Lagos.

Someone is always selling, because someone is always buying. #lagos #nigeria #africancityzens Photo by @lafrohemien

A post shared by African Cityzens (@africancityzens) on Feb 27, 2018 at 3:54am PST

What do you miss the most about Lagos? 
What do you hate the most
Crave

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Six Questions with Mother-Daughter Team - Teacher Anna and Jumoke Joseph

1
Children are _____
TA: a Great Heritage

JJ: an absolute wonder 

2
Children want ____
TA:  love, attention and to have their way

JJ: affection, attention and fun 

3 
The introductions: 

Jumoke Justine Joseph works as the proprietress of Great Mother's Joy Nursery and Primary School located in Satellite Town, Lagos.

  She attended St. Mary's (on Broad Street, Lagos) for primary school, went on to Queen's College Lagos for secondary school, and then to the University of Lagos where she earned a B.Sc. (Hons.) degree in Mathematics and Statistics.  

Ms. Jumoke Joseph

Her areas of expertise include business management and facilities management from her previous career, as she worked at The British Deputy High Commission BDHC Estates Group, Lagos from 1998-2011 and CIACO Nigeria Limited, Ikoyi, Lagos from 2012-2015.   She also has expertise and has taken courses in child development, classroom teaching, communication, and elocution.      

Jumoke Joseph's mother is the famous and spectacularly sweet "Aunty Mrs. Joseph"or "Teacher Anna", who raised thousands of us little ones as a nursery and primary teacher at St. Mary's Private School.  I remember learning some of my first skills from her - addition and subtraction, nursery rhymes, Catholic hymns and prayers, with some reading and writing and other classroom skills ... I was four years old.

Teacher Anna was born on 18th January 1943, the seventh among thirteen children.  She started her primary school education at Our Lady's School, Kaduna, and proceeded to Lagos after the demise of her mother Mrs. Victoria Saba in 1955. While in Lagos, she attended St Mathias and then St Mary's Modern School. 

She commenced her teaching career in 1962 under the tutelage of Reverend Sisters at St Mary's Private School, Broad Street.  Between 1975 and 1978, she proceeded to African Church Teachers Training College, Ifako Lagos. She eventually retired from St Mary's in 1989 after 27years of service.

Teacher Anna Joseph

Mrs Joseph taught for another 10 years (1989-1999) as Head of Nursery Section at the Learningfield School, Satellite Town, Lagos. She then proceeded to McLilies Primary School, Satellite Town where she worked for another 2 years till 2001. In 2001, she established 'Mother's Joy Day Care Centre and managed this until her daughter came on board as proprietress in 2015.

4
How has your work changed over the years?  

Children's Day // Professional Day @ Mother's Joy School

TA: 29 years teaching at St Mary’s. 10 years teaching/management at Learningfield.  2 years teaching and management at McLilies. 16 years managing own Preschool and Nursery.  I've stayed in the same profession since the age of nineteen.
 

JJ: I moved from General Administration to School Administration / Teaching

Surrounded by little ones 💗

5
What do you do on weekends?

TA: Saturdays – resting, reading, parties and catching up with the News. 

Sundays – generally church and home front.  

I sang at the Holy Cross Cathedral Church choir from 1959 to 1975. These days I serve at the same parish on the Board of Catechists and Marriage Counsellors and I am a member of the Confraternity of Christian Mothers.  On the home front, I live with my husband Mr. Suru Joseph and love spending time with family including Jumoke and Oladipupo.  

JJ: Saturdays of leisure – resting, reading, parties.  

Sundays – Church and eating out 

6 
Favourite colours: 
TA: Green and sometimes White - Green is a cool colour that reminds me of nature

JJ: Red, Gold and in recent times White 

... because Red is bold and cheerful, Gold is regal, and White – c’est très chic!!

Teacher Anna and JJ Joseph

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Equality and the example of Iceland

How long will it take to close the global gender gap?

Very interesting. 
....

The Global Gender Gap Report 2017 has recently been released, courtesy of WEF - the World Economic Forum. Some highlights:

The world is very far from gender parity in politics and $$ , but closer to gender parity in health and education.

No country in the world has fully closed its gender gap, but four out of the five Nordic countries and, for the first time this year, one country each from the Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and Eastern Europe and Central Asia regions—Rwanda, Nicaragua and Slovenia—have closed more than 80% of theirs. 
Yemen, the lowest-ranking country, has closed slightly less than 52% of its gender gap. 

Nigeria is not in the top 100.  

What is the secret to Iceland’s success? What are the lessons learned? In short, it is that gender equality does not come about of its own accord.  Read: This is why Iceland ranks first for gender equality

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What is a real job anyway? Here are some examples:

The Wildlife Keeper

Photo by @amivitale. Wildlife keeper Kamara has spent 10 years at Lewa Wildlife Conservancy (@lewa_wildlife) and is an expert in caring for orphaned animals, from baby rhinos to lions and now he is working at Reteti Elephant Sanctuary (@r.e.s.c.u.e) where he is raising an orphaned baby rhino but also gives love to the elephants when they need it. The team will work to rehabilitate these orphaned and abandoned elephants and reunite them with their wild herds. Read more about Reteti in my @NatGeo story: https://tinyurl.com/kvopc69 You can help support the great work happening here by visiting Sarara Camp (@sararacamp) and Lewa or supporting the organizations working directly with the local communities. Follow all of us, @lewa_wildlife, @r.e.s.c.u.e, @sararacamp and @amivitale to support and learn more about these initiatives. @nrt_kenya @kenyawildlifeservice @tusk_org @sandiegozoo @conservationorg @natgeocreative @thephotosociety @nature_africa #elephants #saveelephants #retetielephants #ecotourism #stoppoaching #kenya #northernkenya #magicalkenya #whyilovekenya #africa #everydayafrica #photojournalism #amivitale

A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo) on Jun 30, 2017 at 2:04pm PDT

The Stay-at-Home Parent

The Professional Gambler

and one more:

Photo by @mattiasklumofficial for @natgeo Deadly encounter... Not really... People frequently explain to me that I have a dangerous job. Working close to elephants, tigers, polar bears, leopards, lions, sharks, illegal logging operations and venomous snakes such as this beauty. In my line of work doing serious research and reading nature well is key! It'll get my closer to my subjects and it has so far kept me alive! During a @natgeo assignment in the republic of Congo I managed, with kind assistance from Samuel, (my camera assistant at the time) and Zoltan (a great herpethologist), to close in on this beautiful and highly venomous banded water cobra! It resulted in a series of unique images of this rarely seen species. Go to @mattiasklumofficial if you want see some "result-pictures". Photo by #samuelsvensäter/Tirragrande Productions #grateful #teamwork #determination #respectnatur #watercobra #congo #cobra #snake #conservation #rainforest #respect #photooftheday #protectbiodiversity #bestjobintheworld #instagood @irisalexandrov @mattiasklumcollection @thephotosociety @natgeo

A post shared by National Geographic (@natgeo) on Jul 10, 2017 at 11:43pm PDT

More interesting options here: So You Want My Job / Trade on www.ArtOfManliness.com 

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Why so many so poor?

 EVERYBODY should have food! 

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Six Questions with Doctor Ameenah Hassan

Amina Muhammad Hassan earned her MBBS in April 2006 from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.  

Ready, Set, ...

 She subsequently worked at:  
- Uthman Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto - Internship
- King of Kings Specialist Hospital, Asaga, Ohafia, Abia State - 8 months of NYSC
- Kawo General Hospital, Kaduna state - last 3 months of NYSC
and since then, she's been with the 
- Obstetrics and Gynaecology Department of King Fahd Women and Children's Hospital, Gusau, Zamfara State. She is currently the Head of Clinical Services in the hospital. 

An old photo: Zamfara is quiet

Some more-recent photos HERE

Alongside this, she serves as 
- a State Trainer in the Malaria Action Programme for States (MAPS) 
- a master trainer mentor for MNCH2 (Maternal, Newborn and Child Health 2)

She is a member, and former Zamfara state treasurer, of the Nigerian Medical Association.
She is married, and enjoys taking walks and admiring nature in her spare time.

Back in Queen's College where we were classmates from January 1991- June 1996, Amina was often class captain and when she became a house captain, as expected her Obong House was swiftly transformed into a winner at inspections and sports. 

SS3Y Class Photo in 1996: Ameenah is second from left, with face obscured by Fatima's head (precursor surgical mask? :) I made sure my face got in :) @3rdLeft

I remember her as a Muslim person of principle.   

Also, I think it was she who started the trend in our class of going regularly to the library to enjoy the reference books on the upper floor, that is, not just when we had homework.  I came to enjoy the habit very much too. 


I badly wanted to ask her a few questions for only my fourth ever Six-Questions feature:
  

-------

1. Tell us a story about the oldest person you've met at work. And the youngest? 

 The oldest patient I've attended to was a 60-year-old woman with uterovaginal prolapse, we managed her successfully.  

The youngest was a neonate born with ambiguous genitalia, we referred [this child] to the teaching hospital in Zaria.

[Ask Google/Wikipedia, like I did :) ]

2. What are the two biggest solvable problems you encounter regularly at work? 

Late-coming especially the HMIS staff,  

and 

Attitude - we generally need to be proactive.

 
3. Three things we should all do for better health? 

Eat healthy, laugh a lot and exercise.

 
4. How did you decide to become a medical doctor? 

I initially wanted to read accounting, like my Dad. 

The turning point was JSCE Book-Keeping [back in 1993, as a JS3 / 9th-grade student.] It got me tied up in knots, lol.   

At that point I decided to save lives instead.  All I had to do was pass JAMB so I got admission in ABU Zaria.

5. What is the meaning of life? 

Life is a gift. Cherish it and make the best use of it, irrespective of the circumstances.  

The Doc with her handsome baby.

6. Does Nigeria need more doctors?

Where I work the ratio is one doctor to 40 [patients] averagely, this can be overwhelming.  

A conducive working environment and more hands will help.  

[Today, it's New Year's Eve] I saw outpatients and now I'm in theatre to perform an elective Cesarean section, and work still continues after the surgery.

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