Westminster College alumni Nonku Kuene Adumetey is coming out with her next book, "I Celebrate My Voice."
"I Celebrate My Voice," is a book that will inspire children and families to recognize just how vast and powerful their voices are. It takes a child on a journey of self-discovery and empowers them to understand the power of using their voice. In today's world, we need books that build a child's confidence and provide tools that help them understand their own strengths. More importantly, having diverse books for all children to see themselves in is key in building lifelong self-esteem and confidence in children.
"Sometimes we as people go through so many things in our life," said Kuene Adumetey. "We go through so much pain, so much hurt; even children, they see and experience things around them and sometimes that takes away from who they really are. It takes away from you believing in yourself. You are enough just the way you are, and you have a voice. When I wrote this book, I wanted to inspire children. It doesn't matter where they come from ,they may be poor, they may be rich; they may have everything or they may have nothing. Whatever you have, wherever you grow up from, you have to voice your story, whatever the story looks like, it matters, it is who you are so that's what this book is about."
Though Kuene Adumetey graduated from Westminster in 2007 with pre-med and biology under her belt, writing became an outlet for her, especially after she lost her father.
"I lost my father in 2017," Kuene Adumetey said. "And I just went through a lot of things that negatively changed how I dealt with everything. I was so afraid to lose my father, I was faced with that grief, all the things that I was afraid to speak up about, all the trauma I faced as a child - I'm a survivor of abuse. All of that pain kind of came back, so I was dealing with all of those things at once. I had to write."
She felt that this book was needed because it will boost children's confidence, give them the tools to appreciate their strengths, empower them to understand and learn the different ways to use their voice, to appreciate and embrace that difference is a good thing, and help them have meaningful conversations with their families.
"It's been an amazing journey," said Kuene Adumetey. "I've been enjoying writing, it's been freeing in so many ways."
She came out with her first book, "I Celebrate My Skin" in 2020 which helps children acknowledge and understand that everyone is different, and that's OK.
For her second book, she is doing a kickstarter campaign that allows people to pre-order the book, which in turn will also help her get the book published. People also will have the option to donate a book to several organization such as Books for Africa, Humanity for Children and Lurie Children's Hospital as well as to classrooms or teachers.
"I'm not going to be quiet anymore," said Kuene Adumetey. "It was freeing to speak up, and I want the same thing for children. Their voice matters, if they see anything or hear anything, they are free to speak - that's why this book is so important."
For more information, visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nonku/i-celebrate-my-voice.