Fellow:Olamide Jalaade
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Bio
Hello, my name is Olamide (O-la-mih-day), but feel free call me Ola. I'm an undergraduate student and freelance radio host at University of Galway. Like many of us, life for me has been full of ups and downs, trials and tribulations and everything in between. Growing up, I struggled with my mental health and overall sense of direction in life. Pardon the cliché but, I'd always felt like I was a bird with large, beautiful wings and an incredible potential to fly but unable to use them because I was trapped in a cage. I found myself perpetually caged by my own mind and unable to do anything substantial that would provide me with the life satisfaction I desired deep down. Don't worry, this isn't a long winded sob story, I'm just providing you, dear reader, with the context from which you're meeting the Ola you see today. I vividly remember the classic "where do you see yourself in five years?" question posed by my parents, teachers and potential employers alike. I remember how difficult I had found it to dream big, plan for the future and ultimately offer a suitable answer. Because, quite frankly, I couldn't envision one. Anytime time I tried, my mind came up blank. Like the static on those old TV screens during a storm.
The COVID-19 pandemic was a challenging time for us all. However, it was during that period of global stand-still and mandated isolation that I had the opportunity to really sit down with myself and have the difficult conversations that I'd been avoiding for so long. I'll spare you the details but I essentially came to realise that I'd spent most of my life running. Running away from the fact that my life is my responsibility. I mean, who decided that? do they know who I am? do they know what I've been through? I can barely get out of bed most days, how do they expect me to build the life I want? how do they expect me to even know the life I want? I'd like to speak to the manager, I don't want this job, I'm completely incapable! Thoughts like these would flood my mind and I would end up feeling frustrated and hopeless. It was also during this time that I did indeed hunt down the manager and rediscovered my Faith in God and gave Him quite the earful. After months of wrestling with confusion and the pain that comes with healing, things began to look up. Rather, I did. I began to look outside myself more and out into the world around me. I discovered that I wasn't the only one who struggled, I wasn't the only one with pain and maybe, just maybe, I could use my extensive experience in those fields to make the world a better place. I had found my why and I chose to believe in it. I decided that I didn't want to live a debilitated life anymore. I decided that I would use all my pain to fuel my newly ignited passion to help people who have struggled, people like you and me, to live the life they've been afraid to even dream of. But first, I had to help myself.
Helping myself started with further exploring my relationship with God, receiving counselling, going back to college and developing meaningful relationships. All of which were incredibly difficult at first, I must admit. After a few years of wrestling with who I used to be, I won a few rounds and my confidence started to grow. I rediscovered my appetite for growth and worked on maximising my life satisfaction by opening myself up to as many value-adding experiences as possible. These experiences helped me better understand myself, what I want and how I can contribute to society. I started going to church, applying myself at university and volunteering with charities. At university, I connected with the chaplaincy and completed the Seas Suas training to support student wellbeing, I discovered the IdeasLab and completed entrepreneurial development programmes like CreateHER, and I even started a radio-show podcast, LOMAH, which amplified creatives in my community and engaged with difficult topics on the human condition. I started to feel alive again, and believed I was ready to expand and offer support beyond myself. I volunteered with Jigsaw, a mental health charity and became an advocate for youth mental health. I facilitated philosophical inquiry for first year students via a peer-assisted learning programme and I held LIFT roundtable discussions on positive leadership with other students at university. Hey, it wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, I also experienced some hard times and failures but I had learned to no longer let those define me and accepted them as part of the vicissitudes of life. So, where I am at now?
Over the years, I've come to learn that fulfillment is derived from pursuing a life marked by purpose and harmony. So fueled by a desire to help others , I aim to create a career that integrates the different dimensions of the human experience and thereby foster cohesion. I am particularly interested in the intersection between Faith or philosophy, psychology, creativity and innovation. My experience facilitating communities of philosophical inquiry helped me to realise the importance of supporting people to 'become' rather than just 'do'. I believe that what we do should stem from who we are and as we work on becoming, whatever that may look like for each individual, what we do will naturally follow and vice versa. I see the UIF as another step on the journey of the becoming-doing paradigm. I would like to help students to discover their potential and become the best version of themselves. I believe this can be achieved by cultivating a community of curiosity and creativity, where students can work together, learn from each other, solve problems and be equipped with the skills required to excel within themselves, at university, in the market place and beyond.
So, I've been Ola, who are you? Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear your story and support your dreams in any way I can. Thank you for coming to my TED talk :D.
Matthew 29:37-39 "Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself'"
Achievements
• President's Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship 2024: Silver medal recipient.
• Winning Team of IdeasLab Enterprise Challenge 2024: Successfully developed a sustainability project to streamline Boston Scientific' s distribution process.
• Start100 Participant 2024: Completed the IdeasLab startup programme to develop communication and storytelling skills, business and commercial acumen to understand markets, funding opportunities and how to leverage the ecosystem to further support the development of ideas.
• CreateHER 2024: Completed the IdeasLab female entrepreneurship programme to enhance self belief, financial literacy, innovation mind-set and leadership skills.
• Seas Suas Certificate 2024: Effectively completed Bystander Intervention Training to support student health and wellbeing through awareness and encouragement. Topics included mental health, alcohol and drugs, sexual violence, suicide prevention, peer-to-peer support and relevant supports services.
• Flirt FM Radio Essentials Badge 2023: Certificate of acknowledgment for learning about community media, structuring a show, operating a sound desk and participating in the station’s output.
• LIFT Leadership Certificate 2021: Completed training to facilitate roundtable discussions while exercising the Positive Leadership values of honesty, competence, accountability, empathy, respect and positive attitude.
Social media profiles
https://www.linkedin.com/in/olamide-jalaade/
Related links
