New Telegraph

Towards Empowering Young Ladies To Embrace Their Potentials

It is important to celebrate the courage and confidence that women display when they embrace their own power. Despite being judged and despite societal pressures, confident women embrace their power by making the personal and professional choices they want and by not letting society guilt them into apologising for those very choices.

It is in the light of encouraging young ladies to embrace their womanhood that D’Ella Empowers was established. According to the founder, Imo Emmanuella, D’Ella Empowers is a platform that encourages and empowers young ladies through skills to embrace their strength as women.

Cyprus

On what informed the decision of establishing D’Ella Empower, Emmanuella who is also the president, Nigerian Students of Cyprus International University said: “D’Ella empower is a little part of a vision I had since I was a little girl.

I have always wanted to impact little ones around me, mostly ladies and as I grew. The thirst for this grew stronger. Actually, I was working on setting up a non-governmental organisation (NGO) but the time it was taking was too long; ladies were wasting their talents.

So I decided to start writing, to inform, to encourage and to inspire young ladies like me out there. The message is empowering young ladies through skills and encouraging them to embrace their womanhood.

“I won’t say that D’Ella Empower is a charity organisation but then, other organisations fight for the girl child. We encourage the young ladies to embrace their strength as a woman and stand out.” She said her background had influenced who she is now.

“My background influenced who I am now a great deal: I am a daughter of a missionary. My dad is the founder of TOM (Teenagers’ Outreach Ministry). The little time I have been around attending TOM camps, and TOM clubs has really influenced me. I didn’t want to admit it when I was quite young but now, I am proud to be a TOMite and the daughter of a man of God.”

Foundation

Emmanuella is an excellent nonprofit communicator and result-oriented strategist with proven expertise in non-profit communications, brand management, content creation, digital marketing, and copywriting.

She currently serves as the country director for NOB Foundation Nigeria where she successfully launched the organisation’s maiden brand ambassadorship programme and registered over 500 sickle cell warriors in their database.

Emmanuella is passionate about volunteering and has rendered her services to over 10 organisations including serving as the Director of Communications for Health Volunteers Nigeria Initiative.

She is also the Founder and CEO of Ellah Communications, a full-service digital marketing agency that helps non-profits build and grow their organisations, using digital media and communications.

She has worked with a host of other organisations helping them with branding, marketing and communications at different times.

Emmanuella is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Cyprus where she majored in communications. While non-profit communications consulting is her primary job function by the day, she also enjoys mentoring young ladies.

President

On how she was elected as the president of Nigerian Students at the Cyprus International University she said: “I have been in the corporate sector for about five years working with a lot of non-profits across Africa but having lived in Cyprus for six years now, I noticed a huge gap and I decided to use my experience and expertise to make a difference in the Nigerian community of Cyprus International University.

“This was my first time having to be fully involved in politics at this level and so I had a lot to learn and I really learnt so much on the field. We had an aggressive campaign leveraging all tools at our disposal.

“One thing that came very handy during my campaign was my already established public speaking skills and boldness. This made me stand out from other candidates.

In addition, I carefully thought about problems plaguing the community and selected realistic and creative solutions to solve them. These possible solutions were the reasons students were interested in what I had to say and why they gave me their votes.”

About Ellah Communications, she said: “It is a full-service digital media agency helping non-profit, social impact and faith based organisations to build and grow their organisations, using digital media and communications.

“Ellah Communications started April 14, 2020, out of the desire to help non-profit organisations gain visibility and more resources for the work they do through communications and media.

I had run two non-profits and I quit as a result of many things some of which include: access to funding, resources and visibility for the work I did. During my self-imposed break, I went on to pursue a masters’ degree programme in communications and media studies.

This really broadened my perspective and helped me see how I could help other non-profit organisations that were going through what I suffered in the past.”

Changing lives

Speaking on how her work is changing lives, Ella said: “Ellah Communications has over the course of two years trained 300+ non-profit organisations and worked with over 20 organisations in different capacities ranging from online media management, branding and design, outreach event planning, communication and marketing, amongst others.

“We have indirectly changed the lives of people by helping organisations spread the word about the work they do, thereby accessing the resources to help their beneficiaries across Africa.

In addition, through our work, we have helped organisations like NOB Foundation access and register over 500 sickle cell warriors in Nigeria in addition to successfully launching the maiden ambassadorship programme where we signed up four brand ambassadors to help push the work to more communities.”

She gave some tips on how NGOs can leverage social media as “if you are you looking to see what the future of non-profits will look like when they start using social media here are some of the ways that social media can be profitable for non-profits: have a Social Media Strategy; a strategy is a very first thing you should have before you consider doing anything on social media.

You need a social media strategy and a content strategy. What this helps you do is determine the different strategies to use for advertising your programmes, showcasing your organisation and appealing to the r i g h t audie n c e .

If you h a v e n o t started working with one, the right time is now. Decide on the goal you want to achieve and plot a plan to achieve that using content and your platforms.

“Secondly, build a connection: you are looking for a way to attract new volunteers to support the activities of your non-profit. However, you may have been doing the wrong thing all this while if you haven’t built a connection.

Take the time to see if the different strategies you have been using all along have helped intimate the target audience of your goals. If it hasn’t, it is time to start working towards that.

The rule of thumb is that social media provides you with a wider platform to intimate people about your non-profit’s projects, goals, and relevant activities. Create content that resonates with your audience and build trust and confidence in your organisation using content marketing.

“Others are by getting your volunteers to give their own view on certain happenings during events, use videos and pictures to drive engagement to your stories and you will attract people to your organisation and collaboration.

“The most cost-effective way to stand out on social media as a nonprofit is to create quality content. There is definitely a lot more work that needs to be done with social media, especially for non-profit organisations.

However, I believe these steps are a great way to start leveraging social media and harness its power for your organisation,” she added.

Creative people

She lamented that the Nigerian government has not done enough for creative people. “Our government hasn’t done enough.

They have not been responsible because there are youths with potential that are yet to be seen but they are not given a platform to be seen or heard and I think that’s poor.”

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