Girls Inc. and Bouchier are pleased to announce that the fourth Women of Inspiration of 2023 has been selected.

Precious Majekodunmi was chosen by the Women of Inspiration Committee for her incredible work in the community, breaking gender stereotypes and being an amazing role model for women and girls.

“I’m honestly extremely honoured and very excited to have such a nomination. It also shows me that people believe that I’ve demonstrated the qualities of being strong, smart, and bold. I do try to portray those qualities in my relationships every day, but realizing that someone went as far as nominating those qualities means a lot.” 

Striving to break the notion that girls must remain in a specific mold or act a specific way. Precious refuted the notion that women are expected to fall into a “role” and continues to work hard to defy the odds.

“I feel like I’ve been witnessing my mom’s experiences or sometimes hearing comments like ‘oh, you’re a girl you’re supposed to fit this role’ but I feel like since I was young I’ve never really fit those ideals and stereotypes of this is what a girl should do. I thought if I’m interested in this, why can’t I pursue it and see if I enjoy it? I feel like that was a big factor in me wanting to defy the odds.”

Growing up, her mom has always been a strong support system, explaining that whenever she had worries or troubles in her life, her mother wouldn’t solve them for her, but instead helped her tackle those challenges on her own.

“I really enjoy the fact that she gives me the opportunity to come up with a solution instead of coming up with a solution for me. That really boosted my independence and helped me to better manage challenges.

Precious spent much of her youth helping throughout the community, including work with the Rehoboth Alliance where she hosted their annual girls’ empowerment event that strived to equip girls with the knowledge for self-care and strategies in dealing with gender biases and violence.

“It was a really fun experience. I knew the Executive Director Regina Opon. She really loves having events hosted by youths, led by youths. She likes to empower youths. We had a discussion one day and she was talking about her vision of doing a girl-empowering event and she was looking for a youth to lead this event and asked if I would be interested, I said absolutely! I felt like I had a lot of information I had to share with my peers and younger girls.” 

Being a strong young woman can be difficult growing up, but as a young black, immigrant woman, Precious overcame additional challenges of intersectionality and stereotype but that never slowed her down. She even grew to embrace her differences and cherish herself.

“When we first came to Canada I experienced the challenges of having an accent, I’d say that was definitely a tough time. I’m glad I didn’t let that discourage me or in any way affect my development. I thought I had to completely change myself to fit that western ideology of having proper grammar and making sure to enunciate and I practiced really hard to make sure my language was well-spoken. Meeting a mentor who told me to embrace my identity and respect who I am rather than trying to conform to a standard, really strengthened my belief and identity. My advice to young girls would be, there will definitely be tough times and people who tell you no, but it’s how we respond is what matters. We definitely get comments and stereotypes being propelled but it’s how we choose to handle that stereotype internally.”

Majekodunmi will join four other Women of Inspiration to be honoured in March 2023 to share her voice.