HERE IS TO WHO LET ME KNOW I COULD.
When I was in junior college, my twin sister Hassana and I became suddenly interested with sports. With infantile practices and will to be better, we were enlisted into the school basketball team. No competitions happened without us in the team, life became very interesting and fun. We got stippends for these participations, made new friends and somewhat became famous in the school.
Our expliots got to the wind of our parents and all hell was let loose. They felt girls had no business with sports moreso as muslims, we had no reason to be seen on the court . mum threatened us never to be seen engaged in any form of sports as the society may see us wayward ,irresponsible and ill-mannered.
Trust African mothers now,' Hassana, Husseina if I see you near the stadium one more time, you park your belongings and leave my house'. She would thunderd. We were in a fixed and at the verge of losing our happiness.
We had a plan. We wrote a letter to Daddy and Mummy detailing how we love the game, what we planned on doing and how joining this game had made us happy. The letter didn't work.
We had another plan! Since their fear is our academic failure, let's prove them wrong I said to my sister Hassana. We met them and reached a final consensus. We will only be allowed back to do sports if we are able to bring home 1st and second positions in our class.
We did as we were told, it wasn't a punishment anymore after two terms(semester). We were actually enjoying it, topping the class. This habit followed us into the university and became very consistent in all our academic areas. My twin, Hassana became the Ahmadu Bello University female basketball captain, we made it to the top group of the Nigeria female basketball team who won the gold medal in the "Nigerian University Games Association, NUGA", and we both still studying engineering (2013).
On the phone with us one day(of course we used one phone) Mummy said "you girls are our pride, don't stop at just academics, make us proud in every aspects of your lives, you are really doing well", she said our development made her proud. That was what we were waiting for, mummy's endorsement. We got motivated more and intensfied more efforts in our studies. With tact ,we recruited our parents into buying into our aspirations thus halting what would have become a feud between us and our parents. We got their supports and needed encouragement and so did our happiness achieved.
I'm grateful for my mama for all that I'm today. That motivated me to create an online group (the M & B show) with over a thousand members and are still counting to let the young ones know that, the person with big dreams is more powerful than the person who wait for things to happen by chance.
As a young changemaker, I promise to replicate my experinces in my community.