Lateefa Musah is a peace builder, community development practitioner, writer, storyteller, engineer, alumna of USAID YALI West Africa Cohort and a World Economic Forum Global Shaper. She has degrees in civil and structural engineering from Coventry University and the University of Surrey. Musah has more than three years of professional experience in design, construction, peacebuilding, capacity building, writing and storytelling. She is currently the Programs and Administrative Officer for Partners for Peace in the Niger Delta. Musah is an advocate for improving education, especially in the public sector and she’s also passionate about raising awareness of violence against women and girls.

Musah supports over 10,000 volunteer peace actors in the Niger Delta region to implement projects and produce reports and success stories from the interventions. Over the years, she has designed interventions to address communal clashes, border crises and violence against women girls. Her professional experience in peacebuilding, capacity building, advocacy, mobile storytelling and writing has been featured in various websites and magazines and awarded her a Top 10 winner of the USAID's Youthlead Turning Point Writing Competition and Advocacy and Media Platform Award in the Niger Delta. 

IVLP Impact Award Project: The HELM Project

The HELM Project was an initiative aimed at building relevant soft skills, leadership and entrepreneurship skills for teenagers. The project reached 30 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 from both private and public schools.

This project was divided into two stages, a one-week training HELM boot camp and a project planning competition workshop. The second stage resulted in the execution of the winning project pitched by the participants. The first stage featured mentorship sessions from the four HELM areas, team building and problem-solving for HELM Project Challenge. By the end of the week, participants understood how to work in teams, create practical solutions to a problem, learn useful presentation skills and learn other applicable skills from the mentorship sessions. In the second stage, the winning team of HELM Project Challenge worked with the HELM team to plan and bring their project to life.

The HELM Project went a step further than most mentoring programs by executing a project with the participants. This allowed the students to practice all they have learned as part of their training and mentorship. The HELM also created an avenue for secondary school teenagers of various economic and social classes to collaborate and work together. The project aimed to bridge the gap that exists between students of public and private schools, seeking to bring collaboration between the two groups.

"Everyone is a leader! No idea is a waste! - Project participant

IVLP Exchange Experience 

Lateefa was a participant in the IVLP Project Human Rights and Civic Engagement for Youth, organized by the U.S. Department of State and World Learning.

Lateefa's exchange experience led to the development of her IVLP Impact Award Project: "My IVLP Experience was the perfect push I needed to bring my project to life. Meeting with other youth-led organizations allowed me to make my project a reality."

U.S. Communities Visited Virtually

Washington, DC; Atlanta. GA; Charleston, SC; Columbia, SC

Country: Nigeria

Click here to go back to the IVLP Impact Awards Main Page