Oluwakemi Bankole- 1000WIDesign Study Team Lead

Ingressive for Good partnered with Geneza School of Design to help 1000 women build skills and careers in design. During the training, we realized the need and benefits of study buddies to better help the women learn and complete their courses. So we created study groups. At the end of the program, we recorded over 70% completions. Oluwakemi Bankole tells us about her experience leading a study group, the impact she made and the impact it had on her.

“I really wanted to learn about brand design as I’m a budding digital marketing strategist, so getting the scholarship to study design course meant a lot to me. I remember when I first got the email that I had been selected to be a beneficiary of the 1000 women in design scholarship, I was elated. A staff of I4G had called 48 hours earlier to verify my eligibility and I was doubting that I answered his questions well enough, so the congratulatory email greatly warmed my heart.

I had the opportunity to lead a group of 20 women remotely while going through the scholarship and it was a great experience. I volunteered to be a group lead to keep me accountable and to encourage other women on this design journey to follow through with the courses applied for. As a team lead, I learnt to be dynamic, proactive, and warm in the way I led my group; I am grateful for the women who were very responsive to my leadership as they eased my experience and made it worthwhile. 

Within 5 weeks of my learning experience, I moved from a learner to a pro in brand design. Well, I didn’t exactly become a pro, but my growth was phenomenal, I went from 0-80 really quick and it felt so good. I must admit that learning brand design has helped me to be more creative in my thinking. I can’t forget to mention that I had the best tutor for this course, I can literally listen to her teach all day. This newly acquired skill has broadened my range of offered digital services and I can’t even keep calm.

I was able to recreate many other designs like this during the course and I have been empowered for life to produce my originals.”