“It has helped us a lot”: Nigerian Catholic Sister on 2024 Opus Prize Impact on Apostolate with Vulnerable Girls, Women

Jos, 26 August, 2025 / 9:50 PM

The 2024 Opus Prize of US$1 million has had significant impact on the apostolate of Sr. Francisca Ngozi Uti, the laureate of the award that recognizes transformative humanitarian work. 

In a Tuesday, August 26 interview with ACI Africa, the Nigerian member of the Congregation of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus (HHCJ) and founder and Executive Director of the Center for Women Studies and Intervention (CWSI) described the award as a “God sent” surprise that has contributed to the broadening of the Abuja-based outreach.

“The award was timely, and God sent, and it has helped us a lot; it has helped us to expand the scope of our mission,” Sr. Ngozi said.

She added, “Little did we realize that the work that we have been doing there to touch lives, which we do very unassumingly, as it were, will attract the attention of anyone. The process for the selection was such that I didn't think we had a chance, but as God will have it, we did.”

Sr. Ngozi told ACI Africa that with the support from the prize, her congregation whose mandate she says is to “to empower women and girls, and to help them to live in freedom, to serve God,” has been able to acquire land and plans to construct an office and training facility are underway.

She says the envisioned building is going to serve as a hub for training programs, counseling, and shelter for vulnerable women, including survivors of domestic violence. 

“Our work entails training and providing shelter for the vulnerable, such as battered women. We needed accommodation and an office space to house some of these activities,” she said, expressing hope that the center would secure additional support to complete the building.  

She added, “We might still have to reach out to people we believe can help us to complete the building, so that at least we have something tangible, a legacy we can say is a follow-up from our award.”

Beyond infrastructure, Sr. Ngozi says the prize award she received in November 2024 at Santa Clara University in the U.S. has also provided resources to directly empower women and girls in her country.

“We were asked to use the money up in two years and we have planned what we want to do with it, which is to invest more on empowering women and girls.We want to bring out women from the rural areas, women who don't have formal education, who are into small, small businesses and see how we can empower them,”

She explained that the women supported through seed grants do not simply receive money; instead, the funds are provided as revolving loans designed to help them grow their small businesses.

“The rest we are using for girls' education,” she said, noting that there are many vulnerable girls in some parts of the West African nation whose parents cannot afford to send them to school.

She continued, “We are also conscious of the fact that when family resources are thin for people of the very low class, they prefer to send the boys to school because the girls will have to be married off. So we've made provision to support small girls through secondary education. At least if they get those basics, it will help them.” 

Reflecting on the journey ahead, Sr. Ngozi highlighted three urgent needs for CWSI including completing the new office and training center, securing additional grants to empower more women, and sustaining outreach programs that challenge harmful cultural practices.

She said, “ I would say three main areas of need. One, to be able to complete the building, two, to get more money to empower more women. The third area will be grants. Most of our grants used to come from the U.S. And we all know what is happening now.”

The Nigerian-born Catholic Nun observed that the U.S.-based Catholic award has given her organization the visibility and credibility to attract support from “many private foundations and organizations that are willing to help but are also looking out for trustworthy partners.”

“People will know us now because of the award we received from a reputable Catholic foundation in the United States, and that gives us some credibility,” she said in the August 26 interview, referring to the annual Opus Prize, a humanitarian award that recognizes social entrepreneurs advancing faith-driven solutions to enduring community challenges.