“I think the biggest barrier to gender equality in education for girls across Africa just has to be the way the entire system is set up. The way the girl child is being viewed right from the start, and how she’s not being even offered that equal opportunity in the first place. The major thing that we have to do is orientation and it begins with me and you. It begins with everyone that’s going to read this interview. How do you view the girl child? How do you see her? What are the opportunities you offer for her? Why is there no level playing field? Why do you think that a man can always do better than a woman?”
In our chat with Mubarak Idris, he shared with us some of the barriers to girl child education and social justice, the different ways everyone of us can contribute to gender equality, and helpful tips on applying for mentorship and fellowships. Keep reading to learn more.
About Mubarak
Mubarak Idris is a digital development advocate using digital media to address population, health, and environmental issues in Africa. He serves as a consultant for ChangemakerXchange, specializing in Storytelling and Content Creation. Mubarak is deeply committed to promoting girl-child education, social justice, climate resiliency, youth empowerment, and peacebuilding.
As a youth leader, he played a key role in the Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health (PACE) project by the Population Reference Bureau. He actively advocated for crucial legislation, including the Violence Against Persons Prohibition (2015) and the Child Protection Bill in Kano state, utilizing his skills in policy engagement and community outreach. He is also a member of the European Union Youth Sounding Board, a fellow of UNCCT’s Youth Engagement and Empowerment Programme and IREX’s Community Engagement Exchange Program. His dedication and expertise continue to drive positive change and transformative efforts in Africa and beyond.
This is also a link to an Instagram Video he made documenting his work on ending violence against women and girls.
Gutsy Interview with Mubarak Idris
1. You’ve been described as a passionate advocate for digital development and social justice. What inspired you to focus on digital development and social justice, and how did your journey start?
Thank you so much for these questions. I’ll try to answer the questions based on the numbers. So for question one, my journey started when I went for my entrance exam for an MSc in Computer Science at Ahmadu Bello University, a friend of mine called me and he said he wanted to start up an NGO. Before that time I’m very good at operating computers.
I won a national competition organised by the Nigeria Computer Society. It was called the Whizkids Competition, so I was well-known in my secondary school as someone who knew how to make things work on the computer. My background was that I had an Uncle (an electrical engineer) who lived with us at the time and I was completely fascinated with his desktop computer.
My father also bought a desktop computer when I completed Primary 3 and that gave me ample time to price. I also worked as a cyber café attendant (which is not so popular right now) in Life Camp during my junior secondary school break. I spent about two to three months there. That’s when I got familiar with computers and how to navigate the internet. My role in the organization in Kano State was focused on empowering women and girls to make informed choices and I was to handle the digital campaigns aspect.
So pretty much that was how I got into digital development and social justice. At first, what we did was that we advocated for the Child Protection Bill in Kano State which was the only bill at that time that criminalized child marriage, and advocated for the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Bill.
This was my entry into pushing for a policy that protects women and girls. I worked there for about four years and that’s how it all started in terms of digital development I got into the field of storytelling. I realized that a lot of young change-makers have great stories but they don’t know how to tell them and given the fact that we have different algorithms for social media, it’s not so easy to keep up, some level of specialty is needed in that regard.
2. With your involvement in climate resiliency and youth empowerment, how do you manage to balance your different roles as a consultant and advocate?
Well, balancing is not very easy. I would say that some days are very spacious, and there are some days that I feel slightly overwhelmed, or sometimes even overwhelmed, to be honest. I think I’ve faced burnout twice in my entire career, but the one thing that I do know right now and that helps me is understanding which one I should give much priority to. And what I’ve seen is that it gets easier and better with the level of expertise that you have.
Some things that were overwhelming for me when I just started, to be honest right now, are just a piece of cake. Because once you do something repeatedly, you gain a lot of knowledge and then it’s like your mind takes you to that point where you’re able to not cut corners, but understand where you need to put pressure and the places you need to not put too much pressure.
Another thing that has helped me is delegation. I delegate a lot. If there’s something that I feel I wouldn’t learn from because I’ve done it multiple times, it becomes an opportunity to hand it over to someone who has one or two things to learn about it. So I try to delegate. Even though I try to look at everything from a holistic approach, I think it’s important to delegate, and that has helped me.
Also, I think the key to me even staying sane is that I do not feel guilty about saying no to some things. I do not pressure myself to be available to everyone all the time. Saying no has kept me sane because sometimes it’s improbable to do everything. I say no to a lot of things, I do not feel guilty about it and I sleep well at night. I try to prioritize the things that I can and spend a lot of time with family because family is very important to me.
3. You’ve been part of global programs like ChangemakerXchange and the European Union Youth Sounding Board. How have these experiences shaped your view on Africa’s key issues, especially for the girl child?
Well, for question three, being part of global programs, the major program is the Community Engagement Exchange Program (CEE), where I had the opportunity to volunteer with an organization in the United States, New Jersey, called Unchained at Last, where worked to end child marriage in the United States, that was very new to me. I thought that given that the United States is a more developed country than Nigeria, you would think that they do not face basic human rights issues like child marriage.
But as of the time, I was there in 2022, only seven out of the 50 states in the United States had banned child marriage like it is illegal in that particular state. It shows that the challenges that we’re facing in Africa with all these, are global problems. The only thing I would say is that it’s more widespread and the level of literacy is not enough to actively fight some things. But I would say that it gave me a global view of how every region has its challenges. It’s important for us to also do our best to make sure that we contribute our quota.
With the European United Youth Sounding Board specifically, I volunteered under the Human Development Committee. And the one thing that I could say is that it’s not that easy for young people to have a very good seat at the table.
Let me give an analogy. It’s like when you’re on the table, there’s some places that when you talk, people can hear you, but some it’s like you’re just at the back. I would say that it has not been easy getting stakeholders to take our viewpoints very seriously. And I think it’s something that we need to keep pushing and let them know that we know these things, we can support them, and don’t see us as people that do not have that level of expertise.
And I think it’s always good to have young people there because we are the most affected. So I would say that has been very important for me to see. And to be honest, not all the programs that I’ve been on have represented young people well. I think gaining that knowledge and understanding, given the leverage that we have, is also very important.
4. What drives your commitment to promoting girl-child education, social justice, and climate resiliency?
Hmm, what drives my commitment? Well, in the beginning, I was part of a program that was more about making a difference with multimedia, just young people using technological tools, using multimedia basically to advocate for a specific issue on sexual and productive health rights. It was organized by the Population Reference Bureau as far back as 2018. And there was something we did called ground truthing. That’s going into your community to figure out the problems and challenges that your community faces.
So we were trying to advocate for issues around reproductive health. We weren’t very specific about it, but it was like, let’s go to the community, let’s see what young girls or women are facing. And we went to this community called Farin Ruwa, which was in Kano State. There I saw a young girl, Zainab, 18, divorced, and already had two kids. She narrated her story and that stuck with me. I just saw how helpless and how sad it is that this young lady was not given any opportunity right from the start.
I think that’s why most of the advocacy we did at that time was about allowing women to have this information. She didn’t know better. So there was no way that she could do better. She had no formal education so she couldn’t say that she wanted to fight for her right. I think that’s why promoting girl child education is very important to me.
But when it comes to climate resiliency, the truth is that women suffer more from issues that have to do with climate change. I mean, if we look at the traditional setting of Nigeria, it’s women who go to rivers to fetch water. And those places sometimes can harbor people that do not mean well for them in that regard. And they’re faced with a lot of challenges from the vices of intimate partner violence to just bearing the brunt of a whole lot of things that’s not their fault. So climate resiliency is important. If you have a good environment where women, can thrive things would be a lot better. And there’s always a linkage between the two.
For social justice, I have seen a lot of cases whereby people weaponize the fact that there is no particular law banning something to walk around it. I have seen the culture of silence whereby when something happens to a woman, they’re not looking for ways to fight for her right, but a way for her to keep quiet so that, let me use the pidgin word, ‘it doesn’t cast’. And then it would be hard for her to find a husband. So all those things, I have seen it, then I think that’s what made it important.
5. Can you share a story or moment where your work for girl-child education and social justice made a direct impact?
I think I’ve answered question five from 4, about the story and moments. So it was the story about Zainab that got to me. We shared the video, we narrated it. Then my colleagues and I had an opportunity to present the video at the International Conference on Family Planning back in 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda. And we could see the impact that it was making.
And that was when we started thinking about, oh, how do we make a long-lasting impact? How do we tie this to a particular policy? How do we take this further? Because when you create a video that is so nice, the next question that people will be asking is, okay, what do I do? It’s a very nice video. But what are the things that you could do about it?
6. What challenges did you face while working on the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act and the Child Protection Bill in Kano, and how did you overcome them?
So for question 6, there’s a myriad of challenges to be honest and I don’t think I could cover that in such a short time but the thing that I have seen with our leaders is that they mostly focus on things that have an immediate return on investment. So if it’s like something that has to do with immediate funding or you could see the impact directly like as fast as lightning then they would want to focus on that.
Sometimes they just don’t see it as their top priority and they have a lot on their plate. I would give them that but that’s no excuse for them not prioritizing the issues that have to do with policies. I recently read that a particular policy was passed in I think about 4 days and I was just laughing because I remember personally I advocated for a particular policy for 3 years and I think it moved from the 2nd to 3rd reading, but then you could see that sometimes when there’s a vested interest by these policy stakeholders it’s easier for them to do these things.
So with the Violence Against Persons Prohibitions Act, there was a challenge we had about some people misconstruing some of the words that were used. It was because of that, that whenever I’m running a campaign these days I no longer use acronyms. I think it’s very important for you to spell it out so that anyone who wants to run a smear campaign on you will not be able to use that. It was important And another thing is that as much as possible, it is very very important to include the media as a way to hold policymakers accountable.
I think that’s one of the challenges that we face. A lot of people make a lot of promises when the camera is off but when it is on, it becomes a different case.
Another challenge that we had was just really meeting them. You’d think it’d be so easy but then they go on recess and it’s just so hard to keep tabs on them. One thing I would advise young people is to have a policy champion whenever they want to advocate for a particular policy or if it’s in the state, have a state member in the state house of assembly who’s very keen about the policy. It could be the chairman that represents that particular committee for let’s say education.
7. How do you leverage your membership in the European Union Youth Sounding Board and fellowships with UNCCT and IREX to drive positive change?
For question seven, I think if I have the opportunity to tell young people, one way that I say that they would always gain a lot of networks and a lot of skills would be to always apply for fellowships, especially around the areas that they’re interested in. The one beautiful thing I’ve seen about fellowships is that, let me use a pidgin analogy, ‘una go see for front’. And that’s like, you people started, if you have young people who care about a certain issue, give them five years if they’re working on that same issue.
You will see progress and that makes it easier whenever you want to organize any particular rally, a workshop, or a session where you teach young people, or enlighten them about some things, it’s easier to do when you have partners in positivity or partners in change. I have seen that it has a resonating effect. And it gives you more credibility when you’re part of these organizations and you’ve walked all across the board. It’s easier for people to be able to see that, okay, you’re driving towards a certain destination and I’d like to help you. I’d like to give you more funding to do this or I’d just like to give you some words of encouragement.
But one thing I’ve seen about this membership is that I leverage the people that I meet there. I have seen a lot of them even go ahead to become top people that I could just reach out to. So it makes it easier to be honest when you and your clique of people are progressing forward. And, you share opportunities, you learn, and you grow together. So it’s very important to do that.
For the IREX Community Engagement Exchange Program, I have contacts from all across the globe where I could reach out, especially on women and gender issues. I’m part of a coalition called the Every Woman Treaty where they’re pushing for an optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination and Discrimination Against Women, which is great. But I also understand the context of Africa and I understand the reason why these legal instruments should be in place.
And for the European Union Youth Sounding Board, I understand more about what the EU is doing in terms of supporting programs in different focal states in Nigeria. So whenever I’m going to, let’s say, request for a grant or I want to engage with a stakeholder, I understand the limit. I understand what I could ask for and I understand when I’m asking for too much. So it gives you a very wide-angle view of the entire 360 process that it takes to make a change.
8. What do you think are the biggest barriers to gender equality in education for girls across Africa, and how can we overcome them, especially in today’s digital age?
So for me, I think the biggest barrier to gender equality in education for girls across Africa just has to be the way the entire system is set up. The way the girl child is being viewed right from the start, and how she’s not being even offered that equal opportunity in the first place. The major thing that we have to do is orientation and it begins with me and you. It begins with everyone that’s going to read this interview. How do you view the girl child? How do you see her? What are the opportunities you offer for her? Why is there no level playing field? Why do you think that a man can always do better than a woman?
Statistics have shown that there’s no difference between us in terms of brain power, so I’m not talking about the physicality here, but I think it’s important that we offer girls the most important thing and that is education. Let’s educate girls. We benefit more and the thing is that an investment in the girl child has proven to be more profitable than an investment in the boy child because women are the ones that nurture the next set of generations, so why not provide them with all the support that they need? It’s really to our benefit.
I have seen the joy of a family who decided to support their girl child and then the girl is doing amazing. That joy you cannot replicate at all and the dream is as far as how much you want it to go. So why not provide that?
I would also say digitalization has helped a lot in terms of democratizing these opportunities. Like the fact that whenever I see a particular opportunity, girls are encouraged to apply. I’d give you an example – I’m running a storytelling with data workshop right now and I could see from the number of applications that only 30 percent are girls and 60 percent are boys.
So when people say that girls are encouraged to apply, and I see some quotes like, what of men? I just laugh a lot because I challenge any of them to just try opening an application and they should give an open playing field, they would see that most of the time, men apply more than women for these opportunities and there are lots of barriers.
For some women, their sense of struggle has been weathered down that they don’t even feel like they could do it in the first place. It’s a thing of courage to even apply for that opportunity, to dare to dream, so I think it’s important that we put girls in a position whereby they’re able to dare to dream, and once we continue to do that, then life will get a lot better for us
9. Looking back, what has been your proudest achievement in advocating for the rights of the girl child?
Well, I’ve had a lot of proud moments, but I would say the one that always sticks out for me is, that I’ve created a lot of content, a bunch of content to be honest, either when it comes to a podcast or when it just comes to making a post. And I can remember there was a podcast that I worked on as the project manager then. And it was about young people, or the audience thinking through the issue of child marriage. I can remember we hosted a radio program where we allowed people in three focal states – Kano, Jigawa, and Bauchi. I can remember people calling or even sending the text through the WhatsApp line that we created. It was very heartwarming to me.
I remember there was a girl who was talking about the fact that we gave her the courage to just leave and face the music or whatever form of stigmatization she was going to receive from her family. I think that was profound for me. I remember that project was not easy to implement at all, it took a toll on me.
So seeing that reaction and seeing that response from someone who I probably will never meet in this life, I think that is very enriching for me. I think it was a humbling moment for me rather than a proud moment. In my entire life, I wouldn’t have known that I would have been part of that project, talk less of even evoking that reaction from that person.
And I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful God used me as a tool to motivate someone to leave a situation that otherwise could result in loss of life. So to me, that was my proud moment.
I love little moments like that when it comes to being in a digital space where you see that your work gives some level of deeper reaction to people other than the likes and the comments. It pushes people to do things or changes the way that they behave.
And I think social behavioral change communication is very important. It’s a very slow process, but I think it reaps the best reward in terms of changing people’s orientation about certain things that they’re used to either by the movies that they’ve watched or by their family orientation.
10. Finally, what advice would you give to young advocates who want to make a difference in girl-child education or social justice?
Well, for young people, I would say to always use the tools that are accessible to you at a particular point in time. I have seen a lot of people suffer from inertia whereby they’re unable to move and they feel like they need to have everything in place before they do something. It’s important to just do the best that you can do and understand that you’re passing the baton. You can’t necessarily do everything, but what you can do is ensure that you do the one thing that you can do and you do it well, to be honest.
I always used to say that when it comes to issues of justice and the advocacy space, they have the limit of what they can do. The judiciary will do its own. The families will also do their own because you can’t do everything. It’s very, very draining emotionally to always be in that space where you’re hearing about critical cases here and there. So do the best that you can with the tools that you have at this point.
It most likely is never going to be perfect, so do not expect perfection, but one thing that you should always try to do is do the little that you can to move the needle forward and protect every girl child that you can. It’s also very good for you to have a specific skill that you’re good at. And skill in this case could mean, let’s say video editing, it could be communications, writing good grants. I think it’s important for young people to not just be people who support a particular campaign, but should have some level of expertise that one could reach out to.
You should know how to frame a very good message, and how to create appealing visuals that can evoke people’s emotions. You should learn how to do public speaking so that whenever you talk, people can set out time to listen to you because there’s a lot of noise out there.
There’s a lot of things that people are talking about, there’s an array of issues. How are you able to communicate that will resonate with people? Not just people in your immediate community, but just to garner a lot of people who can support you from far and wide and be very specific about what you want. Yes, we all want to create change, but I think if we’re very specific about the type of change and the timeline in which we’re willing to do that, it makes discussions a lot easier.
And I think finally, never shy away from a conversation to support young people irrespective of how controversial they might be. I think it’s important for us to keep engaging with our policy stakeholders. See them as partners and never as competitors because I think when you see it as a competition, it just makes the whole process a lot longer and tiring.
A lot of personal ego gets into the conversation, so remove your ego from that. You’re trying to help millions or hundreds of thousands of young girls in Nigeria. I think it’s important to see them as partners, understand what they want and how they want it without compromising your values, and with time you’ll be able to do something.
It is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, so you’re going to learn a lot from the process but make sure that you stay true to yourself and contribute your quota in society and you’ll be just fine. Thank you.
Pictures of Past Projects by Mubarak
