Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin

“I Hope That Every Young Girl Will See Herself as Great” – Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin

2021-02-24T09:00:51+00:00

By FDP

“I Hope That Every Young Girl Will See Herself as Great” – Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin“I hope that every young girl will see herself as great even before the greatness comes. It serves as a form of validation for my work. I hope this honour will help young girls know that whatever their backgrounds are, they should never determine the story”, Abisoye Ajayi- Akinfolarin stated in an interview with Guardian Woman.Abisoye Ajayi-Akinfolarin, the first Nigerian to emerge a CNN Hero is a social entrepreneur born on 19th May 1985. She is the founder of Pearls Africa Youth Foundation, a Non-Governmental Organisation aimed at educating young girls in under-served areas in Nigeria with technological skills. One of the initiatives of Pearls Africa is Girls Coding.Speaking in the interview, Abisoye said that while she was young, she knew she had to work really hard to succeed and that’s exactly what she did. She combined schooling with her business and an internship in an IT audit company due to the struggles she experienced. She said, “My mother passed on when I was four years and it caused a lot of hardships financially, physically and emotionally. So, my brother became my father even as he tried to survive in the university without support from anyone.”