S E R L I N A B OY D
“There are times I want to pinch myself ” SERLINA BOYD LAUNCHED COCOA GIRL AND COCOA BOY, THE UK’S FIRST BLACK CHILDREN’S MAGAZINES AFTER HER DAUGHTER EXPERIENCED BULLYING AT SCHOOL. HER DAUGHTER, FAITH, IS HEAVILY INVOLVED IN THE EMPOWERING AND POSITIVE CONTENT CREATED FOR CHILDREN LIKE HER WHO HAVE BEEN MISREPRESENTED BY MAINSTREAM MEDIA. NOW SERLINA HAS WRITTEN COCOA GIRL AWESOME HAIR, A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO STYLING AFRO HAIR. CITY KIDS SPOKE TO SERLINA TO SEE WHAT DRIVES HER, HOW SHE DEALS WITH CRITICISM AND WHAT’S NEXT IN STORE FOR THE COCOA BRAND. Tell us what inspired you to write Cocoa Girl Awesome Hair? In terms of my daughter Faith I felt that I needed to do something. Growing up, I wished I had different hair and she was growing up and saying the same thing: ‘Mummy, I wish I had different hair’. That’s why it was good to do the book. Faith was really instrumental in picking the hairstyles for the book too. What is Faith’s favourite hairstyle in the book? The Feed-In Braids were the ones she picked as she used that hairstyle to give her hair a break. Because of the love of her hair, she was styling it about seven times a day. So, I told her she wouldn’t have any hair left if she kept overstyling it, and we needed to look at ways of protecting her hair. That’s when we started to discover all of these hairstyles. A lot of the styles are fun, like the Fro Hawk. It’s really for children to embrace who they are and to have fun styling their hair. That was really important for us. We love that you’ve included black hair history in the book. That was really important for us as over the years we have been told what to do with our hair, so I wanted to show how far we have come and for the future - it’s about you. At the back of the book, we have all of these children with their hair in afros to show how far we’ve come. I’m so happy that the book is here and that so many children and adults want it. 26 CITYKIDSMAGAZINE.CO.UK
