YouSaid · the spoken record

Tokunbo Koiki

lines on the record: 33
first: 2022-03-19
most recent: 2022-03-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I'm solving a problem. As the co founder of Black Women for Black Lives, I'm trying to help solve a problem that came about.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. Black women for Black Lives can be an organization that is not just responding to crisis but enabling black people to globally to come together to achieve this organization can definitely grow and scale up. You know, I would love to be able to do what Oprah is doing in terms of, you know, creating the school in South Africa, being able to partner with someone to develop a scholarship brand of Black Women for Black Lives. Patricia is very, very keen to work in criminal justice and address some of the injustice that black people face in that field. Corrine decided to be a medical doctor because she cares very deeply about the issues that black moms face during their pregnancy. And at the point of childbirth, this platform definitely creates a foundation. One thing I've definitely realized, I am a problem solver. It just comes up in different shapes and forms. So whether I'm, you know, catering for a wedding, I'm solving a problem. As a social worker,”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can go on the black women for Black Lives. Hog, and you will find the link to GoFundMe. You can also Google search Black Women for Black Lives. And we can also be found on our social media. Whilst this has happened, a lot of good has come out of it. But at the same time, there are thousands of black people, thousands of students who now have a very uncertain future. If you have resources, if you have contacts, if you have knowledge that can be helpful to the students, please do reach out to us on our social media. You can also email us directly at info at blackwomen for black lives.hog.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One thing I've learned is you can make all the plants that you want, but life will always come along and just either surprise you or throw a new dream. I'm always conscious of nothing is forever. So whilst I'm enjoying being a co-founder of Black Women for Black Lives, there are so many other things that I want to do with my life. And so this would definitely be a major pivot and a major part of my story, but it's just another chapter in my book.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ukrainians and Russians and other Eastern European countries people in authority did not see the humanity of black people but yet on the flip side of that we have had donations from across the globe we have had volunteers we have had people respond from all over the world from New Zealand from”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I really didn't. Like I said, Bob that Saturday I was at a birthday party. I was literally at my niece's birthday party. I didn't expect that I was jumping off a cliff. I did very, very early on start to understand that this was going to be bigger than me and it was going to be bigger than what we had started. I remember saying to a friend, I wonder if, knowing what I know now, would I still have made that tweet to Corinne? Would I still have offered to do what I did? But I definitely feel that I was called to this. I felt like, you know, I've been living and walking in my purpose and all of that has led to this happening the same way it has led to this happening for Korean, has led to this happening for Patricia. I also believe that in the face of severe adversity, there's also opportunity for strength, there's also opportunity for compassion. This started because we saw the worst of humanity.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She still wants to help the students, she's still fighting and trying to give voices to those students. So I think all those combinations coming together has just drawn the right connection for us to be able to scale up as quickly as we have.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we've managed to scale up because we've connected with an amazing network of people who share the same vision, who see the bigger picture, who want to help, whether it's donating their time, whether it's donating their money or whether it's donating their resources. What I've realized as an entrepreneur and being able to scale up at this rate is having the right team members. A lot of them I've never met in person. We have come together to achieve something that I did not think was possible. I've basically become a volunteer humanitarian relief coordinator overnight. And having the social work skill set, but also having the entrepreneurial skill set definitely helped, but then also being able to partner with an incredible, amazing barrister like Patricia, that has also been a real factor. Corinne Skye, her personal experience and her personal story, even when she's been back to the UK,”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The main thing that I've learned is having social capital and having a network of people who you can call upon would definitely help. We became black women for black lives on the first Monday. We had a team meeting. I suggested to my co-founders that we needed to give our organization a name and start putting some structures in place. We came up together unanimously with the name Black Women for Black Lives, which we felt represented not only what we were doing now, but what we hope to do in the future. I was then able to call in a friend of mine who as a domain company, I'd already put him on standby and I was like, can you just create the domain for us and help us to create the website? He was able to do that instantly. We were also able to collaborate with an amazing director from RGA, Bayina Black, who created a lot of the assets that we've used for our social media for the GoFundMe.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Days of non stop black women for black lives, black in Ukraine. I took a mentor of day where I didn't think about black in Ukraine. I had to focus on myself, spend time with my daughter, took her to dinner, and just really got my energy back. So there's definitely been lots of sacrifices, but honestly, I am so grateful for the opportunities that's arisen from this. I'm so grateful for the lives that we've been able to impact the videos that we're getting from the students to tell us this is what you taking this action has led to. We're now safe. We're back with our families. You know, Joyce, one of our volunteer liaison officer. She's now got so many of the students on her WhatsApp and she's like, guess what? They're back in Nigeria and they're having parties. So there's been an incredible lows, but there's been amazing eyes from this experience.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Decision to become accredited as a style coach because this is something I'd always done since I was a teen. I want to do and be all the things that I can be because why not? If I don't do this now, then I'm never going to get an opportunity to do this. I have a full-time job as a senior social worker. And, you know, there has been sacrifices. The first two weeks, I wasn't seeing my daughter. We usually have quality time in the evening where we make dinner and either together or separately and we come together and we watch Netflix or we watch golden girls. That's our thing. And we weren't able to do that for the first two weeks. But thankfully my daughter is old enough to understand that, you know, mommy is trying to do something for other people at work. I definitely felt the pressure, especially the last week. I had to adjust my working hours. But I did find myself on Thursday last week having to take a mental health day because I just couldn't cope anymore. So after about 10”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so I am a senior social worker in a local authority here in London. I manage a team of five social workers as well as managing five hospital trusts across London. The first week I was very thankful that my workload was not as busy. I think what I've been able to do all of this is because even before this, I am a serial entrepreneur. I do have several businesses that I run concurrently at the same time as having a nine to five very early on in the pandemic. I wasn't a social worker at that time. I was an entrepreneur. I had a full-time catering business and award-winning KM food business called Takumba's Kitchen. And I wasn't thinking about social work. And seeing that I had the skill set to be able to help and support people that I knew were going to be affected by the pandemic, I made a decision to return to social work after a six-year career break. And whilst doing that, I also made”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Part of our social media, we try to put out a daily update. And also as a team, we have daily meetings where we go over the numbers. And I believe as of yesterday, the number of people that we had helped was 1,261. And we had sent about 96,000 pounds to those people to be able to get them out of Ukraine. We are also working to try and help create a situation where the 80 plus students who are currently trapped in Kersen can also be evacuated and return safely to either their families or allowed to continue with their education and not be pawns of war.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There wasn't, and I mean, we weren't the only people who started helping. There are other volunteer groups as well who have also been doing, you know, the work on the ground in Ukraine and other surrounding countries. But every time I think about the message that I got from GoFundMe, if I wasn't a tenacious type of person, I would have given up at that point. I would have been like, well, go fund me said we should donate to Red Cross. So maybe we should donate to Red Cross. But because I knew that Red Cross were not thinking about people like me, I thought that it was essential for us to find a way to help those people. And I'm so glad that we did and we took that action.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Initially, the kind of query we were getting from the people we were helping were just to get out of Ukraine over the last few days. That has definitely shifted to people wanting to know, okay, how can I seek asylum in this country? How can I get a scholarship to go carry on with my education? Thankfully, Airbnb reached out to us to forge a partnership to be able to provide up to two weeks of free accommodation for students worldwide. And that's just been amazing. Since we launched that campaign on Friday, we've had almost 200 people apply for vouchers. Airbnb has already started processing and issuing people with vouchers. We're also partnering with other organizations to look at how we can provide scholarship to the students in other European countries.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They are mature students with families, so they want to be able to continue with their education, whether it's in a new European country or however it is that we can support them. We've also been working with a young mom, a woman who's currently in leave in Ukraine. She's very, very unwell and she has a four-year-old son who's also autistic. She was evacuated with some other students from Sumi, but the friend that she was staying with actually had to leave her. So she has been by herself essentially and if not for one of the volunteers who has been speaking with her on a daily basis, giving her hope. I don't know what would have happened to this woman.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's been a mixture. We've had students who have been successful to be able to make it back to their home countries. We have other students who want to stay in different parts of Europe, mainly to continue the education. A lot of the questions we were getting were how come there are so many African people in Ukraine? It seemed like such an unreal thing for people to see tens and tens and thousands of Africans. A lot of these black people in Ukraine are students. They have left their home countries in various parts of the continent to go to Ukraine to further the education, to get themselves skilled to be able to then compete in the global market. We have been working with students who are 50 year medical students who were three months away from finishing their course. I am currently in talks with a young woman who was about to start a postgraduate in gynecology. We're speaking to STEM students, engineering students and many of”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A cry for help. This was a rallying cry to say we don't have to wait for the establishment. We don't have to wait for our news to be featured on the mainstream media. We can take control of the stories that we're telling. We can change the narrative so that when the world is showing anti-blackness, we can rise up as a community. And that is exactly what has happened.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hearing you say that I just got chills because I can remember the first time I heard that proverb. It was at the TEDx that was created by a bunch of Africans here in the diaspora to tell African stories and African narratives for the longest time. We've not been in control of our stories. We've not been in control of the narrative. We've heard things like the dark continent, you know, African rising. We go to events where people are experts on Africa that are not Africans themselves. I put that proverb in my signature because everything I've always wanted to do is to take control of the story that I tell not only about myself as an individual, but also the stories that I've been told about my community. When I created the first caption for the GoFundMe, I ended it with For Us, Buy Us, because I wanted it to be that black people, people of African descent all over the world understand that this was”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“How about as an organization you contribute to this? And GoFundMe actually donated £3,000 to our campaign as well. So we've had a £2,000 donation from Aisha to say this weekend had a zoom. We had a conversation with Clarence Sedoff, who's the current Dutch football manager, and we are having conversations with people who know Oprah yesterday and I saw a news alert that our names individually and as an organization were mentioned by the American ambassador to the United Nations in the same line as VP Kamala Harris. And he was just like, what is going on? My life is a movie right now. Literally.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have to send voice notes to my business coach and my mentor just so that I can record the things that are playing in real time. So Riyara Shahidi, how does she even come across us? I don't know. I honestly don't know. All I know was Yara Shahidi tagged me on Instagram and posted a screenshot of the GoFundMe to her 6.8 million followers. She also sent myself and Korean sky individual messages to just thank us and she donated 5,000 pounds to the GoFundMe. As I mentioned, we had issues with GoFundMe initially delaying the campaign, but also delaying the verification process for us to be able to redraw the money. We were able to get the contact email for the VP of GoFundMe. And we sent him an email and he responded within four minutes. So I responded to him and I was like, you know, we really appreciate the quick response and we really appreciate that you're trying to fix the issues for us.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He absolutely did. I mean, I really value the different platforms. We've had issues with both of them, PayPal and GoFundMe. But what I really appreciate about GoFundMe was that it allows you to continue to just fundraise, even when you've reached your target. So again, the initial target on GoFundMe was £10,000. We have now raised 166,000 pounds on GoFundMe that is just over two weeks. We've also raised about $30,000 in cryptocurrency that was donated to us by the Web3 Africans Collective. So yeah, it's just been an astonishing amount of trust that people have sent to myself to Patricia and to Corrine as individuals, but also as an organization.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“On the Monday, once we'd reach the target for the PayPal, I hadn't even known that GoFundMe had started allowing donations. Somebody found the GoFundMe, made a donation, and then messaged me to say, oh, by the way, is this your GoFundMe? And I was like, oh yes, it's his. Please, let's now start donating on this GoFundMe instead of the PayPal.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a very complicated process, so initially PayPal was allowing me to transfer like £500, £2,000 to my account. But once we reached the target of 20,000, it then transferred the full balance, which was about £17,000 into my account. Bob, I won't lie to you. I was scared. I was like, this money coming into my account, I'm going to have to account for why this money is coming to my account and also how this money has been spent. I literally wrote a very basic accounting of £400 was transferred from my account at four o'clock and then I transferred it to Corinne's account at 405 and I was just trying to make sure that people could see that we were using the funds in the way that we stated that we were going to be doing. I posted that on my social media account and had the thread I kept embedding with updates so people could see the transparency and they could see that we were trying to be accountable because people kept sending us money.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Bob, it was so astonishing to me because I remember that Saturday I was at a birthday party for my niece and, you know, I was keeping an eye on my Twitter and answering messages to Corine and also transferring money from the PayPal as the donations were coming in. So what we were doing initially was I was getting the money paid into my UK bank account. I then transferred that money to Corinne's UK bank account. She would then do an instant fast payment to her Ukrainian account. From that account she then was transferring to the other students who were trying to get out of Ukraine. Patricia played a vital role in terms of she was doing the verification. So she created a system where students would have to send her their details, bank account details, their contact number. She was actually contacting students individually to verify that they were students, that they were in Ukraine. And once Patricia had verified the student, she would then tell me, hey, Tokumba, can you transfer?”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because by Sunday morning, people were still asking to donate, people were still, you know, learning about what was happening, not just in Ukraine, but specifically the anti-blackness and the discrimination that black people in Ukraine were facing. And that was how we were able to raise over £40,000 in just a matter of two days over a weekend.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Exactly that. Previously, when I had used GoFundMe, the appeal is usually allowed instantly, but I remember it flagging up that regarding the issues facing Ukraine. The suggestion was they would rather people make donations to the larger NGOs like Red Cross. And so GoFundMe said they were going to have to verify the campaign. So I opt onto PayPal and I created a PayPal pool and the initial target was 10,000 pounds simply because I at the time did not realize how big this was going to turn out and I just thought, okay, $10,000 is a comfortable number that people are not going to be like, hey, who is this strange woman who's trying to collect money for African Caribbean students in Ukraine? We were able to reach our goal of 10,000 pounds within less than 12 hours. I increased the target to 20,000 and we were able to meet that target under 24 hours as well. So we then created a second PayPal pool.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, Patricia Daly had also separately reached out to Korean Sky on Twitter. She had also offered to help Corrine with fundraising because Patricia, as well as being a barrister, is also an activist and she had fundraised about $75,000 to provide legal support for protesters at the Black Lives protest in 2020 and 2021. So Patricia reached out to me. She sent me a private message on Twitter and then Corinne created a group on Twitter. And so yes, the first 248 hours, we were mainly communicating on Twitter. We had never seen or spoken to each other outside of Twitter.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Ukraine for her education. So she has a UK bank account and she sent me the details and I transferred some money to her but I felt that whilst I was happy to do that, a lot of people would not have the time and patience to wait for somebody to send their bank details and then send the money across. So I offered to set up a GoFundMe for her. The reason I did this was because I have 22 years of fundraising experience. I have been a long-term volunteer with the African Caribbean Leukuma Trust also last year in 2021. I created a GoFundMe for a woman who I had actually helped to flee from her.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wasn't even following Karen Sky on Twitter. Karen Sky's tweet was just like another tread of tweets that came across my timeline, as well as other tweets that I'd seen from other African students, other concerned people who had loved ones in Ukraine and were tweeting about their frustrations and their anger towards specifically, you know, African embassies who were not quick to react. So I actually tweeted at Corrine. So it actually started with a tweet and I remember saying something along the line of, do you have a GoFundMe or is there another way that we can support what you're trying to do to help you and the other students leave Ukraine? I also sent her a private message on her Twitter account. So she responded to me and she sent me her bank account details because Corine is also a British Zimbabwean. So she lives here in the UK prior to moving to Ukraine.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For students through her own funds to be able to get the taxes because you know, as we've all seen on the clips, students were being physically pushed out of the trains that were coming to evacuate Ukrainians from major cities in Ukraine.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, that's exactly right. We were all strangers prior to February 26th. I was watching the news just as concerned as everybody else, mainly on social media, specifically on Twitter, which is where I spend most of my life, unfortunately. And through seeing what was being documented by the African and Caribbean students who were trying to flee from Ukraine, I felt inspired to take action and support them. One of the students who is now a co-founder for Black Women for Black Lives, Korean Sky, was a second year medical student who herself was having to flee Ukraine. And whilst Korean was fleeing Ukraine herself, she was also signposting and helping other students to understand how to get to the nearest borders, which border made sense for them to travel to, especially when the borders were getting congested. She was also actively paying”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was seeing what was being documented by the African and Caribbean students who were trying to flee from Ukraine. And I felt inspired to take action and support them. We have now raised $166,000 on GoFundMe. We've also raised about $30,000 in cryptocurrency. We are also working to help the 80 plus students who are currently trapped in Kessen. You know, I've basically become a volunteer humanitarian relief coordinator overnight. Having the entrepreneurial skill set definitely help. People in authority, they did not see the humanity of black people. But yet, on the flip side of that, we have had donations from across the globe. And so I feel like this is us in the worst of humanity, but also seeing the best of humanity in action.”
2022-03-19 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Transforming an idea into a movement overnight, w/Black Women For Black Lives co-founder Tokunbo Koiki · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT