President and Founder of SelfWorth Organisation for Women Development, Mrs Chinyere Anokwuru is a replica of a resilient woman. Born into the humble home of late Engr James Okezie from Uzuakoli in Bende Local Government Area of Abia State, some 36 years ago, she didn’t bargain for what life later threw up at her. Having lost her mother at the tender age of 16 when she most needed motherly advice, she was left to design her future all alone and that she did, though not without some ugly stories to tell. Taking into cognisance the fact that she didn’t have a silver-spoon background, she got into school with strong determination to make something out of life. She took it upon herself to engage in petty businesses just to realise her dream and that she did when she graduated from Lagos State University where she studied Microbiology.
If she thought that a university degree would give her automatic meal ticket, then she was in for a shocker. After graduation, she walked the streets of Lagos for over three years searching endlessly for a non-existing job and in vain. With a university degree and no job, she thought that getting married would bring the much needed succour to her but again, she missed the point. Her choice of life partner didn’t help matters. She said she was attracted to a poor jobless graduate who had similar poor parental background like her, and that worsened her predicament. But she wouldn’t just surrender; she swiftly responded to the vagaries of life. She took to road side pay phone call to make ends meet when things became so critical; a clear demonstration of the saying that when the going gets tough, only the tough gets going. She got going and even lost her first baby to poverty in the process.
Reflecting on how she lost her first baby to hardship, she nostalgically recounted “I lost my first child because of hardship. We could not afford good medical services. I just had her and she died immediately because I couldn’t afford those things I needed for my ante-natal. I didn’t attend antenatal regularly, and even when I attended, I couldn’t buy the drugs recommended because I didn’t have the money. When the baby came out, she was dead. It was so painful. It was because of poverty otherwise, the baby could have lived.”
Still brooding over the past, she rhetorically asked: “Do you know what it means to live in a one room apartment? Do you know what it means that you can’t attend ante-natal care and even when you managed to attend, you couldn’t afford the prescribed drugs? Do you understand how it feels when you can’t pay rent for a one room apartment as a graduate coupled with the landlord’s and co-tenants’ harassment and all that? It was that bad. Life was terrible, so I decided to write a book.”
But, Chichi as she is fondly called was determined to be great. She didn’t lose any sleep over her situation. She was optimistic that the situation would soon fizzle out at the appropriate time.
While on the road side, brooding over the death of her baby, she thought of something that could take her mind away from that ugly incident. So, she started scribbling her thoughts together in black and white just to while away time. But what she started as a pastime eventually transmogrified into a beautiful book that later gave her a breakthrough in life. By that singular act of gambling with her thoughts, Chichi became an author; she wrote her first book, which was on marriage.
Talking about the book and what inspired her to write it, she gleefully said “And on that road side, I began to write my first book, which was the story of my life; my marriage and all that. I was inspired to write the book because of what I was going through that time. Initially, it was like an encouragement. I was just writing to encourage myself but at a point, it became a book where I penned down my experiences recounting all the hardship. And it was actually during the launch of that book that I got a breakthrough”
With the successful launching of the book, her star shone like a bright morning star. She broke the jinx of poverty. But, she didn’t relax to enjoy her financial blessings alone. She journeyed down memory lane, remembering her days of sorrow and casting her mind on thousands of women passing through the same experiences. She resolved to put smiles on the faces of such women with the proceeds of her book launch and that was how Selfworth was born.
Today, she sits atop the organisation addressing the needs of widows, poor women and teenage girls. She is also an inspirational speaker. She has spoken at numerous women and church conferences and seminars on issues of women and teenage girls.
Speaking about the organisation and its operations, she said “Selworth is a Non-Governmental Organisation set up specifically to address the needs of women and teenage girls in our society. I gathered women of like mind to help me drive the dream. We empower women and teenage girls in four different areas: health, poverty alleviation, family support and teen girls’ empowerment. In the area of health empowerment and awareness for women, we have had breast and cervical cancer programme this year during which we organised free breast and cervical cancer screening and lectures for women. We just finished our teen girls’ empowerment programme, through which we intend to bridge the gap between girls in the private and public schools. We also have programme for children in primary schools. We go to primary schools and kit the children with school bags, shoes, uniforms, stockings, lunch boxes and all that, just to make sure that we touch mother and child.”
Mrs Anokwuru who admitted that aside the challenge of funding, the journey so far has been wonderful, reiterated that the organisation’s main targets are the not-so-opportuned women. Women who have had it so rough in the past – the widows, the uneducated women and in fact those women that are generally having hard times in life.
The organisation, according to her, has trained so many women on such skills acquisition as detol and soup-making, ankara and jewellery design where they learn how to make shoes, bags and clothing with ankara materials. Other areas of training, she said includes hair-dressing, tailoring, tie and dye and various skills and vocations. “We have graduated a lot of them and offered them start-up capital to go into small-scale businesses. The training programme lasts for between three and six months, she said.”
It’s one thing to train somebody but quite a different ballgame to empower such trainees and monitor their progress or otherwise thereafter. But, Chichi seems to have answers to all that as she said “We organise leadership training for them every Tuesday at our school of excellence. When you attend the training for three months, you are qualified to be empowered. We also have micro-finance section of the organisation which monitors and evaluates progress or otherwise of our beneficiaries.”
She said the soft loans are repayable but also interest-free. “We give beneficiaries two months after which we start collecting a token as part of the loan from them. The loan is repayable but that is after two months and it’s interest-free,” she assured.
She spoke so passionately about the organisation’s prospects. She said “I see Selfworth as a global brand in the next one year. We want to touch a lot of lives not only in Nigeria but also in Africa as a whole. We want to even go beyond Africa because women everywhere are hurting. Naturally, women go through a lot. It takes a woman to do multiple tasks at the same time. I don’t see a man cooking, washing, roasting, frying and grilling at the same time but you see a woman doing all those and perfectly too. Women are a special and wonderful people. We cannot overemphasise the plight of a woman. So, whatever we can do to ensure that women are well taken care of and empowered, we will do.”
One would wonder how the Uzuakoli, Abia State-born Chinyere combines her humanitarian services with her home front effectively without either suffering. She also seems to have a magic wand in this regard. She revealed “I do most of my jobs at night when my kids are asleep. In the afternoon I work. When I come back in the evening, I rest while my kids do their home work. When they have gone to bed, I look around the house and I begin to do my work. I sweep my house, wash my clothes and my kids’ clothes; I do everything in the mid-night. By the time they wake up in the morning, everywhere is looking spick and span and very nice. You won’t know I have gone through all those at night and in the morning; I am off to my business. Women should learn how to manage sleep. You don’t sleep all through the night; some people even put food on fire and sleep off. I know it is stressful but when you watch and plan yourself, it becomes easy.”
culled The Sun
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