Ireen Chikatula is a Girls and Women Empowerment specialist with 7+ years of professional experience in Girls and Women Empowerment, Community Mobilisation and Public Health. She is the founder of Empowerment Initiative for Rural Women and Girls-Zambia, a grassroots non-profit organisation aimed at empowering rural women and girls socially and economically to enable them to attain and maintain sustainable livelihoods.
Through her organisation, Ireen uses her skills, experiences and knowledge to mentor women and girls, to motivate them and challenge them to dream wildly and re-imagine their lives. She is actively advocating for the recognition and respect for women/girls and LGBT+ rights, gender equality, ending Gender-Based Violence, enhanced access to SRHR services and information, social protection and economic freedom of women in rural Zambia.
She is a peace activist whose activism focuses on applying community-based approaches to tackling misinformation with the goal of ensuring that her immediate community and country transforms into a more equitable space free of violence and injustice.
Ireen has a degree in Development Studies and Public Administration, a Diploma in Environmental health, a holder of several professional certificates and a Fellow of the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI), Southern Africa).
