For the first time ever in Nigeria’s history, about 120 Royal Queens converged at the Ile Oduduwa, the Palace of the Ooni of Ife, Osun State on March 30, 2023 to commemorate the Black Women’s History Month.
The conference, organised by Olori Ronke Ademiluyi-Ogunwusi and Olori Janet Afolabi, under the Queen Moremi Ajasoro Initiative and Olori Janet Afolabi Foundation.
The conference titled “The Impact of Oloris (Royal Queens) In National Development” examined how impactful the Queens have been in their Kingdoms.
In her welcome speech, Olori Ronke Ogunwusi who is also the founder of Africa Fashion Week London and Nigeria Week and CEO of Adire Textile hub said, “Today for the first time in history we are coming together to see how we can all work together on different projects to impact our communities.
She invited the Queen to take advantage of the Adire training which is free and she has trained over 500 women and youths.
Olori Janet Afolabi in her keynote address said there are so many challenges in our communities today. “Our husbands, the Kings, are in the forefront of solving those problems. But we should also rise up and support them.”
She encouraged the Queens to identify the problems in the domains, do a problem analysis and then strategise on how to solve them,” Olori Janet said, adding that if Queen’s make an impact with their projects in the communities, such impacts can be replicated at the national level.
“Encourage the Queens to start small”, Olori Janet said, noting that nothing is too small for them to start with.
Narrating how she personally teaches English Language for free and also feeds the students with snacks, Olori Janet said she started with 10 students. “Today I have over 150 students. I also empowered some set of traders with N20,000 each and asked them to pay back 5000 Naira monthly so we can give the money to others. Traders none of them defaulted. They all paid the loan back and on time too”.
This means that you do not need huge amounts of money to impact people.
Wife of Osun State Governor, Erelu Ngozi Adeleke was the Special Guest of Honour.
In her goodwill remarks, Mrs Adeleke commended Olori Ronke Ogunwusi and Olori Janet Afolabi for organising the event.
She said she was committed to supporting and empowering women to develop Osun state. ‘I am ready to collaborate with you whenever you need me,” she concluded.
