How One Young World Helped Me Rediscover My Purpose

But there was something about this particular season of my life that I struggled to explain. I was beginning to question my direction, my priorities and what I really wanted from the next chapter of my life. Some of the things I once enjoyed no longer excited me as much.

For someone who had spent much of her adult life advocating, building and creating opportunities for others, it was an unfamiliar feeling.

Then came the opportunity to attend the One Young World Summit in Cape Town, South Africa, through a scholarship provided by Nobel Women's Initiative to the alumni community of its Sister-to-Sister Program.

This was not my first international gathering. But I did not know how much I needed this particular experience until I arrived.

One of the moments I will remember for a long time was an exclusive mentorship session with Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition politician, author and former political prisoner.

Listening to him speak about his own experiences took me right back to when I was 19 and starting out as a young civic activist in Nigeria. At that age, I was already speaking in public on issues of accountability, transparency and good governance. Having grown up in a community that had been displaced as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency, I knew very well why ordinary people needed to have a voice in the way they were governed.

It was not always easy. My activism attracted cyberbullying, harassment and intimidation, and being a young woman questioning authority came with its own social and cultural challenges. Yet I believed then, as I still believe today, that citizenship comes with responsibilities, including the courage to ask questions.

Listening to Vladimir reflect on imprisonment and attempted poisonings made me think about my own journey. I found myself asking: if someone who has experienced so much can continue standing for what he believes in, what justification do I have for abandoning my convictions?

I walked away from that session with a much greater sense of why I started in the first place and a real willingness to think again about the different spaces in which I could contribute to change, right up to public leadership and public policy.

Another memorable moment was meeting Maria Ressa, Nobel Peace Laureate and co-founder of Rappler. As a Mass Communication graduate, I could not take that encounter for granted. Her work defending press freedom and challenging disinformation reminded me that the responsibility to protect truth does not belong to journalists alone. Every citizen who believes in democracy has a role to play.

That encounter also made me think about the many forms that courage takes, and how it shows up not only on global stages but in the quieter, everyday conversations we have.

One such conversation was with Dildar, my fellow cohort member from the 2021 Sister-to-Sister Program who now works with the Nobel Women's Initiative. We talked about life, growth and the transition I was going through. For a while, I had been interpreting my confusion and my waning interest in things I once loved as a sign that I was losing myself.

Dildar helped me see it differently. Perhaps I was not losing myself at all. Perhaps I was simply going through a phase of life and needed to allow myself to experience that transition without being so hard on myself.

That conversation meant a lot to me. I left feeling lighter, and honestly, I had not been that happy in a long time.

Cape Town also reminded me why I have always believed in creating opportunities for other women. Watching Fanna, a woman I had recommended to the Nobel Women's Initiative Sister-to-Sister program, speak at the global plenary was particularly fulfilling.

Sometimes, you receive an opportunity and think about how far it can take you. But there is another kind of fulfilment that comes from watching someone you encouraged or recommended receive an opportunity of her own. That is the kind of sisterhood I value: women opening doors for one another and ensuring that opportunities do not end with the person who first receives them.

I am grateful to the Nobel Women's Initiative for making this experience possible. The Sister to Sister Mentorship Programme has been life-changing for me, and this scholarship was another reminder of what happens when people intentionally invest in women and continue to support their growth.

As I head back home to Nigeria, I have a real sense of direction. Eight years of building ZEGCAWIS, and I am beginning to understand that growth can sometimes mean creating space for others to lead and being open to the idea that I may well have a different chapter ahead.

I went to Cape Town with questions about my next chapter. I returned without all the answers, but with a renewed appreciation of my journey and the courage to embrace what comes next.

It was more than a summit. It was an opportunity to reconnect with the woman I was, appreciate the woman I am becoming and remember why the work still matters.

Written by Aishatu Kabu

Aishatu Kabu is a Nigerian civil society activist and the Founder and Executive Director of Zenith of the Girl Child and Women Initiative Support (ZEGCAWIS) based in Nigeria. She founded ZEGCAWIS, an organization advocating for girl-child education and influencing policies in favour of women and girls, with interests in gender, social and economic justice. She is a committed activist passionate about citizen participatory democracy, the rights, education and empowerment of women and girls.