19-year-old Aida Diouf Mbengue is making a TikTok video to share with her 330,000 followers. She joined the platform in 2019.
TikTok is a video-sharing application where users make a variety of short-form videos.
Aida describes herself as a Muslim Afro- Influencer. An influencer is someone who has influence over others' decisions or causes others to make specific consumer decisions
Aida migrated to Italy with her mother Die from Senegal when she was three years old.
In a small apartment in northern Italy, she lives with her parents and eight brothers and sisters and posts dozens of videos per day.
She has teamed up with a group of young Africa-Italians to try to increase their influence on social media.
As the first Afro-Influencer with a hijab, Aida is breaking down barriers and stereotypes in Italy.
But this is not just about views and followers, or fun and games.
"I started receiving these discriminatory messages when I started putting my face on social media, then I started becoming known. The discriminatory sentences included the 'N' word or monkey, go back to your country, I will throw a banana in your face. But then you realize it is just the usual people who want to make you feel bad so in the end either you laugh about it or you just let it go and that's it."
Click the audio icon on the picture at the top of the page to listen to the podcast in Punjabi.
