For the first time ever in Nigerian history, a Royal Queens Conference took place on March 30 to commemorate Black Women’s History Month.
About 120 Queens converged at the Palace of Ooni of Ife to discuss the impact of Royal Queens in national development.
The conference was organised by Olori Ronke Ademiluyi Ogunwusi and Olori Janet and 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 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’s to take advantage of the Adire training which is free and she has trained over 500 women and youths.
Olori Janet Afolabi was the keynote speaker. In her keynote speech, she said there are so many challenges in communities today.
“Our husbands, the Kings, are in the forefront of solving those problems. But we should also rise and support them”.
She encouraged the Queens to identify the problems in their domains, do a problem analysis and then strategise on how to solve them.
Olori Janet said if Queens make impact with their projects in the communities, such impacts can be replicated at the national level.
Olori Janet said nothing is too small for them to start with. Narrating how she personally teaches English language for free and also feed 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 N5000 monthly so we can give the money to others. None of them defaulted. They all paid the loan back and on time too. This means that you do not need huge sum of money to impact on people”.
Wife of Osun State Governor, Erelu Ngozi Adeleke, was the Special Guest of Honour.
In her Goodwill message, she commended Olori Ronke and Olori Janet for organising the event.
She said she is committed to supporting and empowering women to develop Osun State. ‘I am ready to collaborate with you whenever you need me”.
