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. Roseline Ezenwa tells us about her experience leading a study group, the impact she made and the impact it had on her.
“I’m Roseline Ezenwa, best known as Rose in my social circle. I am a product designer and a freelance content developer. My motivation to undertake the 1000 Women in Design training came from a personal drive to learn a new skill in the year 2022 and transition to a creative tech field that would offer me three things – remote work opportunities, higher income and career satisfaction, and it was definitely my first cherished gift of the year to be selected.
Once the program kicked off and the leadership opportunity was announced, I knew I had to go for it because helping and encouraging others is one of my favorite things to do, and of course, I work well with people. It was not easy most of the time to lead my team of over 21 women. I had to find a way around different challenges, ranging from inactive participation, ignored messages, silent chat rooms and members losing interest even from the first week of the program. These challenges, however, didn’t discourage me, instead, they enabled me to harness my communication, creative problem solving and emotional intelligence skills.
As a leader, I learned patience and empathy on a deeper level, because a lot of my team members were facing different personal challenges and someone needed to truly understand their circumstances and keep cheering them on to the finish line regardless. Because as far as the program was concerned, that was the goal.
As a learner, I was exposed to the world of User Interface Design on a level that was relatable, thanks to the instructor Mrs Bolanle Banwo whose teaching style birthed a voracious appetite in me to keep on learning and the I4G team who were very supportive and easy to interact with. Frankly, learning design has changed the way I see the world around me, especially interacting with technology.
The photo below shows a design I was really proud to replicate. It was super exciting to be able to design this Netflix interface below. It inspired me to believe I could someday work for such organizations too.
I’ll be forever grateful to Ingressive for Good and the Geneza School of Design for giving me this foundation on a platter of gold.”
You can reach Roseline here:
LinkedIn- https://www.linkedin.com/in/roseline-ezenwa
Twitter-https://twitter.com/Rose_dezign
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/ez_rosario