Hauwa Ojeifo Wins 2020 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Changemaker Award

Recently updated on October 24th, 2022 at 02:54 pm

28-year-old Hauwa Ojeifo has won the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation changemaker award for 2020.

According to the Gates Foundation, the award celebrates an individual who has inspired change using personal experience or from a position of leadership.

Hauwa Ojeifo who heads “She Writes Woman”, a women-led movement giving mental health a voice in Nigeria, was recognised for her work in promoting gender equality (Global Goal Number 5), a statement by the foundation said.

The awardee, who is a sexual and domestic abuse survivor, founded her platform in 2015 to provide “mental health support through a helpline, teletherapy and virtual support groups serving as a first point of contact to ensure that survivors of gender-based violence and those living with mental health conditions have access to confidential psychosocial support and counselling.”

In 2018, at the MTV Europe Music Awards in Spain, she won the prestigious first-ever MTV Europe Music Generation Change Award that honours, elevates and empowers original young people who are changing the world from Lebanon, Afghanistan, Britain and the USA.

Later that year, she became the first Nigerian woman to receive the Queen’s Young Leaders Award in recognition of her work to overcome the stigma around mental health.

Ms. Ojeifo won the global goalkeeper award alongside the director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), John Nkengasong, who was praised for his role as the “central voice for Africa’s scientific community,” and for his outstanding work in response to COVID-19 in Africa, contrary to presumption of poor handling.

Hauwa Ojeifo was born and raised in Nigeria. She received a Master’s in Investment Banking and Islamic Finance from Henley Business School, University of Reading in 2019. As an Executive Director at the mental health initiative She Writes Woman, Hauwa leads the team in creating space, mobilizing, and amplifying the voices of persons with mental health conditions and psychosocial disabilities, empowering them to co-create their solutions, tell their own stories, and advocate for their own rights. As Lead Facilitator and CEO at International Advocacy Academy Africa, she creates learning resources and facilitates teachings to equip African advocates to make social change. Additionally, Hauwa sits on the advisory board at Viacom Generation Change Global Youth, Witness Change, and Made of Millions.