A sixteen-year-old Nigerian, Munachi Mbonu, has launched her book, ‘PEARL’ along with an innovative online book clubhouse to strengthen reading culture among youngsters in Nigeria.
The book highlights the mental health of a particular character, written to inspire young people on importance of mental health with courage to seek help. At the launch, Mbonu, who said the book is relatable unlike the other books written by her, noted that it has an age-rating of 13 owing to what the society considers as being sensitive, and also a real life experience inspired by someone she knows.
She said: “Apart from the fact that I really wanted to write something that young people are able to relate to, especially when it borders around mental health, I want to lend my voice in raising awareness on the importance of mental health and to give courage to those who seek help.”
Mbonu said the book is a call to action for young people to be able to help when it comes to mental health of people, raise awareness and push the message. Also, the young author has launched her innovative online book clubhouse to improve the reading culture among Nigerians and Africans of all ages by leveraging technology, noting that the website would be accessible to all without payment with lots of interesting short stories.
Meanwhile, Veteran Nollywood Actress, Joke Silva, said the online book clubhouse would provide a platform for storytelling, preserving the cultural heritage, and fostering a love for reading.
She urged all mothers to encourage their children to discover their talents, noting that everything is not about study. The author’s mother, Ifeoma Mbonu, described her daughter as smart, multi-talented, hardworking and a very focused child that knows what she wants and goes for it, adding that she sees her daughter as a source of inspiration to her generation and many more generations.
She stressed that the whole idea of the online book club is to create a platform where different short stories and folktales would improve the reading culture of Nigerians and Africans.
“The online book club is going to be profitable. It is free, all you need is register and download, for example schools that are probably lacking books or something, all they need is to go to the website and the website would be updated every month, hence, there would be varieties of different stories for different age groups,” she said
President, FROT Group, Frank Momoh said he promised Munachi 6 years ago when she launched her first book to be on the journey with her until she tells him he is no longer needed in the journey, noting that she has been inspiring to him and other people around her.
“It’s about time to renew the reading culture, it’s not just an idea but it will be a great impact on our developments, a nation without education or brains can never do better, no matter how you try,
“I do tell my children that technology as a tool has the capacity to either make you or destroy you, so you have the choice to make, I applaud Munachi on her time management because she is actually doing well in her studies,” he said
The Upfronts with Munachi Mbonu media parley had in attendance students, professionals, business leaders, influencers, Principal partner, Mazars Consulting, Dr. Yemi Sanni, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of VFD Group, Mr. Nonso Okpala; General Manager, Sales and Marketing at Greenlife Pharmaceuticals, Derrick Osondu, and Executive Director, Administration and Finance at NIMASA, Chudi Offodile.
