Interview: Enactus helped me become a part of the change my society needs — Oluwadamilola Akintewe

Education goes beyond what you can learn within the four walls of the classroom, in lieu of that I engaged the team lead of Enactus AAUA in an exclusive interview, one of the not so much leading teams on AAUA campus with numerous achievements and life-changing community-based projects. Miss Oluwadmilola shared how Enactus has made her the change she wished to see in the world.

Enjoy the interview.

Briefly introduce yourself and tell us what you do.

I am Oluwadamilola Akintewe, a law student, feminist activist and social entrepreneur. I am also the Team Lead of Enactus, Adekunle Ajasin University, a global community of students, business leaders and professionals who come together to leverage on the power of entrepreneurial actions to create a better world.
My social work is focused on gender equality, providing access to loans for rural dwelling female entrepreneurs, facilitating career mentorship and skills acquisition for young secondary school girls, highlighting and amplifying female voices on topics deemed a taboo via my blog, Forbidden Topics to inspire sustainable change.

Can you tell us about your family and educational background?
I’m the 5th of six children and currently studying law at undergraduate level.

How and why did you join Enactus?
I joined Enactus in 2018. I had just returned from World Innovation Summit for Education, a global conference and someone told me to join Enactus upon resumption to school. The person was the former Enactus Faculty Advisor.
I joined the organisation because I wanted a place where I can learn things I will never get in a classroom and widen my horizon. Enactus is in 36 countries and being a part of that network allow students to connect with their counterparts from numerous countries, learn and achieve global citizenship.
Enactus also helped be to become a part of the change my society needs. In the team, we run community based projects to impact lives and our recent project, Rebirth, is focused on training women across 6 Akoko communities in sewing and entrepreneurial skills and also giving them loans to start their businesses.
By this, we contribute to gender equality and economic advancement of woman which is a very prominent issue to be addressed.

How did you become the leader of Enactus?
Enactus leadership is a process where fellow Enactus students nominate the person they feel has the capabilities to lead the team. The person(s) with the highest nominations are screened and chosen to lead the team for a period of one year.
I had served as a presentation director and project head before being selected as the team lead making me the first female to hold that position in the team’s 16 years of existence and that’s a huge honour. To the glory of God, during my tenure, the teamwon $5000 for projects implementation and finished as semi finalists in the prestigious Enactus Nigeria national competition.

What are your achievements so far?
My work as a feminist activist has accorded me several national and global opportunities. I was selected as a 2020 Ford Community Impact Fellow sponsored by Ford Motor Fund with other 15 young leaders across 8 countries.
I am one of the 20 selected participants for the Global Solvers Co-Lab: 13-5-3 UN-limited by Melton Foundation and Ernst-Abbe-Stiftung and Efrut University in Germany and the youngest in the “top 100 women creating change in Africa” list by We For Good International. I’m an alternate fellow of Hansen Leadership Institute 2020 in San Diego, a top 10 participant of Miss Career Africa 2020 and hailed by Sesewa as a “Next Generation Female CEO”.

What are the challenges faced so far?
Internet access, majorly. Especially with everything going online due to COVID.

How can you rate your co-working relationship with your members?
I’ll say 7/10 but I don’t think I’m the one to answer this question, my members/executives should

A message for ENACTUS members and AAUA STUDENTS.
Be deliberate about life.

Adeyemo Oluwatoyosi Gorgeous

Gorgeous is a young lover of life or nature. She likes making her opinion and ideas about life, relationship and religion known. She also loves other individual views about life. She is a lover of music and Christ.