Writingwheel

Hey fanmily, what's up?

Last time, I shared with a vision that I had over the years that I kept buried under the rug.

Guess what

We finally brought it into light.

Hop into the train let us take a little ride.

Tada! 🤗🤗

Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce to you

YOUNG VOICES INITIATIVE

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

Young Voices Initiative (aligned with SDG 4: Quality Education) is a dialogue-based character education platform focused on Character building, critical thinking, and responsible citizenship for teens and young adults through structured debates, reflective thinking and guided dialogues.

To more details, visit our official hands on Facebook on voices initiative and Instagram on young_voices_initiative

This is a call for every lover of goodwill to join hands in shaping the future we hope for.

I hope you make the best deal out of May. I will be cheering and rooting for you, always 😍🤗😍🤗😍🤗

Have you ever been in that moment when you feel the is tilting right under your feet?

That was the exact way I felt when the news hit my ears. I couldn't process the words. They sounded too alien, too strange, too heavy for my thoughts to comprehend.

I remember that odd feeling from the night before. I mean, I have felt that everything wasn't alright quite right. But nothing prepared me for such a heavy and mighty blow. It was too much for one day. No one deserves such trauma. Not even in a million years

If women stopped holding the world together for just one day, many systems in our society would quietly fall apart.

Think about it.

Who wakes up before everyone else to prepare for the day?
Who carries families through hardship without applause?
Who nurtures children, strengthens communities, preserves values, and still rises every morning to do it all again?

Women.

Long before the world celebrates them with a single day on the calendar, women have already been doing the work that sustains humanity.

A woman is not just a title.
She is a life-giver.
A builder of homes.
A mender of broken places.
A silent strategist behind many successes we applaud today.

She raises leaders.
She feeds nations.
She holds families together when storms come.

And yet, so much of what women do happens quietly, without recognition.

Today, as we celebrate International Women's Day, let it not just be about flowers, hashtags, and kind words.

Let it be about acknowledgement.

Acknowledging that when you empower a woman, you strengthen a family.
When you strengthen a family, you build a community.
And when communities are strong, nations prosper.

Women are not just part of society.

They are the foundation that keeps it standing.

Today, I celebrate every woman — the seen and the unseen, the loud and the silent warriors, the young girls learning their worth and the older women whose wisdom built the path we now walk.

The world moves forward because women refuse to stop pushing it there.

Happy International Women's Day. 🌸

Did you know that boys are also victims of molestation, harassment, abuse, and assault?

Today, society primarily emphasizes protecting the girl child from imminent dangers, which is commendable.

However, it’s equally important to consider the risks faced by boys daily.

While raising girls with dedication is vital, boys should be nurtured with equal vigilance. The methods used to exploit and abuse girls by adult can be directed at boys too.

Unfortunately, many cases of male abuse go unreported, leaving society unaware and silent. This neglect can lead to emotional trauma, confusion, shame, hypersexual behaviour, addiction, anger, and psychological wounds in boys.

Have you ever wondered why there are so few or never a male or boy figure coming forward with claims of sexual exploitation?

The answer may reflect society’s lack of concern for boy victims.

As a result, efforts to protect girls often falter because neglecting the boy child creates future threats—neglect that perpetuates a cycle of harm.

Ultimately, all initiatives to nurture girls are undermined if boys are not equally cared for.

To truly succeed, both boys and girls must be raised under the same principles, protected by the same laws, guided in the same direction, and shielded from the same dangers.

Failing to do so risks raising one gender to inadvertently endanger the other, leaving society trapped in a cycle of destruction and inequality.

GENDER IMBALANCE IS THE MAIN THREAT TO OUR EXISTENCE.

We are raised in a society that quietly teaches a girl that marriage is the validation of her existence.

From childhood, she is subtly reminded that her greatest achievement will be to become someone’s wife. Her success is measured by who chooses her. Her worth, tied to a ring.

At the same time, the boy child is raised with a different script.

He is taught that his value lies in his ability to carry weight. To provide. To endure. To solve. To shoulder every responsibility without complaint.

He must feed.
He must clothe.
He must shelter.
He must provide—not only for himself, but for his family… and the family of the woman he loves.

No objection. No help. No visible exhaustion.

Just be a man.

And so the girl grows up believing that every dime she makes is simply an addition—because a man should provide everything anyway.

The boy grows up believing that asking for help is weakness; man must never appear tired.

This is what happens when gender balance is absent from birth.

When we raise girls to depend and boys to drown in silent pressure and invariably, adults who misunderstand partnership.

Gender equity is not a threat to manhood. It is relief for it.
It does not reduce a man; it supports him. It does not erase strength; it shares the weight and allows a man to breathe without shame.

But somewhere along the way, the conversation became distorted.
Some who parade as feminists fight without clarity, mistaking equality for competition.

Some acclaimed alpha male confuse dominance with strength.

A woman trying to become a man is not the solution either is a man trying to silence a woman a proof of strength.

When strength is proven by oppression, it is no strength at all. And when empowerment is expressed through ridicule, it is not empowerment, but insecurity wearing confidence.

Men and women were never designed to compete for supremacy.
They were designed to complement...to supplement each other.
To stand side by side—not one beneath the other.

True balance does not blur identity. It honors it.
A strong man is not threatened by a capable woman and a strong woman does not diminish and ridicule a man to feel powerful.

Both can rise.
Both can lead.
Both can support.
Both can be seen

And when they do; without ego, without fear, without silent suffering, the next generation learns something different.

They learn partnership.
They learn respect.
They learn commitment
They learn to understand
They learn that love is not a battlefield.
That strength is not loud, but balanced.

And Balance can be achieved.



©️ Omaka Gloria Onyemaechi

For a couple of days now, I have been secretly admiring someone.

I visited family in a non-igbo state.

Where we'd sell some items by the roadside, there's this women that I have come to admire a whole lot.

She sells sachet water.

While others struggle to sale 4 to 5 bags before evening, she sales 12 bags or more.

She do carry 2 bags each time and would return within 30 to 35minutes to carry another.

With the number of water sellers in the area, you'd ask where and how she sells that much when others struggle to sell 2 bags for hours.

Then I discovered something

While many cluster the roadside and holdup areas, she goes deep inside the market.

She must have noticed lines and places where people have higher demand for water and work with that.

To many, she might just be another sachet water seller,

To me, she's a great business-minded woman who knows her onion.

To why she must have taken the unusual route and go the extra mile......

She's a mother who might be struggling to raise children in a big city with high cost of living.

Husband may be in the picture; with little income to support the family, or not in the picture at all; leaving her with the full responsible of parenting and provision.

Whichever the case may be, she's the kind that deserves to be appreciated.

And I pray God blesses her soon.

Have you had an encounter that made you believe in Grace?

While scrolling randomly on this blue street, I came across a video

It was a wedding reception in one of the eastern states.

The Mc called a girl out but she angrily refused to step out.

He looked around and picked another girl who stepped out all smiling.

The Mc wanted to play some games with her and others in the bridal train.

But chose to ask her some questions first.

'Is there anything you really desire for this year? Someone here may do it for you'

'I am a fashion designer and want to go for an upgrade'

She went on to introduce herself as a university finalist. And seeing the beautiful garment that adorned her body, you would know she definitely knew heronion.

The first person to gift her was a man of God. He was calmly seated with his lovely wife. He may be in his sixties. He gave her two hundred thousand naira.

Another gave a hundred and another a fifty thousand naira. That's a total sum of three hundred and a fifty thousand naira.

One astonishing thing is that the gifters were all men with their families there. Not younger guys you would say may had prior likeness for her

The girl was in tears already. Who wouldn't be.

Then came the biggest package.

An Industrial sewing machine.

All in other persons wedding!

Isn't this what is called GRACE?

She wasn't the first pick, but another person's refusal brought her out.

And I am sure, while coming for that reception, if anyone had told her she would be going home with all that, she would have laugh it off as a mere joke, just like sarah did in the bible.

While did i share this story?

Grace can find you anytime, anywhere.

But you must first position yourself.

What if she was just a girl in school without skills?

She mught have asked for an iphone.

And if someone eventually wish to gift her that, it'd be someone with other motive.

As you as for grace, build a platform where that grace can find you.

Be skillful, have a working system that will attract your blessers.

❤️
©️ Omaka Gloria Onyemaechi

Last week, I saw a video of a grandma who planked for 4hours, 30minutes and a good seconds.

You know the indoor exercise they call planking abi ?

That exercise you lie flat, balancing yourself with just you toes and arms.

You remember it now?

Yes, that's what an aging woman of 58years did for over 4 and half hours straight.

I know you won't understand the level of resilience, determination, energy and pain she put in

But just try it small

See if you can do for just 2minutes.

Ye, just 2minutes

As for me, I am going plank too, but not more than 2minutes that my strength can carry me
😂😂😂
But what were you expecting 🙄

You wanted to hear 2hours? You and who 😜😜

But her strong-will, I am definitely buying that 100%

And where i am putting it is where my strength lies.

Her resilient spirit
Her determination
Her energy

I am carrying all into my daily routine

But that will not include planking 🫣🫣
I don't want to faint and give my aged mother heart attack 🤣🤣

And I charge you to do the same.

The year is still very young and you need such resilient and energy to pull through.

Las Las, we go celebrate you too

❤️

The Lantern Maker's Gift

In a quiet mountain village lived an old lantern maker named Elias. His hands were calloused from decades of bending bamboo, stretching paper, and painting delicate patterns. He was respected for his craft, but he lived alone in a small workshop, filled with half-finished lanterns that glowed softly in the dusk.

One autumn evening, a fierce storm swept through the valley. When it passed, Elias found a woven basket at his doorstep. Inside was a newborn baby girl, wrapped in a faded red blanket, her tiny fists waving like fluttering moths. A note pinned to the cloth read only: "Please care for her."

Elias stared at the child for a long time. He was old, set in his ways, and tired. He had no family, no apprentice, no one to carry on his craft. Raising a child meant sleepless nights, endless worries, meals to prepare, illnesses to nurse, questions to answer responsibilities he had happily avoided his entire life.

He almost carried the basket to the village elder. Almost.

But then the baby opened her eyes and looked straight at him. In that moment, something shifted inside the old man’s heart. It wasn’t duty that stirred first, it was wonder. This tiny life, so fragile and new, felt like a lantern suddenly lit in a room he hadn’t known was dark.

He named her Liora, which means "I have light."

The years that followed were exactly as hard as Elias had feared. Liora cried through the nights, spilt paint on finished lanterns, asked endless questions, ran through the workshop with muddy feet, and once nearly set the whole place ablaze chasing fireflies with a candle. Money grew tighter, sleep grew shorter, and Elias’s back ached more than ever.

Yet every morning, Liora’s laughter rang through the workshop like wind chimes. She danced between the hanging lanterns, making shadows play on the walls. She learned to paint before she could read, creating wild, swirling colours that Elias would never have dared. Villagers began coming not just for his steady, traditional lanterns, but for Liora’s bright, imaginative ones lanterns shaped like dragons, stars, and laughing fish.

One winter night, when Liora was ten, a great festival approached. The village needed hundreds of lanterns to light the mountain paths for the New Year procession. Elias fell ill and became too weak to work. For the first time, he felt the full weight of responsibility crushing him. How would they finish in time? How would he provide?

Liora didn’t hesitate. She gathered the village children, taught them to cut bamboo and stretch paper the way Elias had taught her. They worked day and night, singing as they painted. On the eve of the festival, the paths glowed with more lanterns than anyone could remember with each one carrying a touch of Liora’s joy.

That night, as Elias watched from his window, too weak to walk but strong enough to smile, he understood the truth he had only glimpsed years before.

The sleepless nights, the worries, the endless tasks, they had not been taken from him. They had been given along with something far greater: the gift of Liora herself. Her light, her laughter, her fearless creativity, the way she turned hardship into beauty and strangers into helpers. All of it had filled his life with a warmth no solitary craft ever could.

The responsibility had not been a price to pay for the gift.

The gift had made every responsibility sacred.

And so, in the glow of a thousand lanterns climbing the mountain like ascending stars, Elias whispered to the night, “Thank you for trusting me with such a treasure.”

Children are not the first duty we endure.

They are a gift we are invited to unwrap slowly, daily, for the rest of our lives and in unwrapping them, we discover we have been given our own light back, brighter than before.



©️ Omaka Gloria Onyemaechi