At the 63rd Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW63) currently going on at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, a Nigerian, Anwuli Aniemeka, received the Peace Marshall Recognition. She was one of the Global 1000 Women Post-Humous Awardee.
Anwuli was a consummate teacher, passionate about her subjects, and unquestionably devoted to schooling her pupils to become cream of the crop early. The hallmark of her teaching career, albeit transitory and ephemeral, was that her pupils, especially the girl children got drawn to her and a good number of them became her ‘children’ till she passed on Sunday November 18, 2018.
Never married and never birthed a child, Anwuli as a good teacher, imparted good education, grooming her pupils early to become the best. If you’ve ever had a teacher who took the time to care, who inspired your dreams, or who changed your life, you know that great teachers can make a big difference.
Anwuli made huge and enormous difference in the lives of many and what it reflected was simple: Anwuli Aniemeka was a fantastic educator who stirred those she taught. But as southpaw, she knew teaching was only an early port of entry to what she would become in life. Yes, Anwuli was southpaw – lefthanded, a leftie – and she did find her calling early in life.
She let her creative genius lead her to what she finally became, the quintessential culinary artist, who was well schooled and well educated in the arts and science of preparation of food. And it was in the course of her journey to the top of her pack in the industry that she kept bumping up against the systemic sexist behavior so prevalent in the culinary world.
It took a Southpaw to understand that the though the mountain was high, that they were several ways to get to the summit. Growing up with Anwuli, her siblings learned that her left-handedness made her more skillful than the rest.
In fact, Anwuli was in the 12% of the world population of the left-handed, in the class of popular inventors like Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin, United States Presidents like Barack Obama and William Jefferson Clinton, and of course leading female icons like Oprah Gail Winfrey the American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist and Angelina Jolie another American actress, filmmaker, and humanitarian. Anwuli loved Oprah and Angelina.
After she graduated from the college of culinary arts in Benin City, Edo States, Nigeria, she pitched her tent in Enugu, Enugu State wherefrom she grew her restaurant business from the scratch. In growing her trade and letting her creative juice flood her path, she saw fellow women who were less privileged and less equipped to walk the whole nine yards to success. So, as devout Christian, she was open to taking them along, thus bringing hope to an underrepresented group of Enugu residents.
In bringing hope to these women, Anwuli saw their potentials first and their problems second. She taught them never to see their situations as problems. Defining that as wrong thinking, she moved their focus in a different direction – improving their conditions first as human beings.
She understood their situations always from the women’s point of view and matching that with her own experience, she helped all who came to her accordingly, without judgement. All these she did alone, by herself without telling the next person. The size of HOPE she brought to Enugu women was only made known when in their drones, these women trooped to her home in the Coal City when she died and followed, drowning in their tears when her remains made the final journey to her country home in Onicha-Ugbo, Delta State of Nigeria where she was buried on Thursday February 7, 2019.
Among these women today are well-established entrepreneurs with their daughters who have become active members of society, contributing to their different communities.
As a royalty to the throne of Onicha Ugbo, Delta State, Princess Anwuli left many siblings behind but she left more change agents that she created through the Hidden Hope she brought to her world.
Adieu, Nwaeze! Nwadei by Agwu!