Safiya Ibn Garba DTRF

Speaker Summary

Safiya Ibn Garba’s mission in life is to advance the prospects of girls and women in Nigeria and internationally.

Safiya is the founder of the Empowering Women for Excellence Initiative, a non-profit organisation aimed at empowering and enlightening girls and women.

Safiya is also the Senior Director of Global Programmes and Learning at Generations For Peace in Amman, Jordan. Safiya works to support peacebuilding programmes across 53 countries, with 49 of those countries in the global south. Programmes are on inter-identity tension and violence, gender equality, and Empowerment For Peace – these programmes are aimed at engaging and building capacity among women in income generation, peacebuilding and advocacy skills.

She has won multiple awards for her work, including the Outstanding Citizen Honour Award 2021 and the Desmond Tutu Reconciliation Fellowship Award 2020.

Full Profile

Safiya Ibn Garba has two passions in life: the rights of women and girls, and peacebuilding. She has worked extensively to advance the prospects of girls and women in Nigeria and internationally. She is the founder of the Empowering Women for Excellence Initiative (EWEI), a non-profit organisation with a mission to empower and enlighten girls and women.

Safiya was a member of the Civil Society Liaison Office Advisory Committee and of the National Assembly (Nigeria’s highest-level law-making body). She has advocated to and worked extensively with state and non-state actors to promote the education of girls in northern Nigeria. She continues to champion equal rights and opportunities in her home country.

Safiya is also the Senior Director of Global Programmes and Learning at Generations For Peace in Amman, Jordan. Safiya works to support peacebuilding programmes across 53 countries, with 49 of these in the global south. Programmes are on inter-identity tension and violence, gender equality, and Empowerment For Peace – these programmes are aimed at engaging and building capacity among women in income generation, peacebuilding and advocacy skills.

Safiya featured in PeaceCon 2020 as part of the ‘Women Building Inclusive Peace: Innovative Approaches from Nigeria and the United States’ panel. She was a moderator at EWEI’s ‘Developing Resilience and Growing from Setbacks for Women Leaders’ conference, and a speaker at the Galaxy4Peace launch of the Teach Peace Early Modules in 2021.

She has won multiple awards for her work and campaigning, including the Outstanding Citizen Honour Award 2021 and the Desmond Tutu Reconciliation Fellowship Award 2020.