About KIND

KIND offers leadership training to over 1300 young women in Nigeria annually and runs a campaign to end violence against women that reaches over a million people and raises money for victims of violence each year.

We determined that the key problem in Nigeria was the country’s dysfunctional political leadership culture. The country has abundant natural resources but a political leadership whose priority is to exploit the resources for themselves. As a consequence, the vast majority of people remain impoverished. Until the leadership culture changes, this situation is likely to continue.

Women have the least investment in the dysfunctional political leadership culture that undermines Nigeria because they are excluded from participating in it. As women and children make up the majority of the country’s poor, they also suffer most from its ill effects. Consequently, they would be the most open to learning new ways of leading and, by participating in the public domain, will be able to influence a change in the culture to one that can deliver development dividends to Nigerians.

At KIND, we accelerate the emergence of women who bring a service orientation to leadership in Nigeria by pursuing two objectives:

• Building and promoting a community of girls and women with a service orientation to leadership.
• Fostering a public environment that enables women’s public participation

The Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), was founded by Hafsat Abiola-Costello in 1997 to honour Kudirat Abiola, her mother and a leading democracy activist who was killed by soldiers during the period of military rule. KIND was launched in USA, January 1998, where it joined other organisations in the Nigerian pro-democracy movement to end military rule in Nigeria

KIND was established in Nigeria in 1999 following the restoration of democracy in May. Initially involved in the pro-democracy movement, since the 1999 transistion to democratic rule in Nigeria, KIND morphed into an organisation working to strenthen the civil society sector

Our vision is an africa where women are full participants in the continent's social, economic and political development; and our mission is to strengthen organsations and create initiatives dedicated to the advancement of women.

As such, our programmes are aimed at enabling us attain our goals.