I must confess, this contest has taught me patience. Writing a 1000 words and more for the third time! Well I hope i qualify this time as @dobartim told me, "never give up", so I won't.
Steemit is an awesome place to be. Testimonies abound from its reward. Many lives have been transformed from the circle of lack and want, to being able to provide for themselves and their families. Mine is one of those lives that has been touched by the goodness of this platform and this is my transformation story.
My name is Daniella Camilus. I am from Akwa Ibom state in Nigeria and I live in Uyo. I studied History and international studies at university level and I work as a history researcher in a private archive here in Uyo. I am also a baker and confectionery maker. I bake not just as a business but also out of love. I am a hardworking, gentle and enterprising lady. I do see myself as an entrepreneur at heart,that's because I do not have the finance to start up my confectionery business yet. But i am sure I soon will!
I heard about this platform in December 2017 but I delayed to register because I did not have a good phone or laptop. But i was encouraged to start up with the small phone I have been using, with the hope that it will get better. And so i joined steemit on the 2nd of January,2018. The person who introduced me to steemit @fabianmani, also introduced me to several other wonderful steemit communities on whatsapp, like the steembees, fbm community and the I-Raise Network. I also joined some other facebook steemit communities also.
Just like so many newbies, my mindset about steemit, when I joined, was that i was in it for the reward and when the reward did not come as expected, i became discouraged. I had spent some amount of cash on internet data and I was not seeing the reward. I was tempted to quit but when I saw testimonies from others in my whatsapp community of how they were getting good payout, I knew i could still give it a shot and I did.!
I encouraged myself to strive harder and make my post with more quality. I began to understudy people who had large payout, see thier contents and know how the platform works. I followed some big names on the blog and gave it my full undivided attention.
So i paid more attention to details and read a lot of books so I could have more insights when writing. And yes, I can say overtime, my writing has improved!
I've made a lot of new friends from steemit, some I have met physically and others we still chat online but the bond this platform.
Among my friends, I have @chidera, @julietisreal,@gloeze, @abasifreke, @ewuoso, @masonleo,@harry-height,@king-ernie,@wendie and so many others. All this people were known through steemit.
I work as a researcher and i earn less than $85 monthly. Sometimes, due to financial constraints, i don't even get paid for a couple of months. You can imagine how I survive without any salary. Sometimes I could not even afford bus fare to work, so I walk all the way down! Let's not even talk about my feeding and toiletries as a lady! I felt frustrated a lot of times.
When I joined steemit, my first payout was from my "introduce yourself" post which I made less than $1. I still felt good cause it was something! And so I continued. I kept making contents on my blog, took part in several contests and made a lot of comments on whale blogs. I haven't earned much from steemit tho but the little I have, I have used it judiciously.
The first time i had an upvote of $28 from a comment, i felt like heaven visited me! I announced it to my friends that my suffering has finally paid off! I was so happy and motivated. When I got the payout, I called my elder sister @mrsbea and showed her, that motivated her to join since she was already sceptic about the whole thing. My payout became my gospel!
"STEEMIT pays!!!"
I made sure I used the money correctly, I bought some foodstuffs for myself ( I had no food in my home for some days, so you can imagine my joy!). Then i gave some to my mother, for her blood pressure drugs and house feeding. And kept the rest for my daily transport fare to work ( no more trekking!)
That single encounter opened my eyes to see the opportunities that i could achieve through steemit. I began to see myself saving up for my business establishment.
Subsequently, the benefits of steemit began to extend to my family and friends such that i can now take care of some household bills and assist in my younger sister's school bills.
In my country, life is tough, the economy is nasty and financial empowerment lies only in the hands of aristocrats and they only help those affiliated to them. Unlike the western world, getting a job here is very difficult despite your academic qualifications. If you get a good job, Its mostly because you know a high ranking person who would put in word for you. So if you are like me, having no VIP individual, then your struggles will continue. That's why we have so many jobless youth in their prime and nothing for them to do.
But i have studied all these and decided that rather than wait for the government to make things better, I want to contribute to make my community better.
I am a baker and I love teaching what I know. I would also love to take baking as a full time profession. I have trained a lot of persons on confectionery production and still desire to train more. I hope to give back to my community by creating employment avenues for young people there. My desire is to open a Cake House where I can train people on confectionery production and still give them employment opportunity to practise it. I intend to start at the my town's college campus. I already have a lot of people indicating interest. All I need now is fund.
Also, I'm glad to say that with my steemit rewards, I still run a small scale supply of snacks and drinks during weekends. I am relying totally on steemit to raise capital for this business because getting loan or grant here is very difficult and I really want to build a life and help people build theirs too. Hence I need to win this contest.!!!
MY FUTURE PLANS FOR STEEMIT
If there is one thing I'm so grateful for, its steemit!
And because i have seen its transformation on me, i think the best thing to do it publicise it!
The popular chinese proverb says, "Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime!"
Topmost on the list of future plans i have for steemit, is to teach as many people what steemit is about.
I've brought in quite a number of people and i feel i have not even started!
By weekend, i intend to visit my sister in another state, help her understand steemit better and introduce the platform to a couple of friends i have there .
I intend to organise a seminar by this month end in my town, Uyo(I'll keep you all posted). I'm making contacts with steemians here so we could work together to achieve more in the outreach.
I also participated in fbm whatsapp community group visit to motherless babies home where we contributed to give some food items and toiletries. My heart really went out to those kids..hmmm.
I have plans of organizing schemes through steemit that will benefit this orphanages. Maybe something like the DONATION COMPETITION ( win and donate it ) hosted by @dobartim.
I also have plans of monthly data subscription to those who can't afford it so they would not have any issues accessing internet to steemit.
As time goes on, and as the benefits increase, I'll do more for my community and for steemians.
Good things can't be hidden, the community has to benefit.! I'm sure @dobartim knows I'm following his footsteps
Thanks to @dobartim for this ultimate challenge.
Thanks to all the wonderful people on this platform who has made my stay in steemit a great one so far.
To get more information about the contest,