My name is Fola Folayan.
I am a media enterprenuer who trained and worked as a broadcast journalist for many years. Right now, I am most passionate about creating media platforms for media professionals and providing opportunities for such professionals to further their careers through media training and internship opportunities.
At the moment, I work as a digital media content editor and journalist and much of my wok involves curating news content and managing a team of journalists. I engage audiences on various digital platforms using video, audio and text. In my position as a broadcast trainer, I help organize workshops for broadcasters and manage a team of fellow trainers
I am also quite passionate about gender issues and I try to center gender advocacy in my work by promoting causes that address women’s rights and promote women’s voices. I enjoy creating digital media content and in my spare time, I love to travel and experience cultures across Africa.
I didn’t stumble into my career choice. It was deliberate. Despite the fact that I had other interests while growing up; at some point, I even wanted to be a singer and an actor (lol) but from my very first day in class as a mass communication undergraduate; I knew this was what I wanted.
I loved the media and I wanted to be part of it. I however didn’t discover my purpose for it until years later. The older I got and the more people who have done this before inspire me, the more I realize that I have been placed in a unique position to change people’s lives. Every other thing I have done since then have been with that in view; changing lives.
When I think about my life and what I do right now, I believe that i am a summation of my life’s experiences. My childhood was not exactly idyllic.
I grew up in a low income neighborhood, raised by a single mom and my grandmother. I never met my father and I didn’t realize how much this impacted me and how I viewed the world and human relationships until I grew older.
From my mother I learned resilience, I learned how to put a brave face on and soldier through disappointment and pain. I have to say it hasn’t exactly been all easy, but there are times that tough bravado has saved me from breaking down.
When I graduated from the university and trying to cut my teeth in the media industry, I went through a rough patch. I couldn’t find a paying job for more than a year. I lived in a crappy one room in the worst part of town and had no electricity and couldn’t afford a generator to turn the lights on either.
I took on a non-paying internship at a radio station because I couldn’t let my dreams die. I look back on that season and i see how my mother’s toughness got me through it. Days I had to borrow money to get to the radio station, borrow money to eat, days when I survived on roadside fried yam because I didn’t have enough to cook. The only paying gigs I got were voice-over jobs that paid N5000.
It was a season of learning too. Professionally, that was invaluable. I became a ‘studio rat’; learned audio production, learned how to DJ, because a better presenter in record time.
Eventually, I got bumped up from an unpaid intern to a ‘volunteer’ and that meant a monthly stipend to cover basic transport expenses.
Having lived the life of an unpaid intern has also taught me the value of internships and learning experiences and I think it has largely contributed to what I love most about what I do now; which is connecting people and creating opportunities for them to achieve their dreams.
When I think about professional growth, I am grateful for some of the teachers I have had and seniors who took a chance on me and gave me opportunities.
Along the way, I made some mistakes, chief among them was not believing in myself as much as I should and wasting time pursuing emotional validation. Even though the mistakes came with valuable lessons and teachable moments, I still feel like I would have grown faster and maybe achieved more by this time if I hadn’t been distracted.
My passion for the protection of women and girls are not just because I live as a woman in a society that is largely sexist and misogynistic, but because I have experienced what it means to be denied access, opportunities and even physically harmed because of your gender.
I am ecstatic when women and girls win because I believe if one of us win, it strengthens our hope that we all can win.
I have been inspired by a lot of women; first of which is my mother and then Hope Azeda, who is such an embodiment of love, grace and hope that sometimes I wonder if she’s human at all. From her, I am learning how to build not for me, but for the world and generations to come, I am learning how to build in love and how to make my life be a channel of healing.
I am also inspired by Oprah Winfrey (lool) I have never met her and maybe never do (who knows) but her life and her work is such an inspiration. From her, I am learning to not the media use me, but to use the media as MY platform to cause positive change and to have meaningful conversations about what makes all of us human.
If I were to share one of the most important lessons of my life, I’ll say listen to yourself first and trust your own instincts and whatever you choose to do, make it matter. Be driven by purpose and be driven by love.