Working Mom magazine set to honour Nigerian mothers

Ikoku, President, Working Moms of Africa

Organisers of the annual Working Mom Awards have concluded arrangement to hold this year’s edition on December 6, 2014 at the Eko Hotel and Suite, Lagos.

The Working Mom Awards is designed to help mom in career and businesses reach their full potentials while the award was created to celebrate, honour and continually support mothers from different occupations in Nigeria.

 Making the announcement, chief host of the event, Mrs. Mary Ikoku, said they would be consolidating on the maiden edition held last year, which recorded huge success.

Ikoku said she was optimistic that this year’s edition would be better as she hoped to double the success recorded last year.

 “This is the second season of the Mom Ball and Award and we are expanding the scope, as we would be having more categories than last year.” She said.

Ikoku also disclosed that part of the innovation for this year’s edition is to have a pre-award conference and exhibition in the morning of the award day.

“The conference would have a mini-exhibition where we would bring busy moms to interact with one another and brands.”

Some of the speakers include Amina Oyabola of MTN, Ndidi Nwuneli of LEAP Africa and Nicholas Okoye of Anabel Group.

According to Ikoku, there would be two sessions of panel discussion, which would be led by Adesua Onyenekwe.

While one of the sessions would discuss life of the mom in the office, the second would talk about life of the mom at home.

“We would be looking at issues like the mindfulness of the working mother, which would be led by Amina Oyebola. She would also be looking at  sourcing fund for businesses and a couple of other topics.

She maintained that women being honoured are those who have been able to manage their home and work front as well as their life creditably well in a manner that one does not suffer unduly.

Disclosing that over five hundred delegates would be attending the conference with the theme, “Succeed and achieve,” she said during the award night, winners would emerge from ten categories and three other special categories.

“Among the ten categories is the Working mom of the year, and it is the woman that has been able to get to the peak of her career without losing her family or getting divorced.

“We see a lot people getting to the peak of their career but by then, there marriages are no longer intact or their children are up to something negative. So we are looking for that woman who has been able to get to the top of her career yet her home front is fine and her life is still very much intact. That is the biggest award of the night. All the awards are very important but that is the title award.

 “The person who wins that award goes through a lot to get there. There are usually three nominees in each category, while votes get people to the nomination stage, the judges pick the winners.”

She revealed that in picking the Working mom of the year, “we go to the school of the children of these mothers; talk to their husbands as well as neighbours to see what kind of mother they have been.”

Another category of the award is the best Mom in media, which is for the mother who is raising and taking care of her family, yet she has been helping to break the news, whether print or broadcast.

Accordingly, another category is expected to reward the Best Company for working mom, which would be decided by an institute that has work in that direction.

“For all the categories, the nominees must have a child that is below eighteen years. The award is for working mother even that woman that is selling akara or fish. We do not preclude this category of mom.”

Ikoku said she believed that the programme has been impacting lives, as women who attend the event are now responsible.

  “I am sure the over 300 delegates we had last year were able to see that there is a reward for people who do it happily.” She said.