Nsekpong Archibong Udoh (Nigeria)

“When we started projects in family planning we were actually thrown out of one community,” said Nsekpong Archibong Udoh, the executive director of Community Partners in Development in Nigeria and a CEDPA alumna.

“The men thought we were coming to teach their wives to be promiscuous. It wasn’t easy. We had to, over time, make them see that spacing children was for the good of the family and would help the men also.”

Educating the community about family planning was one of many challenges Nse faced trying to improve the situation for women in Akwa Ibom State, in the southern-most part of Nigeria. But she was determined.

“The whole thing started when I witnessed the celebrations in my community attached to burials,” she said. “I noticed that about half of the girls between 12-18 years of age were pregnant. I had a discussion with my sister and I told her that there is a need to address this issue because if we lose this age bracket, we’ll run into problems.”

She and her sister quickly moved into action by going to churches and offering to provide free skills training for the girls. The first group they worked with was made up of pregnant teens, disadvantaged youth, school dropouts and girls who had been forced into marriage.

“We started training [girls] in small skills like making soup from palm oil, using ground nuts to make snacks, and teaching sewing/typing skills,” she said.

The program was a success. Nse’s sister decided to continue helping people through politics, but Nse decided to pursue her passions for social work, community service and girls’ education. Nse became a volunteer for the Community Partners in Development, then became a program manager and ultimately headed the organization.

The organization offers diverse programs in micro credit, women’s political empowerment, and support for refugees. However, its main activities center on reproductive and sexual health.

They work with youth, sex workers, those in the prison community, and road transport workers to educate them on safe sex and STI and HIV/AIDS prevention. Nse is particularly proud of a program called “Make We Talk” (slang for “let’s talk”), which has succeeded in getting more youth to seek HIV/AIDS counseling and testing.

Nse attended CEDPA’s Global Women in Management program in 2008, with funding from the ExxonMobil Foundation’s Women’s Economic Opportunity Initiative. She had just accepted the position of executive director at her organization and was feeling the pressure that comes with a leadership position.

“I discovered I had expectations from everywhere,” she said, “from my colleagues in the office and even more expectations from the Board of Trustees.”

In the workshop, Nse and her fellow participants improved their skills and abilities in leadership, strategic communication, fundraising, advocacy, financial management, project management and building partnerships.

She says the workshop has improved her skills, especially in leading and managing.

“If I had had the training before I came, I would have done so much differently,” she said. “The workshop has given me skills to package myself differently as a leader.”

(March 2010)