Mrs Funmilayo Oyefusi, an author of the Book, ‘OUT OF THE DEPTHS’ launched in Abuja has called on Nigerians to break the barriers of culture to advance in life.
Oyefusi said that the book was able to teach patience and as well help individuals to take what life throws at them and thus be able to cope with the challenges of life.
According to her, my inspiration is God as my strong support and pillar, and I also had inspiration to be a blessing to the lives of young women, young ones including men, women, boys and girls because I feel that my story could encourage somebody.
“ If you are going through one challenge or another, it is not over, you can actually pick yourself up.
“ I expect the book to encourage people to marry, during marriage and after marriage while they are going through the life journey.
“The book is not all about marriage but also for preparing for marriage and also how to build yourself up in terms of your carrier and break the gas-ceiling out there.
“ The barrier of culture, I think is more of self-awareness. I was aware of what I wanted out of life, how I want to rise up in my carrier and be a blessing to many, and I was aware that I want to live a good life and that will only happen by developing myself.
“ For me breaking the barrier of culture, not settling for less and not putting myself down as a woman is what the book will teach us.”
Oyefusi however encouraged widows or those that might be one to pick their lives up and continue.
Also, Mrs Ene Obi, Country Director, ActionAid Nigeria said the book would give a lot of hope to people, so that when faced with problems they would not take an easy way out because problems were part of life.
“ The book is very hopeful and it will take you through the strength of the whole length of someone’s life, and shows the practicability of what people go through in life.
“People should not give up, hard work pays in the end. So we are very proud of the author and really congratulate her because it is an addition to knowledge and we are very proud that a staff can come out and put up a book like this.
“ So many beautiful things coming out in the lives of our staff and we encourage them, and we are very proud of her.
“She is a professional and she has been a student and we encourage ActionAiders to be students, and a lot of people have their capacity building, and we even deliberately put money for capacity building each year.
“ This means you are either professionalizing, you are a member of a professional body, you encourage yourself to build yourself. In a year you have to utilize your capacity building money if not we turn it to the pool.
Prof. Adesola Ajayi, Deputy Vice Chancellor, First Technical University said the impact of the book would be achieved.
“ I am quite assured and optimistic that the book would be found useful for many young people. We have a lot of relationships that are failing, we also have a lot of carriers that are failing on account of failed relationships.
“ We also have a lot of people who otherwise could have been celebrated today that have been down as a result of the fact that they were overwhelmed and they fell under the weight of emotions-not failure arising from lack of capacity and competence but failure arising from lack of encouragement and inspiration, and moreso that we are in a patriarchal society.”
In the same vein, Toun Sonaiya, Chief Executive Officer, Women Radio 91.7 FM, said that the book was able to break the silence of culture as each chapter talked about an experience that every woman must have felt at some point or gone through at some point in time in her life.
