With each year, it becomes clearer to the editorial board at YNaija, the premium our annual New Establishment list places on the work of young emerging players in diverse field within Nigeria.
Providing that first wave of recognition for the work that the men and women of our annual lists do in the communities is important for their growth and for our commitment to support innovation, courage and personal excellence.
Many of the alumni of our lists have gone on to do fantastic things, proving yet again, that our lists sieve through the morass of activity and nepotism that clog our creative industries and highlights the hidden gems within.
This year’s list is no different; from multi-disciplinary artists securing prestigious placements, self-taught developers founding some of the web’s most celebrated platforms, entrepreneurs breaking barriers on social entrepreneurship and activists galvanising the globe into action, the New Establishment class 2019 has proven they have the mettle to take on the world.
Entertainment, Culture, Technology, Advocacy, Media, Politics, Enterprise, Fashion
ADVOCACY
Hauwa Ojeifo (She Writes Woman)
There are few women in the humanities who were as lauded as Hauwa Ojeifo in 2018. Ojeifo was honoured with a coveted Generation Change Award by the MTV Europe Music Awards, a Queen’s Young Leader 2018 award and a prize for Best Creative Social Enterprise in Nigeria among many others. She’s gained all this attention for her stellar work with She Writes Woman, a non-profit focused on mental health awareness and advocacy against sexual violence against women and girls.
Ojeifo took her activism with She Writes Woman offline after two years of online advocacy with Safe Space Nigeria, a crowd funded walk-in clinic for ‘life issues’. Victims of sexual violence who use the clinic have access to emergency healthcare and counselling and young people with issues adapting to personal struggle and coping with the general stresses of life in Nigeria are given vital access to mentorship and counselling. Partnershisp with Wiki Loves Women has allowed her non-profit reach women that would otherwise be geographically removed from her physical outreaches and spread the gospel of seeking mental healthcare especially for disadvantaged minorities.
Ojeifo is a generational voice and an important advocate for mental health in Nigeria.
Victor Ugo (Mentally Aware Nigeria)
For too long, mental health has been a taboo subject, discussed with apprehension within families and ignored by the government and public institutions. As external social pressure and the dissolution of traditional African extended family units pushes more young people into isolation and consequently ill-health, organizations are springing up, championed by young people to educate on mental health, fight the stigma around being diagnosed and receiving treatment for ill-mental health and changing policy around how sufferers are treated.
Victor Ugo, the director of Mentally Aware Nigeria is at forefront of many of these conversations, himself a survivor of depression and suicidal ideation. Through aggressive peer education, public notices and counselling for the depressed, Ugo has managed to make an important stand for the present and future mental health of all young Nigerians. In 2018, Victor Ugo and Mentally Aware compiled the country’s very first privately funded anthology chronicling mental health of Nigerians and also put out the educational short film ‘Oga John’ which helped contextualize the problem of depression in the country.
Ugo still has a lot of work ahead of him, but we commend the strides he has made thus far. His impact has helped hundreds of young Nigerians come to terms with their own bodies and brains and set them on the path of recovery.
Agoyi Kemisola (Safer Hands Health Initiative)
Kemisola Agoyi’s decision to start the Safer Hands Health Initiative was inspired in part by her work in medicine and a time-lined assessment of Infant and maternal healthcare in Nigeria. Nigeria has one of the highest maternal and infant death incidences in the world, a phenomenon that has been attributed in part to a lack of access to natal healthcare and ignorance about positive health practices for mothers. Agoyi founded her non-profit to provide alternative healthcare sources to at-risk mothers in smaller communities without access to proper healthcare.
Through Safer Hands, Agoyi and other voulnteers educate primary healthcare workers like traditional birth attendants and the extended families of expecting and young mothers to recognise natal complications and general health issues peculiar to mothers and infants under 5 and possible ways to treat said illnesses. Agoyi also routinely sensitizes individuals on the personal health through radio appearances, social media and partnerships with other non-profit organizations like Haceyhealth.
Rose Okafor (Ramoth Hospitality Channel)
With the kind of dedication Rose Okafor has put towards volunteering, it is little surprise that she was chosen from among hundreds of hopefuls for the Nigeria Volunteers Award for 2018. The registered nurse started her volunteer platform Ramoth Hospitality Channel in 2012, and has used the platform to engage with medical outreaches and non-government organizations to organize healthcare outreaches in disadvantaged communities across West Africa.
Since Okafor began her outreach, she has partnered with the Nigerian Medical Association, Run For A Cure Africa funding cancer research, the Sebeccly Cancer Care Centre and the Annabel Leadership Academy, helping to recruit volunteers, educate them on the principles of volunteering and liaise with them to ensure that volunteers and organizations share a singular objective and purpose. She has partnered with the Global Goodwill Ambassador programme and the international Association for Volunteer Effort, position through which she is able to convince other young Nigerians to participate in volunteer efforts. Okafor also trains other volunteers and helps place them with non-profit organizations within and outside the country and her wins.
Umar Alani (activism)
As a registered nurse in a largely misogynistic society, Umar Alani has seen more than his fair share of people using their status, age or position to push unhealthy and downright dangerous agendas. But he was never really moved to do anything about it until he encountered a man selling regular antibiotics in a public bus in Lagos as a miracle drug able to solve all sorts of illnesses. After confronting the man and exposing his quackery, Alani educated the passengers on the bus about the dangers of misusing drugs and how misuse can create resistance in pathogens and tolerance in patients.
Surprised by the response he received from the passengers in the bus and the widespread ignorance of medicine and the high incidence of casual drug use in the country, Alani sought to provide a long term solution to the problem. Alani and a team of like-minded individuals wrote, edited and published My Health Booklet, a compendium of health topics in the style of Where There is No Doctor that provides accessible and easy to understand information about drug dosages, simple medical diagnosis and important information about personal health with the intention of distributing the pamphlet to at-risk populations.
Umar tweets at @formulareee
Jekein Lato-Unah (Visual Arts/Advocacy)
Many people discovered Jekein Lato-Unah through her controversial interviews with the renowned social media documentary project Humans of New York, Lato-Unah was one of the few people HONY has given two opportunities to speak on their stories and Jekein’s work as a visual artist and activist were highlighted. Lato-Unah is a professionally trained visual artist and part of a vocal wave of feminists who choose to adopt a dual pronged approach to feminism, engaging in exhaustive online conversations about the politics of the body and how interrelationships between the genders can be improved and offline activism through female owned and run non-profits like Stand to End Rape (STER), Sanitary Aid for Nigerian Girls (SANG) and the Market March.
Lato-Unah was one of the first women to facilitate a social media driven #MeToo drive, encouraging teenage girls to speak up about the abuse they had suffered in their secondary schools. She is also a vocal advocate for consent and sexual health. Lato-Unah’s work as an artist is also celebrated and she has participated in a number of exhibitions including the Empowerment by Creative Debuts & Nasty Women exhibition in London, The Magic of Lagos group exhibition at the Waterside in Ikoyi, two group exhibitions at the Omenka Gallery and the Waffles’N’Cream friends and family exhibition.
Okoduwa Joshua (Restructure Africa)
Even if you are personally insulated from the realities of living in Nigeria, it is impossible to ignore the plight of persons from lower social classes with less access, and how disposable persons from marginalized communities are treated by our government and upper classes. Joshua Okoduwa simply couldn’t pretend there was nothing he could do to even the social divide and was moved to start Restructure Africa, a non-profit that focuses on providing education, health services and community development to the poorest communities in the country.
With a mandate to provide quality of life for all, Okoduwa through Restructure Africa has focused on organizing blood drives as part of events the organization calls Bubbles, to encourage people to donate blood for medical facilities and potentially reduce the incidence of deaths from lack of access to blood transfusions. Restructure Africa has also partnered with leading publisher Farafina Books to provide books and educational material to at-risk at public schools in Lagos. With Bubble Teams in Texas USA, Abuja Nigeria, and Lagos Nigeria, Okoduwa’s dream of reaching as many communities as possible across the world is happening, one person at a time.
Damilola Marcus (Market March)
Damilola Marcus, or OmogeDami as she is more commonly referred to, is relatively new to the activism space. But her impact has been no less vital to the growing agitation for a re-evaluation of normalized behaviour in interpersonal relationships between men and women in Nigeria. As part of a new wave of feminists who have taken their message online, Marcus routinely engages in ranging conversations about the problems and needs of women in Nigerian patriarchal society, garnering a strong following but also many detractors who see her defiance and passion for women’s rights as intimidating. Ms. Marcus doesn’t pay either her fans or detractors any mind, focused as she is on creating safe spaces for women to express themselves without the threat of violence or intimidation.
In 2018, Ms. Marcus was one of the facilitators of the Nigerian #MeToo movement that saw teenage girls from a number of high-profile Nigerian secondary schools detail abuse, rape and sexual harassment that happen with these institutions. Having so many young women feel like they were given a space to express themselves encouraged Marcus to take her activism offline and start ‘Market March’, inspired by the routine complaints of sexual harassment by traders in Lagos Markets. In late 2018, Market March organized its first offline protest march, choosing the notorious Yaba and Tejuosho market as its test grounds. Though met with initial backlash, testimonials suggest that Ms. Marcus and Market March made significant impact on the men of the market.
While most people know Damilola Marcus as OmogeDami the feminist activist, Ms. Marcus is also an accomplished brand strategist and graphic designer, running a design label with her associate Seyi Olusanya. She also volunteers for organizations like Stand To End Rape and Sanitary Aid for Nigerian Girls.
