DOZ is an acronym for “Daughters of Zion”. As its name suggests, it is a Christian organization.
DOZ began operations in January 2009 in Benin City, Nigeria. In that year, Eturuvie Erebor AKA Gabriella started to write the unhappy story of her brief marriage and divorce as a way of dealing with her pains. When she was done writing, she was faced with two options; to approach an existing magazine to publish her story or to publish a magazine of her own. She chose the latter. She was not sure what to call it, but she was certain she wanted it to be a magazine that would address issues facing Christian women and one to be free of some of the vulgarity that many secular magazines were becoming known for. She eventually chose the name “Daughters of Zion” as it seemed to fit the bill and besides, Pastor Allen who could never pronounce her name, chose to call her “Daughter of Zion” instead. As the graphics designer at the time, Julius Aloghemen, thought it was a bit of a mouthful, so the name was shortened to “DOZ” and a magazine was born.
Eturuvie knew nothing about running a magazine, but that did not deter her at the time; she was just excited about getting her story out there. The various people who had a chance to read her story reacted in different ways, but the story created such a stir that within five (5) months, DOZ Magazine was running out of six (6) locations in Nigeria with distributors faithfully selling each new edition. It was initially intended to be a Bi-Weekly magazine but was later issued monthly.
However, readers quickly grew tired of reading Eturuvie’s story in piecemeal and came to loathe absolutely the phrase “to be continued”. Eturuvie and her team created a separate magazine dedicated to telling her story in its entirety for the maiden edition, and then showcasing the stories of other women in following editions. This magazine was known as the DOZ (True Story) Magazine, and it had a huge effect on readers. In fact, as 2009 came to an end, the readers reached out to Eturuvie with a desire to meet a woman named Temisan, the character in the DOZ (True Story) Magazines, “Temisan Rejected” and “Temisan Restored”. They were captivated by this woman’s story, which had intrigued them for months – they were captivated by Eturuvie’s story. In response to the readers’ excitement, DOZ organized an event called “Temisan Revealed”, and people flooded in to hear Eturuvie tell her story.
This was a very exciting time for DOZ in Benin City. Eturuvie could hardly go anywhere without someone pointing and whispering, “That is Temisan”. But as her story came to an end, the magazine experienced a decline in sales accompanied by other management issues. Eturuvie was no longer interested in running DOZ as she felt at the time that it had served its purpose, which was to tell her story. Therefore, she shut down magazine operations and went back to her day job. DOZ had come to an end, so she thought. However, over the years, those who had been involved with DOZ Magazine in one way or another would not let it “rest in peace”; everywhere Eturuvie turned, someone wanted to know when DOZ would return. Eturuvie was excited about hearing that others wanted DOZ back and felt a responsibility to these loyal readers. Therefore, she decided to start up DOZ again because God placed this conviction in her heart, and because He also opened doors to make it happen.
In 2015, what was once known as the DOZ (True Story) Magazine returned as a book series known as the DOZ Chronicles. And on the first day of September 2016, Eturuvie with a new team re-launched DOZ Magazine online. Apart from the DOZ Chronicles and DOZ Magazine, there is now DOZ Devotional which celebrates a loving Heavenly Father’s faithfulness to His little girls on earth. Also, as Eturuvie feels the need to support women to walk in their God-given purpose and fulfil destiny, there is the DOZ Network. Back in 2009, the DOZ slogan had been “Celebrating her divine royalty” and during her time away from DOZ, Eturuvie began to imagine the possibility of a women’s group that would enable women to support one another and help them achieve their dreams. That dream has given rise to the DOZ Network. The idea is to use the profits from DOZ Chronicles and DOZ Magazine to help women in two major areas: Skill acquisition and Business funding. It’s an organization that helps women empower women.
How it all began…
