The Huffington Post – Dr. Ayoade Olatunbosun-Alakija
“”There is no more valuable investment than in a girl’s education,” says Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, and I most certainly agree. In fact, I consider inadequate education, especially for girls, to be the HIV/AIDS of the current era and call for an equivalent international effort to eradicating this scourge. Like many women today, I wear several different hats. I was the African girl child and now am an African woman, mother to the African girl child whose plight and potential I consider my own. I am biological mother to Danielle Remilekun Alakija, an African girl child who achieved the feat of being the youngest Olympian at the London 2012 summer Olympics, but I am also “mama” to 11-year-old Rukuyatu Adamu of Kebbi State in Nigeria, whose dream is to be a doctor like her mama Yodi. She currently sleeps in a classroom at Bishop Memorial School in Lagos, where her father is a security guard, and she is in danger of being forced into an early marriage as a result of systemic poverty. I am also “mama” to Afisat Lamilu, a current resident in the Daloli IDP camp in Borno, who wants to be a minister when she grows up.”(more)