Be Inspired Nigeria Women Empowerment

My name is Chioma Obaro, from the Eastern part of Nigeria. I grew up in a family where girls weren't afraid to speak out. Where women were respected. When my parents died, the 3 girls contributed equally with the 2 boys for the funeral expenses. Each played their role and all roles complimented each other.

In the past 5 years, I have been plagued by the 'silence' that affect women in my country. I have spent sleepless nights agonising over the rape survivors that I counsel within my NGO and worrying if the psychologist working with them will be able to bring them back - back from the dark abyss their lives have sunk into. 

I worry if the widows my NGO support were able to feed their children. If the street children ate since the last lunch we provided. Still I strive to make a difference and give back

I, working with my NGO - Be Inspired Empowerment Society of Nigeria, is committed to solving the high rate of Rape in Nigeria. Rape is a deprivation of one's sense of self, a striping of the moral covers that should hold every community together. 

Currently we are working closely with rape survivors especially children to first take them out of the toxic environment to a safe place, secondly, seek justice against the rape perpetrators and thirdly, work with professional clinical psychologists to reintegrate the victims back into the society. 

I believe that with the constant education we provide on all our social media platforms against rape, we are not only providing succor to the victims who feel emboldened to speak up, but also, we address the root cause by pulling at the very heart of potential rapists by showcasing the lasting damaging impact of their brief 5 minutes of fun

In #wearetired, an online petition by Nigerian women over the alarming increase of rape cases in the country, distressing stories of children and women being raped and killed, often by close relatives who are meant to protect them have caused tension in the country. 

The scale of this problem is pandemic to Nigeria and also an increasing global menace to vulnerable people globally. The Nigerian Inspector General of police stated that 717 cases were reported in 2020 so far - and when you imagine that most victims actually do not come forward due to the stigma our society attaches to rape, then the number could very well be in multiples of this.

My focus is on providing a safe haven for the victims of rape and domestic violence. I want to provide a Home where these survivors could be rehabilitated temporarily before more permanent homes can be found for them. Just last week, no orphanage in Lagos state agreed to take in a 17 year old girl that was sexually abused by her father and step brothers. This is my vision and a way to help in the fight against rape and domestic violence in Nigeria.

A safe haven is a home where victims of domestic violence and rape can be taken to once we take on the case. This year alone, my NGO have intervened in over 25 rape, child abuse and domestic violence cases. In most of these cases, it was a huge stress getting orphanages to accept the abused children. We were often still out on the streets as late as 12 midnight because it would be a crime to take the abused children into our personal homes. The beauty of a Be Inspired Nigeria (BIN) safe haven is that we are assured of a temporary place of residence for the rescued children, abused women and rape survivors while we seek for a more permanent home for them or contact their biological parents - in the cases of child labor and abuse.

The safe haven would be well equipped with On-call professional psychologists and police security, we would have avenues for skill acquisition especially for women in abusive relationships so as to empower them towards financial independence.

Lastly, the Home will enable us reach more of the victims and give them hope for a better tomorrow.  

My project serves mostly the women and the girl child. While I understand that boys can also be victims of rape, sadly this issue is most often suffered by women. The safe haven will give these women hope that there is somewhere to go and get respite from the suffering. 

For victims of domestic violence, we will provide counselling services for them and their spouses to explore possibilities of possible future cohabitation that is devoid of abuse.

For rape survivors, working with the psychologists in the home will enable them come to grip with their reality and understand that none of the events was their fault. 

For children facing child abuse, the safe haven will provide a temporary home while we trace their biological parents to hopefully reunite them and also empower their families to better care for the child. The Home is also a stop gap while we go through the lengthy and often complex legalities involved in getting a child admitted into the orphanages as all orphanages in state must operate in line with the dictates of the state government.

My project relates to more than just providing succor and safe haven for the victims of rape and abuse.

We have been engaging in a series of social media workshops aimed at enlightening the public on the many evils of rape. It is therefore our hope that potential rapists will listen to the real life stories of rape survivors who we profile in our interviews, and understand the far reaching debilitating effect their 5 minutes of 'fun' caused in the lives of the victims.

I was raped as a child. By no other than the house boy who lived with us while growing up. His name was Peter. I was less than 8 years. I have not admitted this to anyone but my horror drives me to find and rescue other victims going through similar pains. It is quite sad that oftentimes, even the well meaning parents are unaware of what is happening right under their roof! 

On children's day (27 May 2020), BIN ran a campaign across the 25 local communities where we have established BIN zones or cells. it was aimed at speaking directly to the children and encouraging them to speak out. Oftentimes, the abusers threaten their victims with death should they ever reveal his identity. 

The idea of a safe haven however came up owing to the many challenges we face when we do an intervention and rescue a victim of abuse. Asides the legal aspect, it would be wrong for my NGO members to keep taking these survivors into their personal homes as BIN is a women-only community. This could easily cause problems in our own homes. This drove the whole idea behind a safe haven for abuse survivors

I mentioned my personal experience with child sexual abuse earlier. Asides this, I am a mother of 3, 2 girls and 1 boy. I worry everyday about the people that work in my home, the people they talk to and get in contact with. In BIN, I work on so many cases involving child abuse, the horror that these stories leave behind is better imagines. 

Being able to set up this Home in a safe and very secure environment, equip it properly and have 24/7 security protection is a dream that will enable me reach out and help other victims of rape and women facing domestic abuse.

I am most passionate about children. Having experienced this as a child, I live the dangers and horror every single day. Thankfully, I married a wonderful man that understand and takes my No to mean no. That gives me space to work through my personal demons and come to him with love and acceptance. Sadly, a lot of women are not this lucky and so many women are raped consistently in their marriages. The stigma that is attached to rape keeps the survivor silenced. Without a voice. I seek to give that voice.

Most of my projects are currently funded personally. Be Inspired Nigeria as a registered NGO is one platform that has enabled me reach out to people on social media and get some help for a few of the projects I handle. 

Thankfully, I work full time in the firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers as an Associate Director and so over 50% of my salary monthly goes to support the numerous causes that we handle in BIN. This also means that I have a few colleagues that I reach out to for financial assistance when the cases become overwhelming and these victims look to me for hope and support. However, I am well aware that establishing a Home, a safe haven, like this would take hundreds of millions of Naira which is not something I can achieve on my own or just with my friends' help.

This has earned me respect and recognition in this area as people that refer these cases to me know that I have the wherewithal to stand and fight with them. 

I am married to a brilliant legal practitioner, Victor, who never hesitates to use his full legal prowess to seek justice for the victims we assist. 

Early 2020, I handled the case of an 11 years old who was abused by the owners of the house where she worked as their maid. I immediately engaged the services of a lawyer and the police, stormed the residence of the abusers, who happened to be pastors sadly, and rescued this little girl. I paid for her medical bills as she had fire (iron) burns and various cane/knife wounds aside the psychological trauma and after a long drawn out battle with the Lagos state human rights arm, she was eventually admitted into an orphanage.

The pastor was arrested and we faced intense prosecution from his church members who weren't fully aware of the extent of damage on the girl. The full medical examination we insisted upon revealed that this girl have been severely abused both vaginally and anally. The little girl revealed that the man always gave her something to drink before she sleeps which makes her next to comatose when he is performing his dastardly acts. We requested for 3 reps from the pastors church and showed them the medical report. They eventually joined our cause and the women became members of BIN including the female police officers.

In April 2020 during the lockdown, while on a food sharing mission as part of BIN COVID 19 support efforts for the less privileged, I came across a woman sitting by the gate of a hospital, after collecting a plate of food, she revealed that she gave birth to her baby through CS over a month ago in the private hospital but have been unable to leave as she could not fully settle the N100k balance of her hospital bill. I met with the Dr and other medical personal, and there and then, raised over N120k for the woman within 1hr which fully settled her hospital bill and gave her additional funds for transport and feeding.

There is currently no such Home (to the best of my knowledge) for women and children in Nigeria. We have done our research and studied similar homes operating in the UK and this is one that will bring a lot of relief to other NGO workers fighting this evil menace in our country.

There are about 60k women in Be Inspired Nigeria group and this project will impact each and every one of them as the availability of the safe haven will be know to members of the group. These women will be reach thousands of other women and children who are suffering from rape and/or domestic abuse and assist them to seek shelter in the Home. 

Directly, the project will provide succor to over 200 women and children in one year and over 10,000 women and children in 5 years.

The funding for building a safe haven is quite substantial. Though I have a good job and I am able to support the cases I work on personally (at least 50% personally), a project of this size requires a lot more than I can give or raise from friends and colleagues. Hence my interest in the Elevate Prize.

An organisation that runs a similar program (safe haven for survivors of rape and abuse)