WMF Scholar Phinuella Okunamiri of Nigeria prepared a narrative of one of the leadership activities she hosted.
Imoran is a center for Social and Professional Development. One of its
activities is the Leadership Club for Senior Secondary School girls.
The club aims to improve the moral standard of young girls through
practical talks on virtues. It also aims to teach them extracurricular
activities that will be of benefit to them now and in the future.
I am one of the volunteer coordinators of this activity.
Everything good makes best sense when it comes from home,they say.
When the body feeds well, the soul dances. During the first few weeks
of resumption, I taught my club girls different things concerning
behavior at meals including table etiquette and napkin art. I then
decided that dessert presentation would make a lot of sense too. For
this, I sought the help of a friend,Lola, who finished from a school
of hospitality. She agreed to be the facilitator. She was going to
show us a way to present a common fruit – the watermelon.
She came as planned with two
large watermelon fruits and the needed equipment. We were all so
excited – I and a second coordinator, together with eight members of
the club who were present.
Two of my club girls took the second watermelon eager to do whatever
Lola did with hers.
It seemed funny at first when Lola started. She cut two chunks out of
the melon leaving a thin handle and a round bottom. It was more like
‘The fruit is finished and we have not started! What’s she up to?’
Then she cut another chunk from beneath the handle. We thought; ‘It
must be a bag!’
Next, Lola turned the bottom globe and made some designs on it,
cutting out bits of ‘baby’ chunks here and there. Then we really
became intrigued, ‘ A bag with holes? How possible can it be?’ This
made us listen to her instructions even more attentively and watch her
more closely.
She then took a watermelon scoop and emptied the contents of the round
mass. Then we saw it. It was a basket!!!
We diced the fruits that had been scooped out and put it into the new
‘basket’. It was beautiful. We all ‘wowed’ and clapped so much. It was
difficult to take our eyes away from the basket and its content.
Nevertheless, when we realized that the clock was going to keep
ticking anyway, we settled down to eat the fruit. We talked about the
basket all the while. It sounded surprising when we realized that our
treasured basket was to be thrown away afterwards. Fiyin, one of my
club girls, did not like this idea. She said she had to show it to her
mum. It sounded consoling to the rest of us even though we knew that
afterwards it would still be thrown away.
After clearing the dishes, we set out for home. We were all so happy
and enlightened. It had been a very eventful day.
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