19-Year-Old Nigerian Twin Sisters Get UN Foundation Recognition For Community Work

The United Nations (UN) Foundation has recognized the community-based work of 19-year-old Nigerian twin sisters, Uforo and Eduek Nsentip, popularly known as De Nsentip Twins, by featuring their humanitarian contributions and girls/women advocacy in its Equal Everywhere website.

The Akwa Ibom State twin ladies, who are currently second-year medical students of the University of Uyo and also the founders of the Nsentip Twins Foundation, have been working in the humanitarian space since they were 17 years old.

According to the twins, their projects, executed through their foundation, which aims at achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), include the Girls Community for Change project; mentorship programmes for female tweens, teens, and young adults; adolescent sexual and reproductive health sensitisation; and girl's and women's rights advocacy, mental health, climate change, and access to education.

According to them, the Girls Community for Change project aims at improving the social financial, emotional, and physical well-being of girls/women through education and skills acquisition. 

“We are constantly motivated because we want to be and build the change we hope to see in the world. Instead of complaining, we decided to take action, Eduek said. Seeing the great work of celebrity activists like Priyanka Chopra, Malala Yousafzai, and Angelina Jolie also inspired us to join the movement for a better and sustainable world by starting our organisation.

So far, we have reached over 5,000 girls and women with our mentorship programme, Uforo said. “With more support, we plan to help girls gain access to quality education and impact over one million girls and women globally in years to come.”

On the progress they are seeing as a result of their humanitarian work, Eduek said there is now more awareness about the SDGs than in previous years. 

In the wider movement, we are excited to see that more girls and young women than ever before are being educated in developing countries, Eduek said. “Fortunately, more girls and women are making waves in STEM fields and there have been efforts to debunk the stereotype that STEM courses are for boys and men only.”

On what will the world look like when girls and women are equal everywhere, Uforo said when girls and women are equal everywhere, most of the worlds issues will be solved and there will be an increase in the rate of economic prosperity and solutions to climate change, and a reduction of poverty and ignorance. 

“We are hopeful for a future in which girls will realize that when society confines them to a box, their determination breaks its walls, Uforo said. And when the society calls them failures, their ambition proves them wrong; when society criticizes them, they share a story of how their criticism was their motivation.

The UN Foundation is an independent charitable organisation created to work closely with the United Nations to address humanities greatest challenges, build initiatives across sectors to solve problems at scale, and drive global progress.

According to the Foundation, gender inequality remains enshrined in laws, policies, and norms around the world  denying girls and women the equality that is their birthright. 

Its against this backdrop that the United Nations Foundation launched #EqualEverywhere today, a campaign to call attention to pervasive gender discrimination and the brave advocates striving to realize the promise of equality for all, the Foundation added. 

Elizabeth Cousens, President and CEO of the UN Foundation stated that girls and women continue to be held back by discriminatory laws, policies, and norms in every country in the world.

For every advance celebrated we also need everyone, everywhere to join in calling out injustice and demanding change so that girls and women can be equal in every place and part of life, Cousens said.