Dr. Chinekwu Oreh | Founder, The Healthy African Girl Foundation

Dr. Chinekwu Oreh is a public health and development leader, social impact advocate, author and mentor whose work sits at the intersection of health, public policy, human capital development, advocacy and women’s leadership.

She founded The Healthy African Girl (THAG) Foundation in 2016 from a simple but powerful conviction: every African girl deserves the health, knowledge, voice, confidence and opportunities she needs to fulfil her potential and contribute meaningfully to Africa’s development.

Over the years, that conviction has grown into a platform that works across the interconnected issues that shape a girl’s ability to thrive: from health and bodily autonomy to leadership, legal literacy, voice, mentorship and access to opportunity.

Building Healthier, More Empowered Girls

Dr. Oreh has led the development of interventions addressing critical health and social barriers affecting African girls and young women, including menstrual health and hygiene, adolescent and sexual and reproductive health, HPV prevention and vaccination, gender-based violence prevention and leadership development.

Under her leadership, THAG implemented a comprehensive menstrual health intervention reaching 1,800 girls at Government Girls Secondary School, Dutse, Abuja. Beyond distributing dignity kits, the intervention established menstrual-waste management infrastructure, including an incinerator, sanitary disposal bins and a menstrual-health station, while providing education addressing both the physical and psychosocial dimensions of menstruation.

THaG’s HPV interventions have similarly reached more than 3,000 adolescents and community members, combining health education, advocacy, community engagement and vaccination mobilisation to improve awareness and uptake of a powerful tool for preventing cervical cancer.

Making Policy Understandable and Rights Actionable

Central to Dr. Oreh’s approach is the belief that a policy cannot fully protect people who do not understand the rights and protections it gives them.

This conviction has driven THAG’s growing work in policy literacy, particularly around Nigeria’s Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act. Dr. Oreh and her team developed a simplified VAPP Act resource that translates complex legal provisions into accessible, practical information for girls, women and communities.

Through the Foundation’s Policy Literacy, Know Your Rights and VAPP-for-All advocacy, THAG is taking laws beyond policy documents and courtrooms and putting understandable information into the hands of the people those laws were created to protect. The goal is not awareness for its own sake, but agency, enabling girls and women to recognise violence, understand their legal protections and know that they have rights and avenues for redress.

Giving Girls a Voice

Dr. Oreh believes that girls should not merely be beneficiaries of development programmes; they should participate in shaping the conversations, policies and solutions that affect their lives.

This philosophy inspired Give the Girl a Voice, THAG’s peer-led advocacy campaign launched to amplify the voices of adolescent girls. Through creative advocacy, girls have used essays, poetry, storytelling and other forms of expression to identify the challenges facing girls in Africa and propose their own solutions.

The initiative has evolved into Akpajima, THAG’s magazine and advocacy platform dedicated to elevating girls’ voices. Through Akpajima, young contributors from across Africa use their voices to engage with issues affecting girls and their communities, strengthening a generation of young women who understand that their perspectives belong in the rooms where decisions are made.

Raising Africa’s Next Generation of Female Leaders

For Dr. Oreh, empowering girls must ultimately translate into agency, leadership and the ability to create change for others.

This vision has driven the development of the Rise Up Conference, Rise Up Mentorship Collective and Ruby Leadership Academy, creating a growing leadership ecosystem for African girls and young women.

Together, THAG’s leadership accelerator interventions have reached 1,925 participants across 23 African countries, while the Rise Up Mentorship Collective has provided more intensive mentorship to 165 emerging leaders from approximately 10 countries.

These interventions go beyond training. Participants are equipped to identify their strengths, build confidence, develop leadership competencies, access opportunities and translate their ideas into social impact. Across the continent, women connected through these platforms have gone on to initiate projects, build communities and catalyse change in their own countries.

The Ruby Leadership Academy takes this vision further as a technology-enabled leadership accelerator designed to democratise access to high-quality leadership development, mentorship and opportunity preparation for African women irrespective of geography.

From Individual Programmes to Systems Change

Alongside her work with THAG, Dr. Oreh serves as Head of Health at the Nigeria Governors’ Forum Secretariat, where she works at the intersection of evidence, policy and political leadership to strengthen health systems across Nigeria’s 36 states.

Her work spans primary health care governance, health financing, immunisation, health security, accountability and data-driven decision-making, working with governments and development partners to translate national priorities into stronger subnational systems.

This experience profoundly shapes her approach to THAG: sustainable development requires more than individual interventions. It requires informed citizens, capable leaders, responsive institutions and policies that translate into meaningful change in people’s lives.

Creating Knowledge That Travels

An author and advocate, Dr. Oreh has developed books, practical resources, policy-literacy tools and learning materials addressing issues affecting girls, young people and families. She sees knowledge products not simply as publications, but as a way of extending impact beyond the reach of any single programme.

Her work reflects a consistent commitment to translating complex ideas whether in health, policy, parenting or leadership into resources that people can understand and use.

In recognition of her contribution to development and public service, Dr. Oreh was named among the Top 25 Women Voices in Development & Public Service in Nigeria in 2026, by the Africa Hub for Innovation & Development (AHFID)
in collaboration with Women in Public Health Leadership for Africa WPHLA, Daily Times Nigeria and Green Girl Company recognizing women making significant contributions to Nigeria’s development and beyond.

The Vision

Across public service and civil society, one conviction connects Dr. Oreh’s work: Africa’s transformation depends on both the strength of its institutions and the capacity of its people.

Through THAG Foundation, she is therefore building more than programmes.

She is working to create an ecosystem in which African girls are healthy enough to thrive, informed enough to protect themselves, confident enough to use their voices, equipped enough to access opportunities, and empowered enough to lead.

Because when African girls are given the knowledge, tools, platforms and opportunities to rise, they do not rise alone they lift families, transform communities and help shape Africa’s future.