Through My Glasses

Hi Everyone, My name is Ukachi Myne Chukwu and I am asking for your support to help me raise £21,000 (equivalent to $27,000) so I can attend the University of Sussex in September 2017 for my Masters in Media for Development and Social Change. Let me start by expressing my sincere appreciation to you for sparing a few minutes to read about me and the reason I started this campaign. It took me several weeks- more moments than I can count- of writing, deleting, re-writing, and deleting again, to get me to post this. After several hours of over thinking and killing the thoughts telling me that I am wasting my time, I decided to do this the best way I know how: tell my story. On June 17th 2017, I received a letter from the University of Sussex notifying me that I have received the Chancellors International Scholarship for the 2017/2018 academic session. This scholarship will be awarded as a 50% tuition fee waiver while I undertake MA Media Practice for Development

Growing up sucks!  We grow up and build all these emotional walls. We get suspicious of everyone and everything. It becomes about us and what is in it for us. Everyone starts testing and playing everyone else.  We don't want to love too hard because we don't want to be hurt or taken for granted. We don't want to say how we feel because we are afraid it will be misunderstood or not reciprocated. We don't have expectations of this kind of pure love because we don't want our hearts broken. Everything seems like some kind of game. Whoever out plays the other wins. Fortified from the tough hand life and love has dealt us, we lock up. We pull a poker face and form odieshi. We harden our hearts and keep fronting. But deep down we yearn for this kind of uninhibited, carefree love. The kind we had when we were kids. The kind where we aren't afraid to lay down our guards and just revel in the presence of the other. We are love beings- created to love and express tha

I walked into a store today and the store owner, a young man that looked to be in his 30s couldn’t stop staring at my hair. This guy was oohing and aahing at “how well cut my hair was” and how it “brought out my true African facial features”. He loved the “natural boldness” with which I rocked my hair and wished he knew when next I was going to get a haircut so he could pay for it. Interestingly, his wife is also on a low cut. He went as far as calling her up to tell her that he was sending her a picture of a haircut she would be interested in. He said his wife enjoyed trying out different haircuts the way a professional chef enjoyed trying out recipes. I was amused at such obsession with haircuts and he said I wouldn’t understand. Of course, there was no way I would but I thanked him for all the attention, paid for what I bought and walked out of his shop. I walked into the shop next door, barely 10 steps from the previous shop and the reaction to my hair style by this s

It’s February 14th. Today is celebrated the world over as St. Valentine’s Day. A day dedicated to mushiness, cards, teddy bears, engagement rings and most importantly, the colour red. Over the years, Valentine’s Day has become highly commercialised. An article by www.theguardian.com says that for chocolatiers, jewellers, restaurateurs and greeting card manufacturers, Valentine's Day is, after Christmas, the most lucrative moment of the year. Today, like in previous years, many people will succumb to this commercialization allure that Valentine’s Day brings, to spend money they may or may not have, just to prove their love to their significant other. So, who really benefits from Valentine’s Day? Are we obsessing over something that shouldn’t be? Is Valentine’s Day overrated? Have we turned something intended to bring lovers together into a mere spectacle? *IJ, a talented makeup artist has this say: “I hate Valentine’s Day with a passion. Why do we have to put so mu

Hey guys, welcome to my blog. How is your week going? Happy New Month to you! It’s the month of love, so happiness should be our default setting throughout this February and beyond. Plus, it’s my birthday month too. Whoop! Whoop! It's a no-brainer that I enjoy writing. Why else would this blog exist in the first place? One of the things I enjoy doing is writing about conversations I have with people or issues I stumble upon on the cyberspace or in random places. I get the best blog post ideas through this means. That brings me to the issue I want to talk about today: successful and unsuccessful relationships. Take a good look at the meme below. Chances are you have seen this image before, probably on social media. The first time I saw this meme on Facebook, it caught my attention and held it for a while. What caught my attention about this meme wasn’t the beautiful couple in it. It was the message in it and the fact that it got me thinking about what constitutes success

The day is finally here. In less than 18 hours, billionaire businessman, Donald J. Trump will be sworn in as the 45th President of United States. He will be succeeding the charismatic, first black President of the United States, Barack Obama, who is leaving office as America’s 3rd most loved President. A year ago, I didn’t think a Trump Presidency was possible. A year ago, I argued loudly and almost betted N50, 000 against him. A year ago, I didn’t think America would be ‘stupid enough’ to elect Trump President given his lack of knowledge about policies and governance, and of course, his ‘unpresidential’ mien. As I write this, I, including so many other pollsters, am eating my words and it doesn’t taste good. It’s not hard to understand why. On Friday, January 20th, 2017, the United States of America will inaugurate Donald Trump, a racist, misogynistic, narcissistic, reality television star cum Twitter addict who has zero experience, and equally zero knowledge about basic govern