Michelle Obama’s approach to dealing with political violence is to go high when the bullies are going low. Cllr Yemi Adenuga finds her ‘high’ in canvassing and conversations with her electorate. To withstand the harassment and abuse she is grounding herself in values and her faith. However, the cornerstone of her ability to sustain herself as a politician was finding her personal ‘why’. Before going into politics Yemi conducted a deep self-reflection to know why becoming a politician was worth it to her and what legacy she wanted to leave behind.
I was listening back to our conversation over and over trying to capture the essence of it to write a summary. Cllr Yemi Adenuga’s personality is too rich to be summarised and so are conversations with her. Each time I listened back to the recording I found a new lesson, idea, or concept to reflect on. It is hard to believe so many valuable learnings are packed into a conversation shorter than 40 minutes.
We cover topics such as building and practicing resilience, arguments for regularising social media, the importance of role models and mentorship, what it means to be a politician, how to realise opportunities, why you shouldn’t pull the ladder, and many more.
During the conversation, the topic of abuse and harassment of politicians was an underlying theme. This conversation could not be timelier. The Dail (Irish Parliament) Taskforce on Safe Participation in Political Life report was launched only last week. The findings of this report reflected the reality of the abuse politicians particularly women face. These findings echo the 2019 report by the Immigrant Council of Ireland on the experiences of migrant election candidates. Listen to what advice Cllr Yemi Adenuga has for politicians and election candidates facing abuse.
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