Women Inspiration Development Center

A lot of Nigerian women and girls have lost their confidence to the point of despair because they are not safe anywhere now in any part of Nigeria. This is as a result of surge in domestic violence caused by COVID 19 pandemic lockdown.

If selected as a winner, I will use Elevate prize funding to recruit 40 NGOs in 20 states to scale agency-based empowerment workshop and economic empowerment in Nigeria targeting survivors of domestic violence.

 I will build a mobile application (Sisterhood Protect App) that will bridge the gap between domestic violence survivors and the network of NGOs in communities tasked with helping women to get justice and adequate help they need to recover from their abuse. 

 Signing up, he mobile application will use GPS locator to get the location of women in need of help and she can send an immediate SOS message to nearest NGOs to share immediate evidence like pictures and secret recordings. 

Train and established economically 100,000 survivors of violence in 20 states of Nigeria

The research by WARDC in 2021 shows that, 1/3 of Nigerian women are exposed to GBV and 55% of them don't have access to any form of support.

In 2009, as the award recipient of World Pulse, www.worldpulse.com to attend Empowerment Institute in Rhinebeck, NY, USA, I brought Agency based Empowerment Workshop initiative www.imagineprogram.com to Nigeria in 2010 to develop the agency of the survivors of Gender Based Violence (GBV) women and girls so that they can discover their power and then have: -

• Improvement on their lives
• Improvement on their health
• Improvement on their Finances
• Improvement on their self-responsibility
• Believing in themselves and better view of their lives

 Our Impact in the last 10 years:

Women Inspiration Development Center (WIDC) www.widcng.org  have covered 4 states in Nigeria with 5 NGOs as our partners.

• Trained: 5,525 people
• Direct impact: 99,450 people
• Indirect impact: 994,500 people 

Our Vision in the next 5 years to: - 

• develop a mobile app called “Sisterhood Protect” to bridge the gap between survivors and NGOs that will be helping them
•  cover 20 more states in Nigeria with 40 more NGOs to work with us to develop the agency and establish economically 100,000 more domestic violence survivors in Nigeria with direct impact of 2 millions people and indirect impact of 20 million people

Women Inspiration Development Center (WIDC) works to combat violence against women and girls in Nigeria through:

• Agency-based Workshop
• Powerful networking
• Educating women and girls to be confident and assertive
• Empowering communities to prevent gender-based violence
• Create support groups for women to help them with their healings and train them on birthing business ideas and different vocations. 

Violence against women remains pervasive across the world. Emerging global data shown increased cases during COVID 19 pandemic. In Nigeria, violence against women and girls is a pandemic sized problem. Millions of women and girls live in fear of being abused, assaulted or raped and between March and June, 2020 Action Aid documented 299 cases of domestic violence just in 7 states.  

Since Eliminating VAWG is pivotal to achieving gender equality and SDG, WIDC want to engage, mentor and bridge the gap between the survivors of violence and NGOs in their community so that they can be helping them to regain back their confidence which is paramount to raising their voices in sensitizing their communities and policy makers to be more intolerance of sexual and domestic Violence. This is germane because 55% of survivors are not getting help.

Our Confident Girls Initiative is innovative because it is mainly targeted at bridging the gap between survivors and the NGOs that will be helping them to get justice and get over their abuse. This area of need have never been addressed before and the time is now when it is like we have gone 10 years backward on VAWG as a result of the COVID 19 Pandemic. If we are going to make head way in combating violence against women and girls in Nigeria, Africa and the world as a whole, then survivors should be able to access help promptly. The Initiative will address development of the human agency of survivors of sexual and physical violence, create a mobile app called “Sisterhood Connect” that brings to life the network of NGOs in their community promptly as they need help and organize trainings for them on birthing business ideas and vocations

People have to be seen as being actively involved, given the opportunity in shaping their own destiny, and not just as passive recipients of the fruits of cunning development programs.                                      —Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureat

Survivors of violence needs a robust sense of personal efficacy to get over their abuse. 

The concept of the growing edge in the empowerment model is liberating for women in the developing world for several reasons. Many oppressed women exist in fixed states where despair and self-loathing are common. The shift from static to organic growth allows her to believe that growth is still possible, that she can take small appropriate steps on her growing edge. The idea that her life has organic movement brings hope for the future, greater self-acceptance, and motivation to change. By focusing on ongoing learning and growing, women are more willing to take the risks inherent in changing their limiting behaviors in their relationships, jobs, and physical and emotional health. Self-efficacy beliefs become more resilient in them.

Adeola a past participant in her word said, “I have never seen anything good in myself. I always believed that I am not capable of doing anything. My husband will always tell me, there is nothing good in you, now my eyes are open and I see that there are so many good things that I possess; I brought four children to this world, I am wonderfully made by God, I can think and create good things. I feel so strong.