Posted in Autobiography, Guest Post, Inspiration, Public Relations, Women

Brave Icon: Meet Brenda McWilson-Okorogba, our very own #MomentsWithBren

Celebrating an #Iconic Woman, Learning Experience Designer, Grant Writer, Training Facilitator, and Positive Psychology Coach, Brenda Mc Wilson-Okorogba.

Tribe: Woman, Business Woman, Thought Leader, Multiple Award Winner, Learning Experience Designer, Grant Writer, Training Facilitator, Public Speaker, Humanitarian and Activist for Gender Parity and Peace Building.


Profile:

Brenda McWilson-Okorogba is brave icon and dynamic young woman with a global footprint. One who defies all odds and redefines success for young women globally.

Her impact in the education sector and influence in the career path of many remains so inspiring. She excels at what she does with much intention, humility and a brilliance that is undisputed, driving initiatives that continue to empower and impact positivity many globally.

Brenda Okorogba is a multiple award-winning service and learning experience designer, Grant Writer, Training Facilitator, and Positive Psychology coach with over 9-years of experience ideating, designing, and delivering outcome-based programming for diverse learners across industries, sectors, and geographies.

She has an educational background in Psychology, Biological Sciences, and Business Entrepreneurship. As a lifelong learner, Brenda is an alumna of the University of Manitoba, and a host of other reputable schools and organizations.


Her Expertise:

She is especially known for developing and giving individuals the tools to excel in very challenging roles and stages of their personal and career life. She has a passion for classroom, workplace, and community learning and a gift for creating targeted learning solutions that address relevant career, community, and business needs.

Brenda loves to distill concepts or methods into meaningful frameworks and make ideas accessible for others to learn. Brenda brings experience in youth civic engagement and leadership development, transdisciplinary research, and UDL facilitation to her role in leading program design, strategy, technical capacity building, and external outreach at Momentswithbren Consulting.

As a Learning Experience Designer and Trainer, Brenda has taught in diverse learning environments and to audiences from a multitude of socio-cultural backgrounds. To offer effective online learning, she believes in the potential of integrating creativity, learning experience, strategic thinking, and technology.

Brenda currently facilitates a workforce development program funded by the IRCC Canada that provides resettlement and broad-based services to newcomer women and Government-assisted refugees (GARs) in Ottawa. She successfully creates soft skill presentations which have helped increase the career readiness and self-improvement of diverse clients and community members.


Her Humanitarian Activities:

Brenda is also passionate about gender parity and peacebuilding. She raised awareness on the unsolved missing and murder cases of Nigerian women and girls using the hashtag #MissingAndMurderedNigerianWomen.

This campaign is to create awareness of unsolved cases and the gender-based violence meted out on Nigerian women and girls that people barely talk about. Uxoricide, Femicide, Rape, Murder, Kidnapping, Organ Harvesting, Domestic Abuse and Misogyny in the Nigerian society.

She believes that the missing and murder cases of Nigerian women are an alarming societal issue that needs to be addressed and put to an end because, every Nigerian woman deserves to live and thrive in a safe environment or society #MMNG..


Her Consultancy, MomentsWithBren:

In all her projects, Brenda emphasizes the vital need to tie learning efforts to the performance goals of the individuals, organizations, and communities. Brenda has received widespread recognition for bridging needs, skills, and opportunities across an international footprint, known as “Momentswithbren”.

She is a team player who is passionate about supporting impactful programs to improve economic opportunities for those experiencing multiple barriers to employment. She has proven experience working in personal and professional development, career coaching, and mentoring for job seekers from underrepresented communities.

Her active curiosity enables her to think, see and hear from a variety of perspectives, a place where every day is different, and having the courage to grow is part of who she is. She is popularly known by the moniker “Momentswithbren” which is also her consultancy in Canada.


Her Projects and Impact:

Brenda’s activism is centered on economic dignity and security, education, gender parity, and collective prosperity. In 2018, Brenda was selected as a young leader to join a team of 100 Gender Equity Advocates with the YWCA Canada who went to the Parliament of Canada to lobby for $75 Million.

She spoke to Manitoban MPs and Senators on pressing issues and the need to invest more in economic security, employment opportunities, access to quality education, housing, and healthcare services for women and young girls across Manitoba. The Day on the Hill started off with a federal funding announcement totaling $1.25 Million from the former Minister of Status of Women, the Honourable Maryam Monsef (more here).

Brenda has provided college and career readiness coaching to diverse students across the world who have successfully secured $80.4M in scholarships, bursaries, differential tuition fee waivers, and graduate assistantships and currently has a published directory AMEKETUNI with $446B worth of financial aid for diverse students across the world.

Individuals who have benefitted from her services have recorded academic and career success rates of 98%, launched profitable businesses and transitioned into new careers in the past 5 years. 

As a Grant Writer, Brenda provides cross-functional leadership, interdisciplinary training, and knowledge transfer sessions to present-focused, future-ready R&D organizations, NPOs, Startups, and SMEs enabling them to develop action plans with tactical roadmaps to execute strategic initiatives that drive operational excellence, market-entry, and opportunity progression and revenue growth. Brenda loves to distill concepts or methods into meaningful frameworks and make ideas accessible for others to learn.

She supports sustainable projects/programs/initiatives that require analysis, optimization, and refinement of existing processes; and the creation and implementation of new processes. She advises various internal teams and external clients on best practices for employee wellness, human-centered design thinking, resource mapping, monitoring and evaluation, process improvement, psychological science to guide the design of products/systems/devices we use every day, go-to-market strategy, community outreach, developing and aligning personas and buying processes with lead nurturing flows, and demand generation program development.


Her Recognitions and Awards:

Some honors received by Brenda include the 2022 Top 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women, Manitoba150 Honours Award (a once-in-a-lifetime award), the 2019 Top 25 RBC Canadian Immigrant Award, the 2019 Diana Award UK, the 2019 and 2020 Top 9 Future Leaders of Manitoba Finalist, the 2019 Volunteer Manitoba Award, and many others including recognitions in the UK and Nigeria.


Taking a moment today to celebrate this outstanding woman and #BraveIcon, Brenda Mc-Wilson-Okorogba!

Posted in Business, Career, Review, Women

Brave Review: How Women Rise

Reading “How Women Rise” by Sally Helgensen and Marshall Goldsmith has really been an eye opening book.😌

In reading this book, business owners, and leaders across all levels, particularly women, will certainly certainly experience a mind shift.

For centuries, women have continued to accomplish outstanding feats.

However due to many constraints (economic or environmental, self imposed) and limiting thought patterns, the progressive contributions and innovations in business and leadership by women across all sectors has received less recognition than it deserves.

In reading this book, you would learn a whole lot:

1. You will learn to embrace your strengths.
2. You will learn to identify your weaknesses, self sabotaging habits and how to overcome them.
3. You will learn how to enlist the right help and strategic support needed to forge ahead.
4. You will learn about the importance of effective communication, speak up for yourself, your work and your accomplishments.
5. You will learn the importance of setting the right boundaries, saying ‘No’ to the wrong opportunities and saying ‘Yes’ to the right opportunities
6. You will learn the importance of authenticity and why this is crucial to your progressive movement as a leader and woman.
These and lots more are turning points from reading this book.

With case studies and real stories of people that remain memorable and relatable, this is certainly one book you will enjoy reading alone or with friends!
A highly recommended read, authored by @sally_helgesen and @coachgoldsmith.😊🙌🏽

Posted in Review, Women

Brave Review: Craving Connection

Craving Connection. 30 women dissect 30 challenges under interesting topics addressing Self, God, Friends and Community. Everything that makes friendships worth the while.

If making friends has been a bit of a challenge or, being a good friend, or fitting in, or navigating the difficulties of friendships, and all the complexities that comes with the friends-zone, then this is a good book for you.

Reading through this book is like reading the minds or journals of amazing yet imperfect women, who have somehow over the years, identified helpful insights, truths and principles that makes friendships work and community worth the while.

If any thing, this book emphasizes that no one is designed to do life alone.

We all need good friends and community, to help us through our life’s journey. To ease the burden, to laugh, to smile, to grow, to cry, to pray and to encourage each other to shine brightly in our diverse and distinct gifts for purpose.

With practical insight, fun engagement activities, and connection challenges for each of the 30 Challenges covered in this book; this is certainly a rewarding and great read. Sure to bring much improvement to your circle of friends and beloved community.

Really, “Craving Connection” by the (in)courage community (@incourage) speaks to the heart, and you will be gently inspired and encouraged to become a better friend and also recognize those other special people in your life.

A highly recommended read!😊

Posted in Publicity Posts

The Top 9 Publicity Designs and Branding Projects at @bravepublicity for 2021

I’ll have to say that, these are the top 9 Publicity Designs and Branding Projects at @bravepublicity for the year 2021.😌🥰

Some proved to be more challenging than others,🤷🏽‍♀️ and they all reflect Brave Publicity’s growth and progress this year as a young business in Corporate Communications, Public Relations and Publishing.😆😊

I’m thankful for the opportunities of service, strength of consistency and successful execution.

Looking forward to a rewarding new year in advance.😄👍🏽

PS: It’s 11 Days to Christmas!🎄😀🤸🏾🤸🏾🤸🏾☺️🤓

Posted in Publicity Posts

21 Reasons To Be Thankful!

Here are 21 reasons to be THANKFUL on this special Thanksgiving Day! 🙌🏽😃

Beyond this special day, it’s important to make it a habit to always recognize reasons to be thankful.😊

Everything may not be perfect, but you’re still here. You’re alive, breathing and have sight and technology to access and read this.

That means God has great plans for you and has more for you to accomplish.

Reflection helps us recognize reasons to be thankful.

You can be thankful for:

  1. Your family.
  2. Your amazing friends.
  3. Your safe space and community.
  4. Your great relationship.
  5. Your health.
  6. Your job.
  7. Your phone and gadgets.
  8. Your cool work space.
  9. Your school.
  10. Your scholarship.
  11. Your successful work project.
  12. Your published book.
  13. Your own house or a place to call your own.
  14. Your own car to move around easily.
  15. Your business and how far you’ve come.
  16. Your support system and helpers.
  17. Your special opportunity this year.
  18. Your creativity and areas of gifting that makes you outstanding.
  19. Your favor experiences and preferential treatments, when it could have easily been the opposite.
  20. Your peace of mind.
  21. Your new start.

And so much more!

Really.

Think about this.

When you think, I’m certain that you’ve got reasons to be very thankful.

On this day and as the year rounds off, do a quick appraisal. I’m certain that you will find that there is much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving Friend.🥰🤗❤️😊