Passionate about the Black Lives Matter movement, 20-year-old Maja Antoine-Onikoyi has decided to try and educate as many people as possible about black history. Back in early June, only a couple of weeks after the death of George Floyd in Minnesota, she started her organization called Maja’s Education Project. ‘The future and safety of black lives reside in the education of the present, and we have made it our duty to ensure everybody has access to resources that can take us the necessary steps forward’, is a direct quote from the website of her project.
With donations from the public, she has been sending out books informing people on racial issues and helping more understand the history behind prejudices that minorities have suffered. Some of the books featured on her website include ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’, by Maya Angelou, ‘They Can’t Kill Us All’, by Wesley Lowery, and ‘Black and British, A Forbidden History’ by David Olusoga. The organization has given out books worth over £4,000, which is equivalent to $5,200.
Onikoyi recently told the BBC that she hopes to extend her project from targeting individuals to supplying schools and prisons with these books. She also told the BBC that “It doesn’t feel like a huge gain on my part, it feels like what our curriculum and our institutions should have been doing,”, and that it “just feels like I’m doing what’s supposed to be done”.
If you are inspired by Maja’s project and would like to get more involved, her Instagram is @majaseducationproject. More information is available on her website, www.majaseducationproject.com, where her PayPal and Go-fund-me can also be found for those wanting to make a donation to the black-owned, not for profit organization.
