We celebrate and educate on Afro textured hair.
About Lekia, Founder of Project Embrace
Lekia is a former broadcast journalist with over 15 years experience having worked both in Nigeria and UK. In 2010, inspired by her then 5 year old daughter, she founded Project Embrace to encourage her and girls like her to embrace their natural hair and build their self-confidence. To do this she realised she had to challenge narrow beauty standards and the lack of and mis-representation of Afro hair, and by extension black beauty in the media.
This lead to the launch of the #afrovisibility billboard campaign in 2017, starting with 2 billboards in London and growing to a few hundreds all around the country. Lekia's aim is to change the narrative that fuels the implicit bias against Afro hair in the workplace, media and society. She also holds hair workshops for parents and fathers in particular to learn to nurture their daughter’s hair and her self-esteem. She will also start holding workshops for children in care soon.
“It is my mission to encourage other young girls, especially black young girls gain the confidence to believe and say with conviction, “I AM ENOUGH””
Lekia speaks on inclusion and belonging, representation and psychological impact of narrow beauty standards, unconscious bias and other related topics. She has appeared on BBC World News, ITV London News, BBC Stories, PinAfrica, talkRadio, BBC 5 live radio, BBC London Radio, Huffington Post, Washington Post, BBC's The One Show, Stylist and Glamour Magazine amongst many others.
If you are interested in booking Lekia to speak at your event, host a panel discussion or interview her for a TV, Radio or publication, please fill in this form.