We recently connected with Shayla Foster Nisha Williams and have shared our conversation below.
Shayla Foster , we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?
Shayla and I are cousins who grew up as Best Friends. Our mothers were also cousins who grew up to be Best Friends. We get our strength and resilience from them. Both were amazing women who overcame every obstacle thrown their way. They taught us to always go to God, first and that prayer works. I believe their values and morals are what guided us to become they women we are today.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Shayla and I come from a huge family and our family is a very close one. We used to spend summers over our aunt and uncles house with the rest of our cousins. It was during one of the summers that we discovered our shared love of reading books and writing poetry. We would have “reading” slumber parties, where there were always snacks and a couple of good books being circulated around the cousin group. Those are some of our fondest memories.
We always knew that we would take our love for reading and writing and make something of it. Fast forward a few years and Shayla had a dream about what our poet group name should be, and we have been Poets Unashamed ever since! We noticed that when we write our poetry, it helped us with healing, self-love, and growth! We begin thinking to ourselves, “how amazing would that be to create that type of space for others”?
We went on to create our official Social Media Accounts/Groups for all types of artists to display and share their work. We try and promote an encouraging environment where people feel safe to do so. Outside of social media, we try and promote “community” in everything we touch. Rather that is a “poetry event” or a “help clean our neighborhood event”, it is one of the values we hold dear.
As far as what the future holds, we are just beyond thankful to be able to share our gifts with the world. And to have others share their gifts with us. We don’t take that for granted. We will continue to grow our presence on social media and hopefully be an “outlet” where other artist feel safe sharing their work though us. We are in the works to bring back our “Sultry Sunday” lives that let artist display their work in real time. Lastly, we will continue to encourage and motivate as many young women as we can, just as our mothers did for us.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
We would say the three most important qualities that were impactful on our journey were, Communication, Trust, and Accountability.
We are constantly working with others to achieve one goal or another and without the appropriate communication skills, we could have missed out on a lot of opportunities.
Trust is beyond important when you are sharing other people’s work with the world. We take every “share” very seriously. We want people to feel confident that our intentions are always for good. We have worked hard and built that Trust within our community, and we will continue to do so.
We think accountability is one of the most important skills you can have. It can be practiced in your personal or professional life.
The best advice we can give is “Never Give Up” and “Don’t be Afraid to be Different” We haven’t always followed the rules when it came to Poets Unashamed, and it has worked out tremendously for us.
To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?
Our mothers never stopped believing in us or pushing us to do/be better! They have been as much a part of this journey as we have. They have instilled in us to “Keep our heads up, God is up” and to this day we walk with our heads held high!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.msha.ke/poetsunashamed.com
- Instagram: Poets_Unashamed
- Facebook: Poets_Unashamed
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
