ABOUT GIRLS’ POWER INITIATIVE (GPI)

GPI enables adolescent girls and young females to live healthy lives and achieve their full potentials, towards an empowered womanhood.

Girls’ Power Initiative is a non – profit feminist youth development organization and pioneer of sexual and reproductive health and rights education within Nigeria. We were founded in 1993 by Bene Madunagu and Grace Osakue to address the challenges facing girls between the ages of 10 and 18 in Nigerian society. We aim to equip girls with information, skills and opportunities for action in the hopes they will grow into empowered young women. We operate in four states in South-South region of Nigeria: Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Edo.

Our Story

Bene Madunagu and Grace Osakue, two activists for women’s empowerment, co-founded GPI in 1993. They realized it is not enough to wait until adulthood to equip women with the skills, knowledge and confidence needed to achieve their potentials; they decided it is crucial to start working with girls during adolescence, a period in which they are confronted by a host of new changes and risks. Along with Benin City, Calabar is the original home of GPI programming.

Our Vision

A sustainable feminist institution leading transformation of patriarchal values in Nigeria.

Our Mission

To empower children and young females with accurate information and skills from a gender perspective for social action.

Girls’ Power Initiative is a non-profit feminist youth development organization and pioneer of sexual and reproductive health and rights education within Nigeria.

Passion

To bring and channel our feelings, emotion and zeal to the work that we do, knowing that we are dealing with issues and expecting changes on those issues that affect the psyche of our target audience.

Our Values

Upholding Feminist Ideology

To bring to our work knowledge, attitude, behavior and practices that reflect and promote equality and social justice.

Teamwork

Committed to harnessing internal and external resources, expertise and capacity for better outcomes of our interventions.

Equal Opportunities For All

Committed to practices and interventions that are non discriminatory and promote the social development of girls and young females regardless of residence, social and economic background.

Integrity

Demonstrating a high level of honesty, accountability, truthfulness, honor, reliability, uprightness through consistency of actions and operations. We will let our words be our bound under any circumstance.

Beyond The Acronym – GPI

G = Girls

Girls’ Power Initiative addresses the unique challenges that women and girls face in a patriarchal Nigerian society and equips them with the necessary skills and tools to succeed and become fully empowered.

P = Power

Power here means having the inner strength and capability to make things happen, acting from an informed position, and having strong convictions of what is right to overcome prejudices.

Girls’ Power Initiative (GPI) aims to be at the forefront of the struggle to raise African womanhood from its age-long powerlessness in the family and society from vulnerability to empowerment through activism for social transformation.

I – Initiative

Initiative is the act of taking the first step to do something that must be done without being told. It is the ability to identify what is right and just. It enables one to recognize injustice and take action without waiting to be told what to do. It means setting one’s goal in life, having a vision and aspiring to reach one’s goal, taking practical and positive actions.

What is Empowerment?
Empowerment is feeling safe and comfortable in expressing what one thinks; in feeling happy, angry, sad, and asking for what one needs, knowing that everyone has the right to choice, privacy and respect. It is saying, NO, when you mean NO. It is acknowledging your inner strength and capabilities. It involves appreciating and admiring yourself and being sure of yourself. It is processes by which girls and women receive information that enables them to recognize and be conscious of their rights and hence act to defend and protect such rights. It involves courage, strength and conviction based on accurate information and analysis of life realities. Girls’ Power Initiative’s (GPI) empowerment program is aimed at making girls active participants in social action for the general good.