iOpenEye's all-women performances challenge audiences to take up the cause of gender equality and human rights
2020 Catalyst Fund Awardee
Ifeoma Fafunwa
Venture
iOpenEye ProductionsProgram
Catalyst FundLocation
Nigeria
CATALYST FUND AWARDEE
Nigerian director and playwright Ifeoma Fafunwa uses the power of storytelling through provocative theater, workshops, and street storms to challenge societal norms that limit gender equality and human rights. Her company iOpenEye has reached a live audience of over 100,000 with the flagship production Hear Word!, and is expanding to reach broader regional and global audiences through new online platforms.
The brightness radiating from its all-female cast has the glare and heat of a raging bonfire.
A social impact playwright and director living in Lagos, Nigeria, Ifeoma Fafunwa is the founder and creative director of iOpenEye, and made it her Aspen Action Pledge to bring its message of human rights, gender equality and empowerment for women and girls to two million people. "As a woman, wife, and mother in Lagos, Nigeria, I must confront and navigate daily the matrix of barriers we call patriarchy." She is the co-writer of Hear Word, as well as a fellow of the MIT Media Lab, the Aspen Institute, and the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University.
It took over thirty years to find the courage to leave architecture and marry my passion for performance art with my deep concerns for community and country
2,000,000
Nigerian audience that Ifeoma Fafunwa has pledged to reach
100,000+
Live audience reached by Hear Word! so far
500,000,000
Potential smartphone users in Africa iOpenEye aims to engage
iOpenEye storytelling workshop