YALLF 2023 Spotlight: Jumoke Sohe

Jumoke Sohe, a librarian from Nigeria and a fellow of the 2023 Young African Library Leaders Fellowship, reflects on the program as a pivotal turning point in her professional life. Before the fellowship, she had heard of the Sustainable Development Goals but lacked a deep understanding of how libraries could contribute to achieving them. The YALLF curriculum changed that entirely.

Through the fellowship, Jumoke learned to decipher the specific targets of the SDGs and how libraries serve as key implementation partners. She was also introduced to digital storytelling, which became one of the most exciting parts of her training. Learning to use photography and video production to showcase the importance of libraries gave her a new language for communicating her work to the world.

She now understands that being a librarian requires daily, proactive engagement: creating content, capturing stories, and collaborating with local stakeholders to ensure that libraries are not quiet repositories but active drivers of national development.