Sarah Kuponiyi is a passionate youth leader whose work cut across gender equality and sexual reproductive health.

As a Founder and Executive Director of A Well-Informed Adolescent (AWA) Initiative, she leads the team in creating and managing Safe Spaces that ensure young people can achieve their potential by enabling them access to essential services such as sexual health, mental health building equitable gender norms skills among adolescents, quality formal and technical education and opportunities to create livelihood like skills acquisition and empowerment without being exposed to discrimination, harassment, emotional or physical harm. AWA Initiative has implemented projects on addressing Gender based violence at the community level, fighting for gender equality, youth health and development that has been donor funded by Global Affairs Canada, IHS Towers of Strength, Peace First, Pollination Grant among others. She also leads innovative school based interventions on adolescents’ sexual reproductive health programs. She manages various Youth Resource Centers a role she has been consistently doing even after working with CUSO International as a Youth Resource Center Manager.

She is also the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Alora Reusable Pads a social enterprise that addresses period poverty by creating eco-friendly menstrual hygiene products freely distributed to in school and vulnerable girls and sold at affordable prices to the general public.

Sarah’s passion for development work is unquantifiable, As a Beijing +25 Eagle ( women advocate) for UN Women Nigeria, she uses her skills to advocate for upholding of human rights for sexual and reproductive health as the key to ensuring that women and girls can be equal and free to make decisions in all spheres of their lives, without discrimination, without violence or coercion, and with the assurance of their dignity upheld.

She is a 2019 nominee for 120 under 40 New Generation of Family Planning Leaders, recipient of Sustainable Solutions Africa 30 under 30 2019 and Cohort 15 Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) RLC emerging Leaders Program West Africa. Immediate past Deputy Coordinator YALI Network Cross River State, She is part of the CSO Gender Responsive Budgeting Monitoring Group, Cross River State CSOs Network, Cross River State GBV/SRHR Network respectively among others.

Sarah is a trained IMSafer Instructor by No Means No World Wide, she currently work with Center for Clinical Care and Clinical Research Nigeria as an IMSAFER Instructor where she teaches adolescent girls in hard to reach communities under the USAID donor funded project skills they need to protect themselves from rape, she teaches them verbal, physical and mental skills to reduce sexual violence prevalence in the state.

Amidst her tight schedules, Sarah has consistently and actively delivering her voluntary roles as National Gender Youth Activists (NGYA) she worked with other NGYA from Africa Region to consult with youth networks and constituencies across the continent to develop and design Generation Equality action blue prints which she presented to the UN Women E.D Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka among other UN Women officials, Action Coalition Youth Leaders, Generation Equality Task Force and other NYGAs.

And as the train of Generation Equality Forum intensifies, she was also part of the planning committee for CSW 65 Youth Forum, where she worked with other NGYAs to plan and execute the event, she worked on concept development, mobilization, communication and facilitation. A successful one at that With over 600 registered participants and positive feedbacks.

She work with GEF Action Coalition Leaders and Youth Task Force to plan for the Paris Forum Youth event.