The United Nations Academic Impact and the Millennium Campus Network (MCN) are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship, a semester-long leadership development program that helps students design and implement community-level initiatives to promote sustainability and help others in need.
Monica Gbuchie, a medical student at Niger Delta University in Nigeria and a Millennium Fellow for the Class of 2020, aspires to promote sexual and reproductive health and women’s rights in underserved communities. Her Millennium Fellows Project focuses on SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being and SDG 5: Gender Equality.
As a medical student, Monica is surrounded and exposed to various issues concerning teenage pregnancy, unsafe abortion, sexually transmitted disease and female genital mutilation. She has witnessed first-hand the stigma and shame surrounding teenage pregnancy and the horrors of female genital mutilation. But even before beginning to study medicine, such issues relating to the Sustainable Development Goals 3 and 5 had resonated with her.
Monica grew up in an environment where it was common to witness or experience the consequences of not knowing about sexual and reproductive health and women’s rights. She once spotted an abandoned infant at a refuse disposal facility. She met young women who knew nothing about how to prevent pregnancy in a scientific way. Such experiences helped Monica gain a deeper perspective on women’s rights: “If these women were properly educated and oriented, they would be able to make informed decisions about their reproductive and sexual health.”
But her passion aside, she had no experience in mobilizing people and resources in a way that was necessary to put this idea into action. The Millennium Fellowship, to which her friend had recommended her to consider applying, seemed to be the perfect environment to launch her project. After being selected as a Millennium Fellow for its Class of 2020, she immediately co-founded the “Act 4 Her” initiative together with her close friend, with its aim to raise awareness on the use of appropriate contraceptive methods to prevent unwanted and high-risk pregnancies and thus reducing maternal mortality.
Monica and her team have conducted extensive training sessions on this topic. With the help of professional lawyers and experts in women’s rights, they have so far reached out to over 500 female and male undergraduate students in Nigeria. They have also been able to call out to thousands of people across the country through radio programmes, which covered issues such as sexually transmitted disease, sexual reproductive health and elimination of violence against women. In the long term, she is planning to establish a youth-friendly centre that will “serve as a safe space where young people can comfortably get reliable information and access to services related to sexual and reproductive health and women’s rights.”
The Millennium Fellowship helped Monica by connecting her with highly skilled professionals around the world, who as mentors helped her deal with problems arising from leading an initiative. Monica felt reassured, knowing that her mentors and other Fellows were there to lend a helping hand. She also recalls: "It was a beautiful thing seeing young people like myself doing phenomenal things, creating change and being revolutionary. When working on your own it can be difficult to create but being together with other people enables you to draw inspiration [from them]."
Based on her own experience, Monica advises the future Millennium Fellows to embrace the importance of collaborating with other inspiring, like-minded Fellows. “Make connections with like-minded people, collaborate on projects that align with your goals for greater reach and impact! There's no right time to create an impact. Start where you are with the small ideas you have, and it will all add up in the end. Remember, little drops make an ocean!”
To learn more about?Monica and support her work, visit her .
