Nigerian Wins Bill Gates Changemaker Award

Nigerian gender and disability rights advocate, 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.

Ms 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 #5), a statement by the foundation said on Tuesday.

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.”