In January 2022, Srividya Iyer, Professor at the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University sent an email to Olayinka Omigbodun, Professor of Psychiatry at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan asking her whether she would be interested in partnering to put together a proposal in response to a call from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) for grants to promote women’s health and economic empowerment in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. On seeing the focus of the call, Olayinka being aware that Iyeyinka Kusi-Mensah had recently collected data on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-employed youth in Ghana and Nigeria for her PhD programme in Sociology at the University of Cambridge forwarded the call to her. Prof. Omigbodun asked Iyeyinka whether she would be interested in developing her current research interests further through this proposal. Iyeyinka jumped at the opportunity as it aligned perfectly with her interests. This led to a series of meetings where Prof Omigbodun, Prof Iyer, Ms Kusi-Mensah and Dr Aarati Taksal (Research Coordinator at the Douglas Research Centre) with a multi-professional team of self-employed young women, policymakers and researchers co-produced the proposal of what has grown to become the “Advancing Resiliency in Self-Employed young Women In Nigeria (ARISE&WIN)” with the long title “Understanding the Gendered Impact of COVID-19 on Young Self-Employed Nigerian Women and Co-Producing Solutions that Foster Better Systems and Wellbeing”. This grant has Olayinka as the Principal Investigator of the ARISE&WIN project and Vidya as the Co-Principal Investigator.

Olayinka, Vidya, and Iyeyinka met in-person at the inception meeting of the WomenRise projects in January 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya and had continued to meet regularly online along with Aarati to plan and deliberate on the ARISE&WIN project. At this critical juncture of co-designing the intervention packages, a physical meeting was planned for June 2024 when Olayinka and Iyeyinka visited Vidya and also met Aarati in Montreal for the first time.

During their trip to Montreal, Olayinka and Iyeyinka were able to attend the Conference of the Canadian Association of African Studies. Iyeyinka gave a presentation titled “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Self-Employed Youth in Ghana and Nigeria”, integrating data collected during her PhD and on the ARISE&WIN project. She discussed the impacts that the pandemic had on the businesses of self-employed youth, reducing demand for their products, disrupting their supply chains and forcing them to change their working arrangements. This led to financial distress and negatively affected the wellbeing of many self-employed youth in Ghana and Nigeria. She also elaborated upon the importance of savings, digital skills and the assistance of family and religious organizations in coping with the pandemic crisis.

Iyeyinka Kusi-Mensah, Lead Post-Doctoral Fellow of the ARISE&WIN Project, giving a presentation at the conference for the Canadian Association of African Studies

Olayinka, Vidya, Aarati and Iyeyinka met to extensively discuss plans for the implementation of the ARISE&WIN Intervention Package. The meeting started off at the Irving Ludmer Psychiatry Research and Training building where the team reviewed the activities conducted on the ARISE&WIN project so far. The team then went to a beautiful food court in Downtown Montreal where the discussion on plans for the ARISE&WIN intervention implementation continued over delicious Mexican food.

Team Meeting at the Irving Ludmer Psychiatry Research and Training building on Intervention Packages. From L-R: Iyeyinka Kusi-Mensah, Vidya Iyer & Aarati Taksal

Continuing our meetings over lunch From L-R: Vidya Iyer, Iyeyinka Kusi-Mensah, Olayinka Omigbodun, SomNyame Kusi-Mensah, Aarati Taksal

The trip to Montreal also included fun and memorable activities. Vidya took Olayinka, Iyeyinka and SomNyame to the Notre Dame Basilica, a majestic building in the centre of Montreal’s Old City, where they watched a light show that put on display the gloriousness of the basilica. After this, they walked through the Old City where Vidya pointed out various sites of historical significance including the Old City Hall, the Port, the Montreal Science Centre, and the picturesque narrow windy streets of the Old City. The night was crowned with Maple Taffy tasting.

Olayinka and Iyeyinka are grateful to Vidya and Aarati for their hospitality and the team is happy for this opportunity for team building and strengthening collaborations. It was truly an opportunity for us to ARISE & WIN.