INTERVIEW: We’re Creating a Sustainable Change in Nigeria’s Education – Okwuosa

Mary Jacob Okwosa, Executive Director of Whisper to Humanity, spoke with ASIWAJU MEDIA following a three-day Transformative Education Training in Ebonyi State.

The programme gathered educators and students from ten schools, equipping them with methods for inclusive and transformative learning. Okwosa discussed her organization’s work, its focus on sustainable educational change, and her hopes for broader impacts across Nigeria.

Asiwaju Media: May we know you?

Mary Jacob Okwosa: My name is Mary Jacob Okwosa, I am the Executive Director of Whisper to Humanity.

Asiwaju Media: We can see your passion in what you are doing, trying to transform education. What motivated you to embark on this particular project?

Mary Jacob Okwosa: Okay, on this particular project, I think it’s pretty much been a long time coming for this project. Whisper started in 2020, and by the time Whisper started, before Whisper started, I was already working with a couple of international organizations globally. But I wanted to create something that young people would own for themselves and by themselves, so I started speaking to a couple of my friends and comrades on how to create an NGO platform that was not the traditional idea of NGO system in Nigeria. We wanted to create an equal society, and in creating an equal society, realized that the only way to have a sustainable change in our society is to build change through education, that way children learn from a young age and then it is sustained. Right now, we are doing this project around transforming education using playful approaches because we understand the language that children speak, and this is because we are working with children. So the reason that it’s burning so high for us to implement this, is because we understand how sustainable the change that we are looking forward to transforming societies in Nigeria will be if only young people would understand it and own it.

Asiwaju Media: What has been your experience… I wouldn’t say your first time implementing this project in Ebonyi. Is this right?

Mary Jacob Okwosa: Okay, yes, this was a class project. We did an FGM project in Ebonyi State last year, but for the transformative education project, this is the first time we are implementing it in Ebonyi.

Asiwaju Media: So how has this project been like?

Mary Jacob Okwosa: It’s been an exciting journey. Last month, I think, last month, I was in Ebonyi with some of my team, and we met up with a lot of stakeholders. If not for anything, the level of acceptance and the excitement, both the ministry, the media persons, and the teachers and students themselves, the excitement they had, and the open arms—it was obvious that there was some level of willingness to transform education in the state. There was some level of willingness by people in the state to transform the system of education and have a more sustainable system in the state.

Asiwaju Media: Apart from this training, where are we heading to? Where do you want to, where are you heading to in this program? In terms of, you’re talking about transforming education. In which specific areas?

Mary Jacob Okwosa: Okay, so we are transforming the idea of teaching, right? So we have known the very traditional mode of teaching in classrooms that we have had in Nigeria for years. And we believe it’s not working again. Research has shown that the attention span of children is reducing by the age. So we are looking at other avenues to ensure that our children are paying attention and being involved in the education space. So one of the major part of transformative education we are looking at is transforming the mode of teaching, using playful approaches, using interacting methods, and another part of transformative education that we are looking at is ensuring that children feel included. We are looking at an education system where children feel the sense of ownership, a system where they are not just looking forward to learning but they are excited because of the approach in learning and the access of things they have in their school spaces and materials.

Asiwaju Media: You gathered some schools here. I know that there are so many schools in the state, and just a few of them are represented here. Is your organization talking about having plans to step away from this training to reach more schools?

Mary Jacob Okwosa: So today, finalizing the training, I committed to the teachers and the students as well that we are not ending here, right? We are supporting every child that was in this room to champion their own step-down training, to step this training to their fellow students in their schools, and we are also supporting teachers to also step down the training to their fellow teachers. But we are also not limiting it to schools that they are coming from. The director of education has been with us, and we are also working with the ministry on how to involve other schools that were not part of this training. The teachers and students who have been trained today from all regions in the state are going to be the ones stepping down the training to and involving other teachers and students in their region. We ensure that we have equal representation in all zones, and we are willing to support them.

Asiwaju Media: How many schools are represented here?

Mary Jacob Okwosa: Ten schools across the state.

Asiwaju Media: Whisper to Humanity is a big project you’re doing. We would love to know whether you’re partnering with any international organization or any other support from elsewhere.

Mary Jacob Okwosa: Okay, so… We are working with a partnership from Ignite Consortium. So Ignite Consortium is made up of different feminist and women-led funds that are coming together to support adolescent girls’ education, but as you can see in this room, we don’t just have adolescent girls but girls and boys. And the reason is that beyond the approach that we use to integrate girls in the spaces, we understand that leaving the boy child will not only be creating a strong woman for the future but a strong opposition to the boys. So we are integrating both parties to ensure that the boy child does not have any more attention than the girl child, neither will the girl child have more attention than the boy child. We understand that these genders both have issues going on, and that’s why we are involving them.

Asiwaju Media: Finally, what are you expecting from the government, teachers, and students at the end of this program?

Mary Jacob Okwosa: Okay, so for the students, we listened to them this morning, the highlights of it, sharing experiences for the past few days, and also telling us the things they think they can do. We are hoping that they don’t just learn, that they are going to go and be exemplary young people in their school spaces, in their families, and in their communities. For teachers, we are hoping that you could become the systematic change that we are looking for in the school system, and for Ebonyi state government, we are hoping that we have the full partnership of the government to not only take on the training but to ensure that the demands of the students and the teachers that were made throughout this period—the by-laws that they are requesting, the review in the school curriculum, and all the things that the students and the teachers mentioned that would help them implement a better education system—we are hoping that the government would not just listen but prioritize the same for achieving a better education system in the state.