Favour Abatang, founder of Her Voice Foundation (HVF), is helping teenage mothers and at-risk girls in underserved communities across Cross River State, Nigeria.
Her fight began in 2020 when she encountered pregnant teenagers and young mothers in her hometown. Some were as young as 12 and were deprived of their childhood and opportunities. Determined to change things, Favour established Her Voice Foundation (HVF), a safe space for these girls that provides vocational training, counselling, and education.
Through initiatives like the Second Chance Entrepreneurship project, HVF empowers teenage mothers with skills and start-up kits to achieve financial independence. The foundation addresses harmful practices like Money Marriage and gives survivors a new life through impact programs and projects. A money wife refers to a young girl married off by her family or caregivers, often as part of a transactional arrangement, in exchange for money, goods, or to settle debts.
The founder’s efforts have touched over 7,000 lives, earning her prestigious accolades, including the Diana and Africa Women Changemaker awards. She envisions a Nigeria where every girl has access to education and the freedom to choose her future. As she sat down with The Benchmark, Favour Abatang opened up about her unwavering dedication to protecting young girls and challenging harmful practices.
The Benchmark: If you could summarise this year in one word or phrase for Her Voice Foundation, what would it be and why?
Favour Abatang: If I sum it up in one word, it’s a second chance because what we’ve done this year is about giving meaning, life, and a future to girls viewed ordinarily in society. We gave meaning to girls who could not reach their full potential.
So it’s a second chance because we have given the girls, the teenage mothers, and the young girls who are at risk of gender-based violence – a chance at a future. A second chance because when girls are in situations where their lives are at risk, and they do not have hope of what the future looks like, we have given them a second chance to redefine their futures and build for themselves a life they deserve.
Looking back at 2024, what achievements are you most proud of with Her Voice Foundation?
This year marks our most significant investment of time and resources into girls’ education, and I am incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved. For the first time, we moved beyond creating one-dimensional programs to implementing a holistic, three-pronged approach to empowering girls, offering them a complete pathway to independence and success.
One of our standout initiatives this year was the Girls to Women: Stronger, Bolder project. Through this program, we enabled girls to attend school via foundational learning sessions. Over 300 adolescent participants aged 10 to 19—including teenage mothers, survivors of violence, and those unable to afford education—have been attending school for the past four months.
Our evening foundational learning sessions provide these girls with literacy and essential skills, such as reading and writing, while equipping them with practical life skills. By combining education with personal development, we’re helping them enjoy learning and prepare for brighter futures.
Life skills such as effective communication about sexual health, understanding sexual and reproductive rights, knowing how their bodies function, preventing teenage pregnancy, and comprehending the concept of consent are transformative tools for young girls. This approach empowers them and fosters an understanding of choice, responsibility, and access to opportunities to help break the poverty cycle.
We provide these girls with financial independence and education, equipping them to secure their futures and teaching them the skills to exercise their agency. Seeing the impact of our program, which creates real-time value, has been a significant milestone. We work across 12 communities, witnessing girls gaining confidence and empowerment daily.
Adolescent mothers and young girls who faced early pregnancies have experienced transformative changes through our three-pronged approach. Their lives have taken meaningful turns, an extraordinary achievement for me.
What are your top priorities for Her Voice Foundation in the coming year?
2025 lands us on a half-decade journey. This year, the foundation will turn five years old. So, for us, 2025 is the year when we are building the future. We want to ensure that our work for girls is future-proof—that our interventions are research-based and evidence-based, not just about what we think. We want to see how girls’ voices strongly shape the future they want to see.
I don’t take light in the fact that girls and teenage mothers must design their futures. They must decide what they want. We cannot decide for them. 2025 is going to be a year of shaping the future for girls. For young mothers, what do they want? Not what we feel they want, not what the statistics say they want, but what they want. So, it is on this that we are building a future-proof world where our world is speaking to the issues that girls want.
How will Her Voice Foundation address the social norms holding girls back?
We have identified social norms that prevent girls from attending school. Thus, we want to see how to break the barriers that affect girls everywhere—every country, every town we enter, every place we have. Right now, we are in three countries: Nigeria, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. But we want to take our work to more African countries. We want to see that teen mothers who have been stigmatised and written off by society find hope.
People don’t realise that there are many reasons why a girl can get pregnant. It may not be that she was promiscuous. She may have been a victim of sexual violence. Or, she may have lacked access to the resources to live a better life and have no other means. Consequently, she falls back to men. And when a girl is poor and needs food to eat, and the only exchange is her body, most times, she’s almost willing to give that exchange.
That is why we are future-proofing and resourcing girls. We want to see girls as resourced and not dependent on men for anything. That’s the kind of future we want to build for young mothers.
What is your ultimate vision for 2025 and beyond?
In 2025, we want to break the cycle of poverty because we have discovered that women and girls in power are the key to the future generation. Once a girl has the power to take care of herself and her family, she will empower the society where she lives.
A clear example is Mary, who was once a money-wife. Mary had never been allowed to speak in a community until we came for intervention in the Bethebe community. She was silent. She got married at seven and has been quiet since then. She’s about 20 years old and couldn’t even speak in her house because she was married to a family that does not love, see, or prioritise her. So she has never been to school nor gained a skill.
She constantly lives in poverty. She’s a family wife, and different men sleep with her. She is seen as someone who doesn’t matter. But for the first time, she has been able to speak up at the community meeting since this empowerment began.
And I tell you, Mary right now owns a shop. With the empowerment kit that we are giving this year, the money wives received 50 kits to help them set up their businesses. Mary shared photos of her new shop with me a few weeks ago. S,o she is no longer that silent girl. The community cannot tell her to shut up. She is now taking leadership for herself.
That is the kind of future we are building. We want to change the norms and see our girls empowered. When girls who have been abandoned have the opportunity to grab skills, it improves their confidence. It enhances the way they show up in the community. It improves the way the community perceives them. It improves the way that they show up for their kids. That’s the kind of future we want to build in 2025. Every single adolescent, as far as you’re a girl, a young mom, and tends to fall into the place where you are at risk of violence, you have this.
We want to reach 30 million people by 2030, and it’s our strategy to connect with donors, partners, sponsors, and media like you. This way, we can shatter social norms affecting girls everywhere and grant them access to education, opportunities, fundamental rights, sexual health, and healthcare services.
Are there any new projects or initiatives you’re excited to launch in 2025?
I am excited about our ongoing Girls to Women Stronger Bolder Project, which will continue until 2025. We shall continue to reach girls through skill, education, and life hacks.
There’s also a part of the project that’s very interesting, which involves mobilising community members to become allies in our fight to educate girls. We want to ensure that no one overlooks the girl child’s education- making it everybody’s business. So, we will mobilise with stakeholders such as traditional leaders who are key in the community, partners, donors, sponsors, and ministries like the Ministry of Women Affairs and Ministry of Education to see how the Girls to Women project can succeed.
If you could make one wish for the girls you support and their futures, what would it be?
My biggest wish for each of them is that they become so resourced and empowered that nothing can stop their future.
