Meet our IBJ Youth Initiative in Nigeria!

In West Africa, young visionaries from Nigeria are launching innovative projects to transform the lives of incarcerated youth.

Loveth Christiana Omerah

“Education as the Path to Justice,” 2023

Damilare Adedeji

"Enhancing communication between the essential players in the Nigerian criminal justice system through the use of technology," 2020

Princess Stephanie Dunkwu

"Providing police officers with juvenile human rights manuals to improve their knowledge on the rights of juvenile offenders," 2020

Prince Charles Dunkwu

"Documenting and publicizing the conditions of youth in detention facilities," 2020

Loveth Christiana Omerah​

Nigeria, 2023

Youth Justice Charter Article 10.

Loveth, a university student in Nigeria, aims to promote access to justice for children through the provision of educational materials related to child rights. She plans to produce and distribute 250 copies of a Small Human Rights handbook in two languages. Her project will appoint three teachers/trainees to educate students for 12 months. In addition to the guidance of these teachers, students will learn about juvenile rights through educational visits to police departments. Students will be incentivized to learn by certificates awarded in monthly evaluation tests. Finally, Loveth plans to increase engagement for her project through the creation and distribution of banners and T-shirts.

Damilare Adedeji​

Nigeria, 2020

Damilare is a lawyer whose project proposes to enhance communication between the essential players in the Nigerian criminal justice system through using technology to link all the essential players in the criminal justice system. Through visits to prisons, police stations and other state juvenile custodial institutions to assess methods of documentation and communication sharing between stakeholders handling youth cases.

Princess Stephanie Dunkwu​

Nigeria, 2020

Princess Dunkwu is a secondary school student with a keen interest in improving criminal justice for youth. Through her father’s role as a human rights defender she was able to visit prisons and interact with incarcerated youth, many of whom had been languishing pretrial without access to a lawyer. Princess proposes a juvenile justice improvement project with three main activities: to study, document and disseminate information on the conditions of juveniles in prison, police stations and other detention places. Secondly to consult with prison and police officials and provide them with juvenile human rights manuals to improve their knowledge on the rights of juvenile offenders and thirdly to provide legal and administrative support to youth in detention and others in conflict with the law.

Prince Charles Dunkwu​

Nigeria, 2020

Prince Charles is a student at the University of Lagos with a keen interest in improving criminal justice for youth and ensuring access to justice for all. Having come into contact with juvenile prisoners detained in adult prisons without access to a lawyer through his volunteer work, Prince Charles was motivated to apply to the competition. This project will undertake visits to prison and police institutions to conduct needs assesments on the conditions of young persons in detention facilities in the Ogun state, secondly this information will be documented and published, including lists of detained juveniles and their images and the offences they have been charged for. This information will then be distributed to NGO’s, parliament and detention centres in order to highlight the plight of juveniles in prison. Lastly the project will prepare human rights messages and jingles relating to the condition of juveniles in detention in Nigeria and to have individual children and youth groups recite them on national television.