We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aisha Dioum a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aisha, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with a hypothetical question – if it were up to you, what would you change about the school or education system to better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career?

The US education system, much like the US working culture, requires a comprehensive transformation in order for people to be more fulfilled and well-rounded, in my opinion. Students should be better supported in their entrepreneurial and traveling endeavors. Books should not be “banned” just because they share controversial or opposing ways of thinking and viewing the world. Children shouldn’t be penalized if a parent chooses to travel for leisure or take a work assignment abroad during the school year. Learning happens everywhere.

In my experience, it wasn’t until I began to travel that I began to truly learn about who I am and what I could contribute to this world. I’ve learned and reatained more history, science, language, geography and culture in 20 years of traveling the world, than the 20 I spent learning about them in classrooms.

Children need to learn from doing, seeing, and actually living, as much as they do from reading, writing and studying a particular subject.

As a parent of a small child working in the corporate arena I would often take my toddler daughter on international trips 2-3 times a year. I remember one colleague at the time telling me that once she’s in public school that would be more difficult to do without the child being penalized for missing school. “That’s insane,” I thought. “How can a child be penalized for learning about another country in person?”
Then I realized, it’s pretty much the same for those of us in the workplace. I recall vividly taking my last paid vacation in January of 2020, and coming back after 4 weeks of rest and rehabilitation to an email from my employer stating that those in management position or higher would only be able to take 2 consecutive weeks vacation at a time unless their were special circumstances, and it would now have to be approved by the head of the entire department instead of the immediate supervisor and chief.
At that time I was 37, had been promoted to management 2 years prior and the work was intense. I had been having chest pains and ankle swelling everyday for about a month, still struggling to lose my postpartum weight from 3 years prior. When I went to Senegal to visit family for that month my chest pains stopped, the ankle swelling had stopped, and I lost 10 lbs(5 kg) with no effort whatsoever. I wanted to take 6 weeks but returned 2 weeks earlier than my husband and child to go back to work. My child had turned 4 and I wasn’t there with her. I turned 38 and couldn’t celebrate my birthday with my family. It felt like a slap in the face to receive that email upon returning to work, knowing that it was specifically intended for me.
Thankfully, this was just the push I needed to make the changes I necessary to achieve a better work-health balance for myself. And that’s exactly what I did.
If children are supported in the various ways they are able to learn, they will be able to find themselves and learn themselves sooner and be better prepared and able to choose a lifestyle and career path that suits them.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am an entrepreneur and I live abroad in the country of Senegal in West Africa with my family. My company offers services to help others relocate abroad and we also provide video content pertaining to our family’s 4 year journey in this process.

I am most proud of the fact that all of the services we provide we have utilized and experienced ourselves, enabling us to learn firsthand what our clients need.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Documenting our experience relocating to Senegal as well as successfully building our home and businesses here.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

YouTube

Contact Info:

• Website: www.afromillennialenterprise.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aishamdioum/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@afromillennialmomma?si=6O-zJan3ap7ZIUEW