Today we’d like to introduce you to Juliet Awolumate.
Hi Juliet, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started my nonprofit, Scion of Tabitha, when I was 19 years old and still in college. At the time, it was called Help Each Other Rise, or the HER Foundation, and our mission was centered on giving back to the community as a whole. One of our first outreach efforts was supporting a local homeless shelter, where we donated 200 pairs of gloves, 200 pairs of socks, and hats.
As I graduated from college and began my career as a teacher, the direction of the organization started to evolve. Working with students strengthened my passion for supporting and mentoring young women, and I also found myself increasingly inspired by my late mother. Throughout her life, she was deeply committed to helping women in Nigeria, and I wanted the organization to reflect both the work I felt called to do and the example she had set for me.
That led me to rename the organization Scion of Tabitha, which means “descendants of Tabitha.” Tabitha was my mother’s English name, so the name represents carrying her legacy of service forward through another generation.
Since then, Scion of Tabitha has grown into a community focused on empowering women and young girls. We’ve hosted back-to-school initiatives, vision board events, mentorship-focused gatherings, and other programs designed to create spaces where young women can support one another while also having access to guidance and positive role models.
More recently, our work has expanded into Nigeria, which has been an especially meaningful step for me because it brings the organization back to where so much of my inspiration began. In May, we launched our first women’s empowerment program, the Widows Livelihood Initiative, where we awarded a total of ₦1 million to four widows to help them start or grow businesses and create sustainable income for themselves and their families.
We’ve also launched our Butterfly Effect program, which focuses on spreading kindness through simple but meaningful acts, whether that means intentionally patronizing women-owned businesses, paying for a woman’s shopping items, or finding other ways to make an unexpected difference in a woman’s day.
Our next major step is launching our first formal mentorship program in October. When I think about the fact that this started with me at 19 simply wanting to help people and has now grown into work that reaches women and girls across two countries, I’m incredibly grateful. There is still so much more I want Scion of Tabitha to accomplish, and I’m excited to see where we are by this time next year.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. When I relaunched the nonprofit as Scion of Tabitha in 2023, we had a really strong year and were able to host several events. Toward the end of that year, however, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Naturally, my priorities shifted, and I wasn’t able to dedicate the same amount of time and energy to the organization.
In October 2024, I lost my mother.
Losing someone can completely change the trajectory of your life, and for me, I lost the other half of my heart. My mother was my everything—my heart in human form, my biggest supporter, my cheerleader, and the person I went to whenever I didn’t know which direction to take, whether it was with Scion of Tabitha or my personal life. After losing her, I genuinely couldn’t imagine how I was supposed to continue building something while trying to navigate that kind of grief.
I eventually began therapy and leaned heavily on my faith, but grief doesn’t simply disappear. I think I needed 2025 to grieve, so I allowed myself that time. A lot of things came to a standstill, including Scion of Tabitha.
It wasn’t until 2026, as my mother’s birthday approached in April, that I started feeling motivated again. I began thinking about what it would actually mean to continue her legacy rather than simply saying I wanted to. One of the things my mother was passionate about was helping widows in Nigeria start businesses so they could provide for themselves and their families. That became the inspiration behind our Widows Livelihood Initiative.
Originally, I thought that would be it. We would make it an annual initiative in her honor, and that would be my primary focus. But during that process, I was blessed with an incredible team that reminded me that Scion of Tabitha didn’t have to become a dormant organization because I had experienced such a tremendous loss. We could keep building.
And once we started again, the ideas kept coming. I would think of something, write it down, share it with my team, and we would figure out how to bring it to life. That’s how we’ve gone from restarting with the Widows Livelihood Initiative to launching the Butterfly Effect and now preparing to launch our Scion’s Rise Mentorship Program.
So no, the road hasn’t been smooth. There was a period when I genuinely didn’t know whether I would continue at all. But I think Scion of Tabitha has a much deeper purpose today because of everything that happened. What began as an organization inspired by my mother has now also become one of the ways I get to continue her legacy.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
At my core, I am an educator. I’ve been teaching for five years, and my students truly are my babies. Over the course of my career, I’ve had the privilege of teaching and making an impact on more than 500 students. Education has given me the opportunity to work with young people during such an important stage of their lives—not only helping them academically, but encouraging them to recognize what they’re capable of and to see possibilities for themselves beyond the classroom.
I’m currently pursuing my master’s degree in Educational Leadership because I want to take that same passion beyond my own classroom. I love teaching, but I also recognize that moving into leadership will give me the opportunity to advocate for students and educators on a larger scale and contribute to decisions that can impact entire schools and communities.
Outside of education, the work I am most proud of is Scion of Tabitha. To me, it is so much more than a nonprofit. In many ways, it feels like a living extension of my late mother. Every woman we help, every young girl we mentor, and every act of kindness we carry out allows a piece of who she was and what she believed in to continue existing in the world.
I think what sets my work apart is how personal it is to me. I’m not building Scion of Tabitha simply because I wanted to start an organization. I’m building something rooted in the values I grew up watching my mother live out every day—service, generosity, compassion, and helping people create better opportunities for themselves.
That’s what I’m most proud of. Scion of Tabitha has given me a way to turn something incredibly painful into something that continues to create good. It gives me a reason to keep pushing, because I know there are still women and young girls to reach, students to advocate for, and so much more work worth doing.
Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
Not at the moment, no.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.scionoftabitha.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scionoftabitha/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scionoftabitha
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@ScionofTabitha
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@scionoftabitha
