DIY Development

Jun 5, 2016
3 min read

DIY Development

No-one else will do it for you

“DIY” is the life-long motto of Joan Odiawe, who founded Grace Foundation in 2013, an education start-up, with no funding, but big ideas. Joan has had the passion and tenacity to make herself and her vision revolutionary. The Foundation is both a personal and professional venture.

When she was a toddler, her mother, Grace, died. She doesn’t really remember her, but Grace’s legacy was profound. In Nigeria, young women would approach her and share that her mother had helped them out of poverty. She was a strong proponent of women being financially independent. Her mother inspired the name for the Foundation. When Joan became a teenager, her father died. As an orphan, she was invisible to society. As Joan sighs, “In Nigeria, you’re only good for one thing – manual labour.” She was determined this would not be her story.

A vision propelled Joan, “I was going to help people, and in turn they would help me”. Devouring her only possessions, books, Joan developed a thirst for education. By some miracle, an opportunity arose and Joan grabbed and ran with it; her sister sponsored her to go to Canada. Arriving very small, shy, broken and demoralised in every way, on arrival in Toronto, people treated her as a human. She had been bullied in Nigeria due to her lisp and as a result, didn’t want to speak up in public. However, her Canadian teachers believed in her and even though her Nigerian school records didn’t match her ability, she convinced them to give her a chance. Joan’s sole focus became achieving good grades and advocating for herself – she had to do it herself. She did well – so well in fact, that she was offered a Merit Scholarship to York University to study Political Science. After a hard first year, self-doubt crept in and she nearly gave up. But, her sister and brother-in-law pushed her.

Upon completion, she applied for jobs, and received a call from a Boston organisation. She didn’t know anything about Boston, but hopped on the plane for adventure’s sake, and arrived in a city of summer and water. She loved it. She joined the American Association of University Women and dedicated her evenings to the association. Volunteering to organise a walk for women’s rights, she met a Professor focused on Intercultural and International Development Education. Seated at her table, the Professor turned to Joan, and said “You are destined for a big role in life” and taking her under her wing, Joan decided to focus on this angle of education and successfully applied to do a Masters at Florida International University. Her Masters in hand, her thirst for education was still not quenched, so she applied to do a PhD and ended up at Washington State.

There, in 2005, she set up the African Special Interest Group of the Comparative and International Education Society (www.cies.org). She remained as founding chair until 2008. She went on to win many firsts such as the Woman of the Year Award, Washington University and the Martin Luther Award for Civic Engagement.

Joan considers herself an activist student, more interested in the process, rather than the outcome. She wants to commit the rest of her life to those in the same impoverished situation she found herself in Nigeria. Her hope is to give her people the tools of empowerment, replacing the circle of poverty with a circle of sufficiency. Her underlining message to those she aims to help is “DIY Development is the new way forward – no-one else will do it for you.” With the Foundation set up, Joan is in the process of moving back to Nigeria to continue her life’s mission.