My Commitment To women by Chioma Mordi, founder of Impact Her Iniative, speaks to contributory efforts to nationa building. In this interview with OpenLife’s Isaac Ngumah, explains the NGO’s cardinal goals
What is Impact Her Iniative about?
Impact Her Iniative is a non-governmental organisation that is into empowerment of women through skills acquisition programmes, guidance and counseling, workshops, seminars and outreaches.
When did you start thinking of the idea of establishing Impact Her Iniative?
IHI came as an idea; every dream, every imitative you see today started first as an idea. The idea to make a change has always been with me though, but it became a personal need to do something in 2016 when Impact Her Initiative was birthed. I understand my gender sometimes is under-privileged, so I wanted to correct that. As I said earlier, Impact Her Initiative started as an idea in 2016, but we hosted our first programme which was a Girls Summit in UNILAG in April 2017 April.
Presently, this year is our fifth year of impacting women; we have trained and impacted more than 500 women.
What are the concise motives?
The motives are many. As I said earlier, I wasn’t told, I have seen it, I have experienced it, women don’t usually have things easier for them, so I wanted to bridge that gap economically and for me doing that is not by giving women money. Rather than giving women money I decided doing free programmes. I will rather not give fish or money so to speak, rather, I would want to teach a woman how to fish and for me it is by empowerment.
What other things do you do apart from your NGO?
I am a Ph.D student of the University of Lagos, English Department. I am also an editor; I edit books, novels and do anything related to books. I also freelance as a journalist sometimes. I am also an entrepreneur.
Elaborate about your free trainings?
I believe women should be empowered but the reality on ground is that getting this empowerment involves money and so many women would want to be empowered but they don’t have the means to get the requisite skills. So when you tell a woman to go and learn something, you will hear “I don’t have the money, if I go to the place they will tell me the money is expensive, let me just leave it” and that will be the end of that desire to learn a skill. So I thought about it, why not do something that is free not subsidised but free for women?
We started our first free women empowerment in Bariga community, Lagos in 2017; it was just like a dream come true.
After that one, we have done so many others, even partnering with other NGOs.
Last year, we had our Batch B of free training at Pako community along Igando Road from September to October, and the turnout was impressive.
Earlier this year, February precisely, we partnered with We Rise Foundation for a free empowerment programme for Tedi-Barracks women.
It was to mark the birthday celebration of the founder, Elizabeth Osayande, who is also my sister. So you can see that the humanitarian blood flows in our veins; our goal is to make women get empowered so that they can be financially independent.
How many days does your programme last?
We have done series of training. The first one was four weeks training, that is, one month at Bariga, Lagos; the second one we did at Igando area was for six weeks and that was during Covid-19 pandemic.
We understood that the impact of the pandemic was much on everybody especially on women because many of their husbands lost their sources of livelihood; with their children, they were stuck at home.
In fact, so many things placed a lot of burdens on women, so we decided to do something to ameliorate the effect of Covid-19, especially on women; we came up with “Gifted Hands during Covid-19” a six weeks training that ran from September through October.
The one at Tedi-Barracks ran for three weeks, and this one in Ikotun lasted for four weeks, ending on 31st March 2021
What was the significance of your NGO with Womens’ Day?
The International Women’s day was celebrated on March 18 2021; this programme was also organised in commemoration of Women’s day. The theme for this year #ChooseToChallenge” is a clarion call for women to challenge everything that seems like a stumbling block to the actualisation of dreams. We wanted to do something around that #ChooseToChallengetheme, so we decided to start this year’s free empowerment programme with our theme “Becoming that ‘SHE’ Entrepreneur’
Does your NGO have global focus?
I belong to a lot of women’s organisations and my free empowerment program is one of my major contributions to women across the globe. I want to be reckoned as a woman who did not just want to sit down and watch the world go round but decided to hold other women by their hands and tell them that they can do anything they choose to do; anything they put your mind to do is possible, and this is what I have been doing for five years, that is, encouraging women, making them believe in themselves that they can just anything,and they should do everything within their power to see that their dreams are achieved regardless of marriage or child-bearing.
What is the scope of your practical classes?
I am not one of the facilitators; usually, we get facilitators who devote their time for the training. Our programmes are not everyday but thrice a week; two days for theory and one day for self-practical, because we don’t just want people to learn but to practice.
So during self-practical classes, the facilitators sit down and watch everyone replicate what they have been taught.
Do you have post training tracking mechanism?
We have a Facebook page- Impact HER Initiative, and we we have a part for testimonials there; many of our students have come back to rate us 5/5, and to tell us “thank you” for what we have done for them.
I gave a testimony of one of our past students one who did not know how to hold an eye pencil and she registered to learn two skills, Makeup and Ankara during our Bariga training;at the end of the training she started making and selling Ankara bags, clothes and shoes.
Another one of them called me and said“I want to register my business with NAFDAC; I am making chinchin and I now supply to supermarkets” so I gave her a contact. I also render business idea services.
How are your graduation ceremonies?
Every training usually ends up with a graduation ceremony, so that our participants can bring in their friends and family to come and see what they have been doing so far.
It is usually interesting; everything they have been doing is usually displayed for the guests to see, taste and judge what they have been doing so far. That is what we have done today.
How many students graduated today?
We have eight students that have graduated today.
You were given an award today. What does it mean to you?
It came as a surprise; I had no Idea that my students had something for me.During the training they did not know Iwas the founder of IHI because I usually come around and sit with them. Today, I am really happy by their kind gesture; I did not expect this award of appreciation.
How do you get support to run your NGO?
I like to clarify something; most people believe that an NGO gets grants from international organisations. It is not always the truth.For the past five years, we have got support from our families members and friends who believe in what we’re doing, and well-meaning individuals and organisatrions.
In short, people support us and as a team, we support our programmes ourselves.
However, we are still looking forward to getting government and corporate organisations supports; we get support from individuals who believe in our mandate.
What are your growth plans?
We don’t want to stop here in Lagos; we look forward to go to different partsof the country. We have actually been called by different states come and do this same free training in their states but the funding is what is limiting us. For now, we are somehow stuck in Lagos; we hope that in the nearest future we would expand to other parts of the country.
Specifically, which area do you need government’s supports?
You know, like a child that has been doing something good, sometimes that child needs patting or encouragement, so we are looking forward to government to support us with funding.
We need a place of our own; we had a place at Iwaya, Lagos but in 2017 it was demolished by the Lagos State Government. We were told the landwas part of the University of Lagos land.
Since then we have been movingfrom one community to another to organize programmes, so we need a place of our own; this is what we want the government to do for us.
What specific skills do you empower your students with?
Usually we have catering class, make-up and Gele-tying and Ankara craft classes respectively. This year, we included so many things; we included soap making- we brought someone who taught them how to make soap, also we brought a facilitator to coach them how to make peanuts; we invited somebody who taught them wig making.
This is to show you that we are expanding and we look forward to include other things like tailoring, that is, fashion designing when we have our own place or we have support from individuals to buy sewing machines
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