About Us

Welcome to Mama Edo's Stories! 

Let's meet her - Mama Edowaye Ekhomu. 

Every child has someone who shapes them. Someone whose voice stays with them long after they are gone. For me, that person was my grandmother. Her name was Mrs Cecilia Edowaye Ekhomu, but nobody called her that. To me, she was simply Mama.

Mama was born in April 1921 in Unogbo Irrua, a small town in Edo State, Nigeria. She was the daughter of a chief and was born into royalty, but she never had the chance to go to school. In those days, girls were not sent to learn. They were expected to marry, raise children and keep the home. Yet somehow, despite never learning to read or write herself, Mama became the person who taught me to love stories.

When I was born, my mother was still in school. Mama stepped in without hesitation. She sent my mother back to continue her education and took on the job of raising me herself.

From the day I was born until the day I got married, Mama was my world. She was the one who plaited my hair. The one who comforted me when I cried. The one who taught me how to cook. The one who taught me my language. The one who made sure I knew where I came from and every night, she told me stories.

I can still picture those evenings now.

The day would be over. The noise would quieten. The air would grow cooler. I would climb into bed, and Mama would begin. Sometimes the stories made me laugh. Sometimes they taught me a lesson and sometimes they frightened me just enough to pull the blanket a little closer.

But every story carried a piece of our culture, our history and our values. I didn't know it then, but those bedtime stories were shaping the person I would become.

Mama couldn't read or write, but she loved learning. As soon as I was old enough to hold a pencil, she would hand me her letters and ask me to write them for her. I was only a little girl.

She would dictate and I would write. Letter after letter. Year after year. Without realising it, she was teaching me. She was teaching me how words worked and how stories were built. Teaching me how writing could connect people. Mama made me a writer without ever writing a word herself.

She passed away in December 2007 at the age of 86. But the funny thing about people like Mama is that they never really leave. Sometimes I hear her in the stories I tell.  Other times, I see her in the recipes I cook. Sometimes I catch myself passing on one of her lessons to my own children. and I realise she is still here. Living on through the things she gave me.

Mama Edo's Stories was born from a simple desire: to pass those gifts on.

To help children discover the stories, cultures, foods, history and traditions that make Africa so rich and beautiful. To create the same sense of wonder I felt sitting beside my grandmother all those years ago and to make sure that the stories which shaped us are not lost.

Because every child deserves to know where they come from. Every child deserves stories that reflect their heritage and every child deserves a Mama who reminds them that their roots matter.

This is her legacy.

These are her stories.

Welcome to Mama Edo's Stories by Sophia Ovonlen xx