Encomium
This week’s edition of the Globacom-sponsored television magazine programme, CNN African Voices Changemakers, will be celebrating two young women who have been doing exploits in liberal arts on the African continent.
Yvonne Anuli Orji, a Nigerian-American actress reputed for her role as Molly in the Home Box Office series Insecure, and Congo’s Anifa Mvuemba, creator of fashion label, Hanifa, whose 3D runway fashion show recently took the world by storm will be on showcase on the programme.
Orji was born on December 2, 1983, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria. Her family later relocated to Maryland in the United States of America when she was six years old. In America, she found her passion for comedy in spite of her parents’ objection. She was performing comedy at talent segments of beauty pageants and similar shows.
Upon graduation from George Washington University, Orji pursued a career in comedy and later acquired multiple degrees including a Masters in Public Health to the delight of her parents.
Her career has been colourful ever since. She featured at TEDx Wilmington Salon in 2017 to talk about “The wait is sexy” where she explained her reasons for abstaining from sex before marriage. Her works include Love that Girl, 2011 Sex (Therapy) With the Jones (2013), Jane the Virgin, 2017 and the soar-away television seriesInsecure which has aired since 2016.
The second guest, Mvuemba, is 29 years of age and was the creator of the fashion label Hanifa. Her own family also relocated to America from the Democratic Republic of Congo when she was a toddler. Her current fashion line dubbed Pink Label Congo was inspired by her homeland.
Mvuemba’s fashion career received a boost this year when she braved the challenge of Covid-19 by holding a virtual fashion show streamed over Instagram Live. During the show, each garment appeared in 3D against a black backdrop as if worn by invisible models strutting the podium in catwalks. First of its kind, the show caught the attention of thousands of Hanifa’s 250,000 followers who tuned in to watch and share the video.
Catch African Voices Changemakers on DSTV on Friday at 9.30 a.m. and on Saturday at 12.30 p.m., 5.30 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. Other repeat broadcasts come up on Sunday at 5.00 a.m., 9.30 a.m. and 8.30 p.m., with more repeats on Monday and Tuesday at 5.30 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. respectively.
