The Toyota Nudge Into Greatness dinner focused on inviting and highlighting successful nonprofit business executives and community leaders for a night of networking and honor. Award-winning journalist Jelisa Raquel recently made an appearance to network and share her love of helping push minority creatives forward.
Raquel has worked for a number of different companies throughout her media career thus far, but Media Girls On Tour is quickly getting traction throughout the country. This branch of Media Girls Network is focused on giving women in media the chance to take part in different opportunities and build their resumes. There is even an arm to celebrate men in media as well.
Raquel started Media Girls Network to promote collaboration of different industries in media and entertainment.
How are you nudging the community forward?
How I’m pushing the community forward is through my networks, Media Girls Network and Media Girls On Tour. The main reason I wanted to connect with Toyota is because I want to provide opportunities that I was not granted as a journalism and communications student that did not go to an HBCU.
I went to a PWI, and it was hard for people who looked like me to get opportunities in communications. I’ve been working with Troy University over the last six months and just helping some of their interns come to industry events, work red carpets, learn PR and marketing, and giving them opportunities I knew they would not get going to a rural school in Alabama like me.
Which organization would you nominate for Toyota’s $10K grant?
I want to nominate Media Girls On Tour because I want to be able to bring college students to the Soul Train Awards, to the BET Awards. I want to take them to the fights and the athletic games. I want them to get these experiences freelancing and just learn as much about the industry that the school could never teach because when I tell you that most of my lessons came post-graduation, it’s true.
I’m just trying to be that [medium] that helps students get acclimated to really what it takes to be in the entertainment industry and work in media. I really would love the funding so we can provide camps for our students and my ultimate goal is to launch a media school for Black women in media.
