Adenike Odutola on Sky Girls Nigeria Impact, Journey to Bloom

For the past two years, Adenike Odutola has been steering the ship of Sky Girls Nigeria, an organisation focused on empowering teenage girls. As the country director of the initiative which was launched in Nigeria in 2022 and in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, she has been instrumental in developing initiatives like the TV series ‘Journey to Bloom,’ which blends entertainment with education to address themes such as financial inclusion, sexual and reproductive health, and behavioural change. In a recent encounter, she tells Vanessa Obioha about the organisation’s impact so far on teenage girls in Nigeria

What kind of feedback has ‘Journey to Bloom’ received so far?

Whether as a content creator or a filmmaker or in our case, where this is just one of the pillars that we can reach our girls, you will be sceptical, especially when it’s new, because this is the first season for ‘Journey To Bloom,’ for Sky. You’re hoping that it’s well received. For us, it’s more about the messaging we’re putting out there. The numbers are important to us, but it’s really more about the messaging.

We hope that we are reaching out to the girls, that all of the things that we have tried to say to them, as subtle or as direct as they may come because we have feedback on that as well, that at the end of the day, that they get the messaging and that the outcome of that is positive.

Again, we’re going to be very honest. We’re not expecting an immediate behaviour change. You have to repeat. The messaging has to be recurring. But the intention is that when we put out this kind of information, they take it, internalize it, and start to apply it to their everyday lives. And I guess I would say it has been good so far. Whether it is just looking at the sentiments on social media and YouTube.

We also aired on Africa Magic for the entire eight episodes. Just getting feedback from the station as well as the viewership, looking at the numbers that we’ve been able to get in terms of our subscriber base and even our viewership in Nigeria. I remember one of the times we did a review, the girls were talking on WhatsApp— because we have WhatsApp Groups where we have them in different clusters — about how they didn’t have data to watch the series online. You know, the conversation around money and data was a thing considering the economic situation we are in. Regardless of that, I think we’ve been able to pull really decent numbers, and the girls are having conversations and talking about the characters; they are even recommending things that the character should have done better. So I guess it turned out great.

I know ‘Journey to Bloom’ premiered in Lagos, and then you went to Kaduna as well. I would like to find out if there were cultural differences from the feedback that you received.

Obviously, Kaduna and Lagos are very different with the girls, with their parents, and with how we engage them. The two states are clearly very different. However, what I can tell you for a fact is that every teenage girl, regardless of where you’re from and your socioeconomic class, when it comes to these conversations, it’s universal. Details of it might be different depending on the experiences, or it’s the same. They’re all having their periods, they’re all at the stages where they need their parents to pay a bit more attention to them. This is when they’re trying to navigate relationships, friends, and influence regardless of where they find themselves. So, the issue areas are universal regardless of where you come from.

But what we also did with the TV drama series was that we first of all took into consideration the two focus areas that we are in, which are Lagos and Kaduna. Of course, it is a little diverse, but there’s a focus on the two key characters. One character is from the north and the other is from the west, even if they’re both based in Lagos. You see it come through, even with their family, the conversations and the family values. So regardless of whether you’re from Kaduna or Lagos, when you watch it, you can relate.

I would like to point out that Sky Girls Nigeria is a multimedia social marketing program by girls, for girls. And what that means is that for every touch point, for every channel that we reach the girls through, we carry the girls along. They are part of the creation process. For the scripting, we had our focus groups every month in Kaduna and Lagos. So they go through the script. We’re not just making sure that they understand it, we have to see that they understand it. If our sample size is not able to understand what we’re trying to say, then we will go back to the drawing board and rework it again. And that’s what happens with every other channel that we reach them through, whether it’s magazines, whether it’s short-form video content, community activations and others.

We also have our evaluation period where we test if all of the things that we’ve been saying have worked, if they understand the messaging and if they were able to take out all of the key things we wanted them to take out from it. And that pretty much determines whether or not we’re going to go into the next season or not.

My point is this: we can have one or two million views, and we can be number one at the box office. But if the messaging did not come through, we would have failed. So it’s really more about the messaging and the impact and making sure that that behavioural change comes stronger than anything else. So I guess to your question, we always make sure that we carry them along. They are part of the creative process. We review the entire script, from episodes one to eight. We identify everywhere that we have the issue areas that we’ve brought into that discussion, whether intimacy or talking about menstrual period, contraception, or finances. We tested everything with the TV drama series to see that they understood it. And even in our testing, we also have the high-income girls, low-income girls, of course, that’s where the difference kind of comes in across both markets, across Kaduna and Lagos. The high-income girls can get it very quickly. Low-income girls, maybe not so much, and we have to make sure that everybody gets it.

Sky Girls have been in Nigeria for two years, how would you gauge the growth?

Yes, it was launched in 2022 but we have grown so fast.

In terms of number or impact?

Well, in terms of numbers and terms of impact and influence. The truth is, you already know the story of Nigeria, and when it comes to movies, music, culture and all of that stuff. We are influential in these areas. The girls outside Nigeria were so happy when we launched because, you know, Nigeria is the influence market. They were happy that Nigeria now has this cool platform so they follow all our conversations. We have music and all sorts of content that we put out. I was looking at the social media page here recently. I think Zambia had the highest number, the highest following, if I’m not mistaken, and we already have 2,000 followers right behind them, and that’s just for Instagram. People have been there since and they don’t have the numbers that we have. We have also got a big influence as well beyond even just having the population.

What do you think are the unique challenges an average Nigerian teenage girl goes through? What do you think are those things that make them feel unwanted, unloved or confused?

Before I talk about the challenges that we have, I would really just talk about what we’ve noticed through research or in just the course of having to work with the girls. Sky Girls is for girls that are from ages 13 to 19. And the truth about adolescent girls is that — I’m not sure that we like to admit it — they really get to choose what they want to do with their lives, what they want in their lives, and what they don’t want, as much as they’re still with their parents, but these are the years where they start to form habits, that they start to make decisions. And it is honestly why we’ve decided to catch them within that bracket. Because when you speak to girls, whether it is smoking or whatever the vices are, you find out they started in secondary school, age 14 or 15. They were sneaking it in at that time. But it is when they get older that people start to notice but the truth is that they started much earlier.

Same thing with sexual or reproductive health conversations, abuse, name it. That’s why we’re talking to them, and that’s why when we talk to Sky Girls, the mantra is, ‘Be true to yourself.’ If you call any Sky girl, that’s how she’s going to respond to you. Sky girls should only be true to themselves because we are also aware that at this stage, when you are very preachy, when you are telling them what to do; at home and in school, they are told what to do. We honestly don’t want to tell them what to do, but we can show them the available choices, even in the most difficult situations, and we hope that they can make positive choices in the process. Now, to your question, the reason why we’ve also just identified these two pillars, sexual reproductive health and financial inclusion, is because, based on research — we’ve identified all the issue areas that they have, and it’s a long list of things — those two are probably the most critical. I’ll tell you how those two are intertwined.

With sexual reproductive health, this has to do with whether it is even your period or your self-esteem and confidence. But linking that to sexual conversations, having to interact with boys, understanding that some things are normal and natural, and knowing that you have choices if you find yourself in a particular situation.
A choice to say yes, and, most importantly, a choice to say no. Remember that I said we allow them to make choices but that can be misconstrued. That’s how most parents will receive it. But the truth is that everyone is telling them what to do but what has that changed? What we are saying to them is that when you find yourself in difficult situations, reflect. That’s where your family and religious values come in because we believe that those people have been doing the work as well as society. We want them to be introspective. Are they doing it because their friends are doing it?

One of the things we also preach is influence, because we know that a lot of decisions are made just from the point of view of influence. It could be that they don’t want to disappoint a cool friend in school who has finally allowed them to hang out together. When they find themselves in such a situation, they want to impress that friend and often end up making the most silly decisions. And a lot of adults today can attest to that. Remember, I said, everything is backed by research. These are the things that we discovered are where the issue really comes from. They try to impress someone that in the next five years will be inconsequential but because they are at that stage, they feel this person is their everything, their best friend.

That’s where we come in, just making sure that they think through it. We make them understand that it’s okay to walk away, to not belong on the bandwagon. Always be true to yourself. If you now take it back into financial inclusion, we start to teach them to be financially independent. To inculcate the culture of savings from their income or allowance. What are you saving? What percentage of that goes into your savings? What percentage of that goes into your needs? What percentage of that goes into your wants? We encourage them to have the mindset of having their own money. We are not saying to have your own money so that nobody can talk to you. No, but have money because that’s where your independence truly comes from beyond everything else. What can you do? Do you have a craft or can you learn a trade? So these are some of the conversations we have with them.