Ngozi Iwere

Ngozi Patricia Iwere (born August 12, 1956) is a Nigerian social activist and community development specialist.She founded and directs the Community Life Project (CLP), an organization that advocates for health education and civic engagement, with a focus on HIV/AIDS prevention and women's reproductive health. Quotes They are the unsung heroes and heroines of our tedious nation-building efforts They have been holding together this great nation through their ubiquitous trades as carpenters, bike riders, grinding machine operators, mechanics, vulcanisers, market men and women, hairdressers, tailors, photographers, welders.; We have worked assiduously with us at CLP over these past three decades to improve elections and local governance all over the country. We plan to celebrate their efforts as we mark our 30th anniversary. CLP celebrates 30 years of empowering marginalised and vulnerable grassroots citizens in Nigeria Nigeria is a platform which we started and launchedin 2010. We have been working with grassroots organizations. Those we call grassroots civil society,organizations, mutual interest groups, artisan groups, over the years, since we started community Life Projects. We have done a lot of work in the area of health, sexuality, and livelihood. We found that there was a problem because governance was not really working for the poor, it was undermining some of the gains we had made with these groups, so we decided to launch a grassroots movement for civic engagement. These groups who represent voices that are excluded from decision-making tables as far as civic engagements was concerned, that they find a place around the table. The sector has been dominated by elite NGOs, so we launched this platform called Reclaim Naija through which these diverse grassroot groups, women’s networks, faith-based networks, and mutual interest groups, trade-based associations. We can come together all over the country under this grassroots movement and engage with government on different levels. The local government level because it is the level that is closest to the people where their influence will be most felt. I found myself starting to engage on health issues, especially HIV/AIDS.In the 80’s and early 90’s HIV/AIDS was a very big existential threat in Africa. I joined with a group of women who felt that we needed to respond and to do something to protect women from HIV. I was already engaged along withother women in starting the first real feminist’s organization. We’ve had in this country,Women in Nigeria, WIN.2 I had been the national coordinator of WIN. We started a society for women and AIDS in Africa, along with health professionals and a few colleagues who were in WIN. I cameto the realization that we couldn’t feminize the response to HIV/AIDS, We needed to get the men to get involved and to change their habits and behavior becausethe women didn’t seem to have enough negotiating power. The power dynamics within the families and community did not favor women, and I felt we needed to engage with men. At that time, it was not popular to engage men in the development world. That was the period when we were talking about how to get women in development. I was very convinced that we needed to engage with men and when I didn’t get much support for that. I decided to found Community Life Projects, where, as the name implies, we relate to young people, women, and families from the framework of community life. Thatwas how westarted Community Life Project in 1992. I have already mentioned how that’s now led us to found Reclaim Naija in 2010. Iwere Interviewer RonkeOlawale External links Category:living people Category:Businesswomen from Nigeria