When Oreoluwa Ojo lost an election on campus during her undergraduate studies, she decided not to contest the outcome, although she had questions.
“I had lost an election because of gender discrimination, because I was a girl. It was very painful, but I realised there are deep rooted beliefs and stereotypes that stand in the way of women seeking to lead,” Oreoluwa says.
That painful experience didn’t derail her, it defined her mission. In 2019, she founded Her Story Nigeria, a nonprofit built on a simple foundation; awareness through conversations.
Her Story operates on an intimate but unique model. “What we do is we talk,” Oreluwa explains, “because we understand that people learned all these weird things about women through the conversations they had or what they heard from their families or their environment.”
Conversations that started in Nigeria, are now echoing across Africa.
What started as a student’s dream to challenge the prevailing narrative around women and leadership has grown into a strong community with over 2,000 young people drawn from Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, Zimbabwe and Nigeria.
The organisation curates multiple micro-communities, each designed around shared interests like books, movies, podcasts, and writing, all centered on women’s issues and rights.
The conversations are not just abstract discussions; they have yielded remarkable outcomes.
“Three of our public speaking club participants went on to achieve remarkable things,” Oreoluwa shares
“One won the Diana Award and traveled to the US to present her work. Another secured two fellowships, and the third spoke at the United Nations”.
The work they do at Her Story goes beyond dialogue, they also have in-community projects they implement through several projects.
These include distributing sanitary wear to over 100 girls in rural communities, hosting climate adaptation workshops for 50 female farmers in rural Nigeria and running an entrepreneurship incubator for 37 women-owned businesses.
“We talk, but we also want to impact people and make sure their lives are being transformed,” Oreoluwa explains. “Not just by conversations, but also by empowering them to speak for themselves and achieve tangible results.”
Oreoluwa says while her work has been fulfilling, it has come with unique challenges. The heavy burden of hearing stories of gender-based violence and femicide in Nigeria and in other countries.
“Just recently, there were two stories of women in Nigeria.One was burned alive with her children by her husband because she didn’t prepare a meal. Another was killed by her ex after inviting him to her wedding,” she says solemnly.
“When you hear things like that, you are like, ‘Oh my God, we still have a whole lot of work to do.”
In all this, her support system has been her family and friends, who provide an ear whenever she suffers burnout.
Her support system expanded in late 2024, when she signed up for the AFWAG Her Africa Early Stage Incubator (HAESI). An opportunity she almost let slide, due to what she describes as impostor syndrome, but eventually applied.
During one of her HAESI sessions, Oreoluwa mentioned to her mentor that she has always wanted to start a social business that helps sustain the work she is doing at Her Story.
Oreoluwa got support on how to design the business plan, thinking through the business model until she launched The Zenthrum – a consultancy firm she says helps nonprofits, individuals, and businesses communicate their impact through digital marketing and implementing socially impactful projects.
‘Her story’ is a true testament of converting discomfort into sustainable action, her sour moment in college is now a source of impact and livelihood.
“Almost all of what I do for my clients is born out of my experience with Her Story,” she explains.
Her Story Nigeria is a new member of the AFWAG network.
