Inimfon Etuk
Inimfon Etuk is the founder and host of She Forum Africa, a pan-African Women Development, Leadership, Mentorship and Lifestyle Community aimed at amplifying personal development opportunities for women and girls through strategic mentoring, innovation and life-long learning. She is also the Founding CEO/Lead Strategist at Premium Logic International, founder of Friendraiser Community Initiative, a registered Social Enterprise and Networking Initiative that engages, inspires and motivates women in local communities, with a special focus on ending domestic and all forms of gender-based violence. A recipient of the Women Economic Forum (WEF) 2019 Global Award for ‘Iconic Woman Creating a Better World’, a 2015 alumna of the International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP) of the United States Government, gifted communicator and facilitator, she has over 22-year period managed organisational projects of select non-profit groups initiated in partnership with such international organisations as the UNDP, British Council, DFID, USAID and UN Women to implement target development goals. Her passion for constructive cross-generational engagement earned her coveted youth leadership award in 2003 from the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) for Synergy of Thought and Action. In this interview with IJEOMA THOMAS-ODIA, she shares her vision for the girl child, as well as influencing Nigerian women through her expertise.

Take us through your career journey?
I love what I consider my life’s journey and quite frankly, looking back, I wouldn’t wish it had taken any other turn. I grew up in a family of five girls; my parents had five girls straight, one after the other for a couple of years, before the first boy arrived. For a typical African family, that is not quite an amusing story when you think of all the family pressure to ‘have a boy’ who will preserve the family name.

What this inadvertently did was that it made my parents devote a lot of time, attention and resource to our education to ensure we turned out okay in life. So, I like to think that it’s really where my passion for development work, especially things that have to do with women and girls, truly emanated from.x

Somehow, that background influenced the kinds of associations I found myself in; the kinds of extra-curricular activities I got into and capacity building programmes I subscribed to. All these armed me with life skills, which are now most essential for coping in today’s world. My career path is two-fold; there is my development work and advocacy, and there is the professional side of Public Relations and Strategy Consulting.

I work with my team to facilitate positive change by improving individual and corporate images as well as social intelligence skills. I love nurturing dreams into reality; that is my personal signature, it is what drives me. It is what sparks my interest in whatever I set my mind to do. In my mind, I am an artist who begins a work of art from a blank canvass. I am intrigued and challenged by the twists and turns, the moments of uncertainty, the bold decisions amidst little fears. These fuel the passion to get it right and add that little extra oomph in the expected outcomes. The reward is that sense of fulfillment that comes when things we build from a state of nothingness blossoms into something people see, feel, experience and appreciate.

At the end of the day, it is all about making impact that is authentic. That’s what I find most soothing about my job. The little ‘Thank you Ini’ that comes from a place of true appreciation for the extra value one brings to the table wherever and whenever it is required.

You have hands-on technical expertise and experience in public relations/public communication, journalism, inter-generational diplomacy, gender development, social entrepreneurship, youth leadership and mentorship. What informed your passion for these critical sectors?
It is ironic. Growing up as a little girl, I wanted to be a pilot. I am all grown now and the closest I have come to the cockpit of an airplane is perhaps sitting close to the front. But then, a pilot really is someone who flies high, takes people from one destination to the other essentially.

In retrospect, I have long concluded that my child’s mind connected with the fact that I wanted to be someone who impacts people’s destinies, a high flier on a mission to providing solutions and direction, a guide, a mentor, a role model. That is why I believe my child’s mind interpreted that to mean pilot, and when you look at what has been my life’s journey, the women and girls whose world is impacted by our work at She Forum Africa, my professional background in Public Relations, Strategic Communications, Media and Development Consulting, then it all adds up.

I am a ‘pilot’; I have been piloting destinies for the past years of my adult life. I love it all; I often tell my mentees or anyone who cares to listen that, whenever they are confused about their life’s purpose, a great place to return to for a quick reset is our childhood. Go back and check with your child’s mind who you wanted to be and ask yourself if you became that person, or there was a detour. Can you imagine how frustrated I might have become that I am not a pilot, if I proceeded without this clarity of purpose and vision within?

At a time like this where young people are clamouring for better governance and reforms in critical sectors, how does your expertise come to play?
I think what I bring the most to any table is my analytical skills, which strengthen my ability to offer a sense of direction and guidance to the people I serve. I am a process person; I am also quite creative; it is an interesting mix. Add the ability to be versatile in my approach but focused on my goals. I have a decent mastery of the art to ask the right questions and distill issues.

There is so much going on in our polity and it is easy to get lost in the fray. Sometimes, all that people require is a sense of direction, an accompanying clarity of vision and matching technical and people skills to drive the process.

Running She Forum Africa, what specific activities have you been involved in?
She Forum Africa, which is a women development, leadership, lifestyle and young female mentorship community, is a brand that is evolving at a time of factual relevance. We are in our seventh year since we set out in 2014. At the heart of our organisation’s focus is the burning need to promote healthy conversations and solutions that will help address persisting issues surrounding the education, health, safety, integrated development and economic advancement of our women and girls.

Our target audience is Women and Girls. Within this catchment group, you will find a growing realisation of the need to evolve with the times, step into their space and live the lives of their dreams. This is accompanied, if not driven by the need to self-develop; it is this need we are responding to. That is why there is an appreciable level of positive response towards our activities.

Secondly, we are consciously expanding the conversation to cover the men and boys in everything we do. We cannot keep talking to and with ourselves alone if we are to achieve greater and impactful results. We are by and large, the first organisation to have a dedicated HeForShe All-Male Panel in a Women’s Conference, a year ahead of the United Nation’s launch of the HeForShe Campaign. We started this right from when we first convened the Forum in 2014 and we’ve kept it up till date. That way, we are able to bring the men’s perspective on the issues in focus to the table from the start and deal with whatever perceptions, misconceptions or stereotypes exist.

Thirdly, our engagement approach is quite different from what most people are used to; we are respectfully conversational in our engagement. We allow and encourage the ownership of the discussion space to be audience/need driven not theoretical and prescriptive. Everyone brings something to the table at all levels and we ensure that our learning and advocacy spaces remain a platform for sharing in a way that creates impact and inspires towards greater personal productivity. Advocacy is our main tool.

There is also the all-important issue of girl-child education. This year, we launched the Her Tuition, Her Voice Campaign in partnership with the Embassy of Finland in Abuja, Nigeria. It is a campaign that seeks to create awareness, but primarily promote the enrolment of indigent girls in school for high order thinking and action-learning education that will not only accomplish the provision of learning for them, but also equip them with hands-on skills to escape the entrapment of poverty, primarily poverty of the mind.

We gave ourselves a target of enrolling 25 indigent girls in school during the new school year that just commenced. The campaign was launched on the International Day of the Girl-Child and the first phase just wrapped up with a Webinar hosted by the Embassy of Finland on the occasion of Finland’s Independence Day on December 6. Education remains a luxury in many Nigerian homes, especially families in rural communities. Issues like gender discrimination, disasters and armed conflict, language challenges, household poverty, child labour, and child marriage have contributed to depriving many Nigerian children, especially the girl-child of their right to access quality education.

Since the onset of COVID-19, millions of children in Nigeria have been stuck at home not learning. For vulnerable and disadvantaged children, the impact has been worse. There is now a real risk that millions of children forced out-of-school by the pandemic won’t ever return. So, for us setting out to enroll 25 indigent girls seems like a drop in the ocean, but we have to start somewhere until we can leave no girl behind. The 25 was, however, chosen as a commemorative gesture for the 25th Anniversary of the Beijing Conference marked globally in 2020 by the United Nations. Our 25 indigent girls target for Phase 01 represents a practical, low-hanging fruit and realistic route to deliver impact in the most meaningful way for indigent girls.

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