Lost in the Modern Jungle: My Journey into the Digital World

During one of our Monday morning meetings at our organisation, we were asked to describe the landscape we felt we were in, using a metaphor that reflected our work.

As I listened to my colleagues share their experiences, I was thinking deep down, What landscape best described where I was? Was I climbing a mountain, walking through a forest, standing in an open field or perhaps sitting under a tree, brainstorming?

When my turn came, I said:

"I feel like I'm in a modern jungle."

I had entered a world filled with unfamiliar tools, platforms and responsibilities. Every day seemed to introduce me to something new. Just when I thought I was beginning to understand one thing, another appeared.

A few months earlier, I had been a university student, confident that my education had prepared me for the professional world. Now, I was discovering just how much there was still to learn.

My first encounter with this modern jungle began when I joined PFP and was introduced to Microsoft 365 tools. To begin with, there was Outlook.

Funny enough, for as long as I can remember, I had interacted with Gmail. So here I was, trying to find my way around Outlook and quietly wondering, "How come I don't know how to do this?"

I felt a little ashamed, especially because I had joined as an intern and wanted to prove that I could deliver. But Outlook was only the beginning.

Immediately after that, I was introduced to Mailchimp.

Outlook felt familiar because of my experience with Gmail, but Mailchimp was a different story. I was learning to reduce space through padding, add images, create buttons that would take readers to our blogs, arrange sections and think about what would catch someone's attention.

It was all new to me. I was beginning to realise that there was a whole digital and creative side to communication that I had never really encountered at university.

I was then introduced to Wix. Although I had already been introduced to some of its basics, such as creating blogs, I was now getting deeper into the platform. I started updating pages, arranging content, working with images and making sure everything looked right on the website.

In those first days, I was given small tasks to work on. Sometimes I would move a section on a page unknowingly, only to realise later that I had put it somewhere it was not supposed to be.

I experienced that feeling of, "Am I really enough? Will I ever do it perfectly?"

But each day, practice after practice, correction after correction, I began to keep going. I was learning by doing.

Then came GoodHub.

By this point, I had started to understand that every new tool had its own way of doing things. I explored, asked questions, tried things out and sometimes went back to correct what I had done.

The funny thing was, every time I thought I had finally figured things out, there was always something else waiting for me.

Then I encountered Beacon and I felt completely lost all over again. Here I was trying to understand a system I had never even heard of before.

It made me realise that I had not delved deeply enough into practical digital skills at university. There were whole digital systems behind the work that I had never experienced, and now I was learning them in real time.

Beacon reminded me that the modern jungle was bigger than I had imagined.

Today, I am not where I was when I first said I was in a modern jungle.

I still feel like I am in one, but now I know how to move through it. Power for the People has given me so much experience and, in many ways, shaped how I see my career. I have been given the space to try, make mistakes, ask questions and keep learning.

Today, I am still exploring new platforms and developing new digital skills. But I don't simply move from one thing to another and leave the last one behind. I carry the experience, skills and knowledge with me. I carry the lessons from the things I got wrong and the things I eventually figured out. And I carry the memory of having someone patiently guide me when I needed it most. For that, I am truly grateful.

I am beginning to understand that these digital skills are about more than learning how to use different platforms. They give me a way to tell stories, connect people to causes and help ideas reach further.

And somehow, the girl who once stared at a screen wondering, Where do I even begin? is now leading digital marketing for the Arise Dignity Packs, using some of the skills I once struggled to understand to help share a programme focused on women and girls.

I am still learning. I am still exploring. But I am no longer afraid of the jungle.

I hope more girls get opportunities like this. I hope universities can go beyond theory and basic practical skills and create more opportunities for students to develop the deeper digital skills they will encounter in the workplace.

Because sometimes, you don't realise how much you are capable of learning until someone gives you the opportunity to step into the jungle.