Loveth Orhonor is a pastor and a leader at the Gethsemane Women’s Forum who helps women to find their voices and reclaim their confidence. She is also a business executive and the managing director of Honeycomb Resource Services. In this interview by KINGSLEY ALUMONA, she speaks about her work with underserved women and girls, and how to achieve gender equity and socioeconomic inclusion for Nigerian women.
What inspired your love for women’s and girls’ empowerment?
The Lord Himself inspired our love for women’s and girl’s empowerment and put us on this assignment. When you take a peek at certain statistics, you’ll be inspired to intervene. No matter how little, we must do something about the situation.
The United Nations Sustainable Developmental Goals. This decade (2020 – 2030) is designated as a Decade of Action. We have tied our programmes to the first five goals and others which are related —1, No poverty; 2, Zero hunger; 3, Good health and wellbeing; 4, Quality education; and 5, Gender equality.
Global Organised Crime Index Report 2023. Nigeria is 6th of 193 countries with human trafficking, having a score of 7.5. In different parts of the country, there is a proliferation of so-called baby factories, where pregnant women from impoverished backgrounds are deceived and promised large sums of money in exchange for their babies. UNODC reports that the most common form of human trafficking (79 percent) is s3xual exploitation. The victims of sexual exploitation are predominantly women and girls.
Also, in the last five years, the need for increased access to emerging technologies by all learners in Nigeria has been recognised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). If the current trends continue, by 2050, some one-third of Africa’s one billion young people will lack basic proficiency in math, reading, and other subjects, and millions will be unemployed and unproductive.
You are the founder of the Gethsemane Women’s Forum. How did Gethsemane begin and what are its major projects?
I am not the founder. I’m just privileged to be leading Gethsemane Women. It is a faith-based nonprofit organisation powered by the House of Freedom Nigeria that has over the past eight years implemented programmes that inspire, empower, and advocate for women, and also appreciate and represent women in society. It is focused on increasing and supporting the success rates of female entrepreneurs, helping vulnerable women, and sharing experiences that will develop collective goals that will help women overcome the many obstacles that a good number of them encounter each day.
Gethsemane Women has since influenced over 17,000 women since its inception. Through this initiative, women all around the world are brought to the place of birthing their purpose and destiny. Amongst its past projects are: the Help a Mother Initiative, Incubator Project, Women Matter Initiative, Cancer Screening Projects, Empowerment Programmes, Conferences, Medical Support Outreaches, and Dignified Flow to help internally displaced women in IDP camps with hygiene materials.
The House of Freedom is our root. If you have followed the works of our mentor Dr. Tony Rapu, you’ll see that social impact interventions are very critical to our calling. Some of the outworkings of the House of Freedom are: The God Bless Nigeria Church which caters to people in the fringes of society such as area/street boys, destitute, and drug addicts.
Social impact is in our DNA. It’s who we are. Our calling is the inspiration. We’re on a mission to address challenges faced by women in every stratum of society.
Let us know the brief background statement on how Gethsemane Women Forum addresses the gender digital divide and socioeconomic inclusion.
Research shows that women start doubting their technical intelligence and creativity by the age of six and continue to lose confidence as classes become less gender-balanced and more intimidating. Whatever the cause, it’s clear that community-led organisations like us and allies must work together to show women and girls that no subject is off-limits simply because of their gender.
According to UNICEF statistics on education in Nigeria, about 60 per cent of out-of-school children are girls. Many of those who do enrol drop out early. Low perceptions of the value of education for girls, teenage pregnancy, and early marriages are among the reasons why they drop out of school. This means that by 2030 we will not just have girls who are unemployed, but also girls who are not employable. We will also have girls who lack the basic elementary education to be entrepreneurs.
In a quest to counteract existing stereotypes and misconceptions, and to strengthen competencies for young women and girls to succeed in our changing workforce, Gethsemane Women proposes to empower young disadvantaged women aged 18–30 years old in Lagos State and expose them to hands-on training and real-world opportunities where subject-matter experts and mentors work with women in their areas — specifically underrepresented and low-income areas — and educate them with future-focused options in technology, engineering and innovation. As they move along, the women are placed in professional mentorships and internships, and participate in an impact project.
Why did you choose underserved communities and why Lagos?
Jesus said those who are well do not need a physician. That is why we chose the underserved communities.
Lagos is our base. We are taking off from here, and in due time, we will spread this to various parts of Nigeria. We have been running a campaign to alleviate period poverty in ladies and we themed the campaign ‘Dignified Flow’. We have been doing this and have been able to supply ladies in IDP camps with sanitary materials. We have done 10 states in Northern Nigeria.
After the training, will the beneficiaries be linked to primary places they can earn with the skills they have acquired or given a form of wherewithal to start something on their own?
There are two parts to this question, and the answer is yes to both. Firstly, as part of the project, participants will be attached to organisations and mentors where they will put their knowledge into action and in the process, also learn on the job. We are big on the mentoring process and it carries a great value to us. That is why this stage is very critical in the entire scheme. These young ladies are attached to role models who will shape their lives for a successful future and hold their hands through the process.
And then the second part which is also critical is that the programme has been designed in such a way that the participants are ingrained with a different mindset from the traditional modes where you finish a programme and the next step is to write a CV and start looking for jobs. No. This programme trains you to create jobs and begin to employ. The skills that are being impacted on the participants are ready skills that the world is looking for now.
Your organisation is partnering with STEMi Makers of Africa for the digital skills training of underserved Lagos women. Why did you prefer STEMi and what role will it be playing in the training?
STEMi Makers of Africa has a proven track record in this field and their record says it all. Over the years, they have gotten some solid traction of note. Their role is what we will call a technical partnership. They listened to us and were very willing to support us to accomplish this vision. We are very grateful to them. They, in effect, will help us implement the programme since they have the skills and technical know-how.
Does the Gethsemane Women’s Forum have plans to scale the skill development programme?
It can only get better. As we keep driving this initiative and can have more funds, we will scale it up. For example, one of the areas we cannot delve into now is cybersecurity training. This is because of the cost of certification. We will not want to train you and you do not have the certification to operate in the industry. It costs quite a bit for that certification but in due time, we will include it and we will be able to fund the certification costs for those who pick such a pathway.
Through your social media pages, you ask people to submit prayer points/requests to you. Do people make these requests and how do you make time to pray/attend to each request?
Yes, we do receive a good number of prayer requests. And we deal with them with a huge sense of responsibility. This is a calling and doing this is being obedient to the call. With the call comes the grace to do the work. We can do this only by the grace of God
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How do you manage the stress associated with your work? And how do your husband and family help in this regard?
There is no stress to manage. Yes, it is one very humongous assignment, but like I mentioned, there is grace. We are dealing and relating with ladies from all over the world, operating from different time zones. At the last count, we’ve had ladies from 31 countries tuning into our programmes at one time or the other.
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