Executive Director, Adolescent Health and Information Project (AHIP), Nigeria

Can you talk a little bit about how AHIP began and how it has evolved over the years?

We started by addressing adolescent reproductive health in the primarily Muslim North of Nigeria. When we began, no other organization would touch issues of sexuality education with a ten-foot pole. Today, AHIP has evolved from one organization with one staff person to three offices in three states with 80 staff and programs in 12 additional states. Before all this could happen, though, we ran into strong opposition.

Can you say more about the obstacles that you have encountered?

Misconceptions, misunderstandings, ignorance, and religious interpretations. Religion itself is not the problem, but religion is often misinterpreted. We were accused of ridiculous things out of fear and misunderstanding: encouraging girls and boys to have sex, even providing rooms for them to copulate. People said we wanted to stop child marriages so that girls could instead go prostitute themselves. We were accused of being an arm of an American organization that was trying to defeat Islam and promote Western values.

So how did you address the ignorance and fear?

By engaging in a dialogue. We consulted with many groups in the community, including a group of Muslim religious leaders. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to explain our program or what we meant by certain concepts or things. We were just bombarded with all the accusations and advised to put them right, desist from being a Western propagation tool, and Islamatize AHIP programs. They went away as ignorant as they came into the meeting. I still shed a tear any day I talk about it.

But we decided to keep trying. At one meeting, after all the accusations were aired, I spoke with them about HIV/AIDS. This time, they listened to what I was saying. After the session, they said they’d never known these facts about HIV/AIDS, how it happens and how it is spread. “My God. This is something that people must do something about.” And I thought, okay, something is starting to happen here.

So how did you transition from these meetings to doing the trainings for Imams?

Well, we had several of these meetings with both Christian and Muslim leaders, and each time we learned how to plan and strategize for the next meeting. Ultimately, there were a lot of recommendations that came out, which included working with local organizations and organizations with religious knowledge and connections. We were invited to collaborate with the Center for Islamic and Legal Studies (CILS) of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) to train 40 Imams. It’s grown from there, and today, we’ve trained over 1,000 imams across nineteen states in Northern Nigeria

Do you think you are making an impact?

Yes. As an example, a wife of one of the Imams called me and asked, “What was it you did to our husbands at that training you organized?” I was speechless for some seconds, then I asked, “What do you mean?” She responded, “No, no, I did not mean that you did any harm, I was going to appeal to you that whatever it was, please invite them again for more.” When I asked why, she said that she noticed that her husband started talking more positively and not shouting as much as usual. At first she did not understand where the change came from, until two women living near the mosque where he leads prayers came to ask her what training her husband was referring to that made him start talking of women as human beings. These women concluded by saying, “Whatever training it was, Allah will bless the trainers. They should do some more of those trainings for the Imams.”