Princess Amarachi Nlumanze is the National Coordinator Heph zibah Group; a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) that specializes in charity work, skills acquisition for women and youth. In this chat with ENE OSANG, she spoke about why the organization was set up, saying the current situation of the country calls for constant sensitization of women and youth.
Tell about your NGO?
My NGO is called Heph zibah group; we are into cooperative, charity work, entrepreneur and politics. In the politics aspect we train women and youth for politics because we find out that no generation lasts forever, the more you train the more new people are coming up. We give them moral value and let them know everything is not about acquiring wealth or money but also know their rights as Nigeria’s citizen, and as far as they meet the criteria of what the country has said concerning any post you want to contest you have to train yourself. There are so many untrained people in our society today, see what is happening in our National Assembly where our representatives fight every day; we don’t want to produce such leaders.
On entrepreneur we train women on different skill acquisition and empower them afterwards to start their own business. We seek funds from government and well meaning individuals to support the trained women financially to start business.
In the cooperative aspect, as a registered member of our group you must belong to a cooperative where we contribute money to help ourselves.
How was growing up like for you?
I wanted to be a Naval officer because I like their smart look, but while growing up seeing all that is happening in the country I decided to open an NGO just to make an impact because it is my passion to put smile on the faces of others.
What is your educational background?
I have a Bsc. in Marketing and Masters in Political Science and I intend to further more by getting a PhD.
What motivated you to set up Hephzibah?
I don’t like people being disenfranchised or when women are being intimidated and seen as the vulnerable and weaker vessel. Women are not weak or vulnerable, the problem is that our men forgets the real value of women sometimes; we are mothers, sisters, wives who manage their home.
How many women and youth have you empowered so far?
We have empowered over two thousand people both youths and women. During our last exhibition so many people attended from other states as well and we did it like a competition and so many people won different items, generally the more we grow, the more we impact the lives of our people.
How do you manage work and home front?
In Heph zibah we have so many executive members and departments, I am only the National Coordinator and everybody reports to me whenever we meet. We are also into charity; our last visit to the pediatrics department of Wuse hospital we were able to give every child we met there a gift because it is good to put smile on the faces of others.
What is your take on Nigerian women in politics?
Nigerian women in politics are coming up now because of the gender friendly President we have now. President Goodluck Jonathan has done marvelously well for Nigerian women, it is his regime that supported 35% affirmative action for women and in Nigeria’s history no other President has empowered women like President Jonathan and I commend him for that. I also believe more women will be in cabinet when he is reelected.
How can there be more women when most of them didn’t scale primaries or other positions?
The truth is that if I vote for a woman I don’t know who the other person will vote for, but we keep sensitizing our women to know that when they vote for a woman they are voting for a better nation. I believe many will vote for the women aspirants because women are one and if we don’t unite we won’t achieve anything.
A lot of people say women are their own enemies, is this true?
I will somehow agree with that but with God all things are possible because we have been reorientating the minds of women against jealousy and backbiting.
How do you get funds you spend on charity works?
I am a business women into fashion and designing, fabrics I have my label candice wardrobe and am also into events management.
Do you face any challenges coordinating women?
There must be challenges but not like before when most women were not enlightened. I understand that the one language most women want to hear is that of love and care and love is reciprocal; if you give love, you get love in return. It is not right to treat women as lesser beings even if you are in position of authority because it is same grassroots women you look down on that will put you in that position through their votes. When you know who you are you shouldn’t be fighting your fellow woman rather you team up with ideas and make meaningful contribution to the society.
Do you have any regrets in life?
I don’t have any regrets at all, I love the work I am doing now, if I am a Naval officer I wouldn’t have the opportunity of meeting all these women today, who will sensitize them? Yes the Naval officers are doing their job manning the seas but I am here making fellow human beings smile and I am very happy.
What would you say you have achieved in life?
The Bible says count your blessings; name them one by one and it would surprise you what the Lord has done. We don’t boast on our own of whatever we have achieved but in God we boast. The fact I am alive and see that transformation have come to Nigeria and I am a part of that is a great achievement for me. Women are sensitized; we are no longer relegated at the background like it used to be. Yes women still farm, cook and do other stereotype jobs but today we can come out boldly to contest for elections, we hold leadership positions and a lot of other things we were not given opportunity to do before.
It has been alleged that Women now chase careers and that is why children now go astray do you agree with this?
I don’t agree with the allegation that children have gone astray because women now work. No matter what women do, they don’t abandon their primary responsibility which is taking care of the home. I am a mother of three boys; 15, 13 and 8 years old children and none of them have gone astray that is why we urge our women that no matter what, they should take good care of their children because you don’t know who they will become tomorrow. If you don’t take good care of your children, they might become armed robbers and even terrorize you.
Youths are also under your care, what efforts has your NGO made towards tackling youth restiveness in the country?
We every now and then conduct seminars and talk to our youths and we should also know that in any country of the world there is corruption, crime, restiveness we can only reduce it but it’s difficult to totally eradicate it. The so called great countries are not better than Nigeria, watch CNN and Aljazeera and you will hear o unimaginable crime that they commit over there, crime is more there than in Nigeria.
Do you have any leisure time?
Yes I do, I love swimming a lot and I will say I am one of the best swimmers around, I love dancing a lot and sometimes I take holidays to travel.
What are your hobbies?
I love singing; I read but reading sometimes you know they say when you want to hide something from an African, put it in a book. What I normally do is if I have a book I must read I make sure I take one chapter or more before the end of the day.
What would be your advice for women?
I want to rather appeal to the conscience of Nigerian women to vote for fellow women because when women are not in power they can’t make impact on the lives of others especially women. If we don’t vote ourselves we will soon be relegated to the background again by men.
The only way we can achieve this is by loving one another, God created male and female and we females should love ourselves first because we are the same species. You can break a stick of broom but you cannot break a bunch of broom, I want Nigerian women to unite as a bunch of broom so it will be difficult for anyone to break us.