We are excited to announce that our CEO – Uchenna Igbokwe is one of the newly elected non-trustee members of the Board of Trustees of the Community Reorientation Women’s Network (CRoWN). He demonstrated his and SCIDaR’s commitment to improving maternal, child, and community outcomes in Nigeria at the inaugural meeting of the board. Other members of the board include: Her Excellency, Dr. Hadiza Balarabe; Zouera Youssoufou of the Aliko Dangote Foundation; and Violaine Mitchell.
CRoWN is a rapidly growing volunteer network, with 5,949 trained women ambassadors, with over 16,000 women in the pipeline for onboarding. Collectively, these ambassadors have supported 50k+ pregnant women and 20k+ children in accessing critical healthcare services, while fostering community-driven solutions for economic resilience.
Based on these successes, CRoWN is preparing to launch a new frontier in education; beginning with the identification of out-of-school children and linking them to schools. Establishing a clear denominator of these children will be critical for planning and improving resource allocation within the education sector.
With CRoWN, we are seeing a revival of volunteerism in our communities. And with the right structure and support, it can become instrumental in integrating health, education, and livelihoods at the community level.
CRoWN ambassadors shared stories of the enterprises they’ve built; from grains to haircare. These ventures are blueprints of dignity, ownership, and sustainability embodied in the CRoWN model.
As SCIDaR continues to contribute technical expertise to this work, we remain hopeful for what’s possible when we build with the community, not just for it. When we centre women not just as beneficiaries, but as architects of change.
CRoWN is showing us it’s possible. We invite development actors to back models that are community-centred, community-led, and gender-intentional. That’s where real change begins.
