of them in the summer of 2021. She was 53 years old. Her death, like those of many women who continue to die from cervical cancer in Nigeria and globally, could have been prevented. It was also…
Written by
·
-
Keep dreams!
I have always loved Langston Hughes poem, ‘Dreams.’ They personify my mood these days. My story is one of dreams. I shared that during a presentation yesterday at NYU. I have this presentation where I go from dreams to ambition to dips and rising and back to dreams. It’s my take on the programmatic focus…
Written by
·
-
Keep grants as stories with lessons from Lorraine Hansberry!
Of what use are grants? If you think about this deeply, you will discover that it’s use are infinite. Of course some use it for their research. Some to propel their careers. I have always believed they can be used to tell stories. I remember the very first grant I wrote over 14 years ago.…
Written by
·
-
Keep embracing failure!
Writing grants has taught me how to fail 30 times. I look forward to the 31st time. Counting failures is something I do now. Something I embrace too. The hurdles or the joy. The writing. The waiting. The bearing witness to, how things we believe in crumble, for lack of funding. And I have believed…
Written by
·
Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor 