Jessica Chinonye Ohaka is the Founder of Reboot Wellbeing and Empowerment Foundation. She is a Chartered Economist, Social Entrepreneur, and one of Nigeria’s most compelling emerging voices in youth development and mental health advocacy.
She began her journey in grassroots development work at sixteen, volunteering in spaces where young people were being failed by systems not designed for them. That instinct became a career. Jessica earned her degree from the University of Abuja and went on to qualify as a Chartered Economist while undergoing the rigorous ICAN process to qualify as a Chartered Accountant – pursuing professional certification simultaneously with building an organization, managing programmes, and navigating the daily realities of a challenging economic climate.
As Programme Manager for the MindYourself (MY) program, a pan-West African mental health initiative, Jessica was part of a team that reached over 20,000 young people across the region; designing systems for psychological wellbeing at a scale that few youth-led efforts on the continent have achieved. Jessica, now 24, has led in rooms where she was the youngest person present, the only woman at the table, and the African voice in international conversations about Africa.
Jessica who has just released a book titled: 24BeforeForever: What I Learned, Unlearned, Built, and Survived Before Turning 24 speaks about the book and her NGO.
Excerpts:
What inspired you to write the book which was released on your birthday?
Honestly, I have always wanted to write a book. But beyond the desire, what really pushed me to finally do it was the number of people, friends, acquaintances, even complete strangers who kept asking me how I got to where I am. People would reach out wanting to understand my journey, wanting to know what I did differently. And I found myself having the same conversations over and over again, one person at a time. At some point I thought, I cannot keep doing this individually. I need to put it somewhere people can access it.
That is also a big part of why I started my organisation in the first place. Because what I did to get myself here, I tried it with a few people around me, walked them through it and it worked. It got them into great spaces too. So this book is an extension of that. I also think the timing is very intentional. With everything Nigeria and Africa is going through right now, young people need a reminder that the glamorous lives they see are the result of hard work and difficult seasons that nobody posts about. I wanted to be that honest voice. It is hard, yes. But it is also possible.
Who is the book for?
The book is primarily for young people, young Africans especially. But I want to be clear; it is not a motivational book in the traditional sense. It is more of a companion; something that guides and encourages without pretending that the journey is easy. That said, I also think it is for older people, parents, guardians, employers, mentors. Because one thing this book does is hold up a mirror to the pressures that young people are navigating every single day but don’t talk about; pressures that most adults around them are not even aware of.
So if you are older and you have young people in your life, this book will give you a lot of context for what they are actually going through. Ultimately, it is for anyone who is willing to be honest about the gap between the life we show and the life we live.
Jessica Chinonye Ohaka is the Founder of Reboot Wellbeing and Empowerment Foundation
What value do you think the book will add to young people?
I think the biggest value this book offers is language. A lot of young people are struggling with things they cannot name and when you cannot name something, you cannot address it. Whether it is the anxiety of building something with no resources, the grief of feeling behind your peers, the exhaustion of performing strength when you are falling apart, this book puts words to those experiences. And that alone can be genuinely life-changing. Beyond that, it is packed with what I call sincere chapters. I think young people are tired of being told what success looks like from the outside. They want to know what the inside feels like and that is exactly what this book gives them.
Would you say the Reboot Wellbeing and Empowerment Foundation has impacted positively on the community?
R-WEF is a young organisation. We were founded last year and only incorporated this year so I want to be honest about where we are. We are just getting started. But even at this early stage, the impact is already showing. Our pilot programme, Growth Beyond Grades, came directly from something personal. I graduated from the University of Abuja with a Second Class Lower. And that result followed me everywhere. I missed opportunities because of it. But now,
I am doing better than many of my classmates who graduated with First Class. And in every significant role I have ever been hired for, not once has anyone asked to see my certificate. Grades measure academic performance but they do not measure capability, character or potential. Employers, especially global employers, want skills. They want people who can think, communicate, adapt and deliver. And our educational system, as it stands, is not adequately preparing young people for that reality. That is the gap Growth Beyond Grades is designed to close.
Through the programme, we have helped young people understand how to position themselves, build employable skills, and navigate the world of work including remote and global opportunities that so many Nigerians are not accessing simply because they do not know how. We have hired two participants from our first cohort of thirty into roles within our own organisation. For a self-funded initiative at this stage, that matters to us. We are just beginning. But the foundation is solid, and the results are already speaking.
What is your message to African youth?
My message is you have everything it takes. Africa is full of intelligent, driven, creative young people who are being held back by lack of access, lack of information and outdated systems that were not designed for the world we are entering. I am very passionate about the future of work. There are global companies right now that cannot find the talent they need and yet our young people are sitting with the skills and the hunger, not knowing how to position themselves for those opportunities.
So my message is that learn how the global world works. Invest in your skills. Do not wait for a system to validate you before you begin. The world has shifted and the opportunities exist for those who know where to look and how to show up. I am living proof of that. And so are the people I have walked this road with. Africa’s time is not coming. It is already here. We just need to step into it.
R-WEF — Reboot Wellbeing and Empowerment Foundation Email: jessicaohaka@r-wef.org Instagram: @jessica.c.ohaka LinkedIn: Jessica Chinonye Ohaka, ACE Website: www.r-wef.org