| | | | | | | | | Hello! Welcome to The Juice: IWD edition. This year's International Women's Day theme is "Give to Gain." According to the United Nations (yes, they're the ones who set the theme), it's about generosity, collaboration, and shared progress. | Anyways, before the banks, brands, and corporations roll out their annual "empowerment" campaigns, we wanted to celebrate women in our own way, intentionally, thoughtfully, and without the stock photos. | Our campaign is called In Her Name, and once a week, we'll be in your inbox (no spam, promise). | All month long, we're spotlighting women who are breaking ceilings in male-dominated industries and everyday women who are the first in their families to step into transformative spaces. The quiet disruptors. The lineage shifters. The ones rewriting what's possible. | But more than anything, this is about celebrating all the women reading this. | Consider this a call-out if you'd like to be featured. Or if you know a woman whose story deserves to be told. No age limits, no segregations, nothing. All you need to do is reply to this email or send a message here. Enjoy reading! | -Shalom, Lead Editor. |
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| | | | | | | | Amarachi Uche is the First in Her Bloodline to Evade Child Marriage | "I'm no longer your mother," Amarachi Uche's mother said, her words pouring over Uche like molten lava after she rejected a marriage proposal at 18. As an Igbo daughter raised within a lineage where early marriage was tradition, not exception, Uche's refusal put a crack in the family's foundation. | Before her refusal, her family had maintained a teen marriage streak; her decision to break that streak "threatened" her family's ideals. | Uche never saw herself as the chosen one; the one to end teen marriages in her bloodline. There were no prophecies spoken over her birth, no omen in the sky. | She stands at the intersection of what feminism has fought to make possible: the right to bodily autonomy and what society still resists granting freely. | It is in that tension her story lives. We spoke to her because she dared to imagine a different future for herself, mapped out a life for herself, by herself. | In this conversation, Uche reflects on the pressure, the fallout, and the unexpected ripple effect of choosing differently. | One of the first-in-your-bloodline feats you achieved is deciding not to settle down. Did you always know it would be you? | I did not just outrightly say, "Oh, I don't want to marry." I was getting forced to marry in my teens, like 18, 19-ish, and I was not having it. That was when all this happened. | So it's not like I always knew I was going to be the first person to say I don't want to get married. It just wasn't something I felt I wanted to do at the time. Even now, I still don't feel like I want to do it. It wasn't some long-term rebellion plan. The time came, and I just knew. | | Growing up, what did the women before you teach you, intentionally or unintentionally, about what was possible? | The women before me taught me to be hard-working, very hard-working at that. Work was important. Being responsible was important. | But everything always boiled down to preparing for a husband. You need to learn this so you can do it for your husband. You need to know how to do that so you'll be a good wife. So yes, there was ambition, but it was framed around marriage. Work was part of it, but marriage was the destination. | What resistance, be it subtle or loud, did you face when you chose this path? | It wasn't subtle at all. It was loud. | I was disowned for a couple of months. My mum did not talk to me. My family did not talk to me, especially my mum. For about three months, she said she was no longer my mother. She told me to move out of the house. She said she wouldn't pay my school fees or support me in any way. She wouldn't even answer me when I spoke. | There were family meetings. There were deliverances. There were trips to the mountain to pray away the "spiritual husband" that was supposedly making me say I didn't want to get married. It was one of the loudest forms of resistance I've ever faced. | Was there a moment you realised you weren't just doing this for yourself but for the women coming after you? What did that feel like? | I don't think there was a moment I realized it immediately. It was much later. | My younger sister told me that because of me, she no longer has to face marital pressures. She said she's proud and happy that now nobody is forcing her to get married. That was when it clicked a bit. | But I don't think I set out to do it for anyone else. Everyone has their own path. I'm just glad that at least one of my sisters feels freer because of my decision. | If a girl in your family is watching you right now, what do you hope she learns from your journey? | I don't know what any younger family member aims to achieve, because everyone has their own journey. But I hope she learns that she can choose for herself. | I didn't plan to be the first. I just listened to myself when the time came. If anything, I hope she knows that it's okay to do that, too. | Amarachi Uche is the first woman to be spotlighted in our First in Her Bloodline segment. If you would like to be featured, reply now to this email or click this link. |
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| | | | | | | | | | Behind Every Success Story Is a Woman. For Mavin Global, It's Rima Tahini-Ighodaro | Rema, Ayra Starr, these are names anyone who grazes Afrobeats quickly becomes familiar with. But the name Rima Tahini-Ighodaro might not come up immediately. | As with many behind-the-scenes roles in media, Tahini-Ighodaro occupies a position that doesn't always put her in the spotlight, yet is strategic to the breakout of these stars flying the Afrobeats banner on the global stage. | Rima Tahini-Ighodaro serves as Mavin Global's Senior VP of A&R and Creatives. | Before this role, she worked as a Senior Associate at Kupanda Capital, a venture capital firm focused on incubating, capitalising, and scaling pan-African companies. | When she joined Kupanda, the firm was exploring investments in African media and entertainment at a defining moment. In 2017, she relocated to Lagos to help lead Kupanda Holdings' multi-million-dollar investment in Mavin Global. | It was this deal that allowed her to build strong relationships with Don Jazzy, the CEO of Mavin Global; Tega Oghenejobo, the COO; and the label's artistes. | Although she was initially brought in to handle due diligence on the transaction between Kupanda and Mavin Global, she soon found herself drawn to the creative side of the business, eager to play a more hands-on role in shaping artists' careers. | Later that year, when the Director of A&R position opened up, Don Jazzy and Oghenejobo saw her as a natural fit, largely because of her empathy and her ability to navigate a wide range of personalities. | At Mavin Global, Tahini-Ighodaro was instrumental in the rise of Rema and Ayra Starr, shaping their journeys with an empathy-first lens. | Through Mavin Academy's two-year development model, she nurtures emerging talent. In a male-dominated Afrobeats industry, she represents a new guard of women powerfully redefining leadership and possibility. | This International Women's Day, we are spotlighting her not just for the global stars linked to her name, but for the power she wields behind the scenes. |
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| | | | | Sixteen Jail Terms Couldn't Silence Hajia Gambo Sawaba | Before she turned 20, Hajia Gambo Sawaba had already become a marked woman. | For daring to demand political inclusion for Northern Nigerian women and challenge the conservative establishment of her time, she was arrested and jailed repeatedly, a total of 16 times over the course of her activism. | Prison did not silence her; if anything, it sharpened her resolve. Each detention became proof of how threatening her voice was to the status quo, and how determined she was to keep speaking anyway. |
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| | | | | | | | | Who is the woman who changed your life? | |
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| | That's all we have for you today. We hope that you feel inspired to share your story with us. If you prefer, we promise to keep you anonymous. See you next Monday, have a great week! | - Shalom. | | Today's email was brought to you by Praise Okeoghene Vandeh and Shalom Tewobola. | Editing by: Shalom Tewobola | Designs by: Daniel Banjoko | Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here. | Have a story or product that needs to be seen? Submit here. |
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