‘I dare to look at the world with optimism’
Humanitarian. Change-maker. Wife. Friend. As the Heforshe founder, Elizabeth Nyamayaro, releases her memoir, she talks to Anna Bonet about grit, determination and finding balance
There’s a rather backhanded compliment that follows Elizabeth Nyamayaro around: her ideas are too ambitious. As a former senior advisor at the United Nations and having founded the Heforshe movement in 2014, you’d think ambition would be a given; something to be encouraged, even. But it’s been a sticking point throughout Nyamayaro’s career. ‘I think that’s relatable to most women,’ she says. ‘We’re often underestimated and that’s exacerbated for women of colour. Stacey Abrams, the US politician, spoke about this, saying that as a Black woman she’s learned to over-deliver, because people question her ability.’
Nyamayaro’s own ability clearly stretches above and beyond, and is no doubt the reason for her incredible success. But she’s had to work harder than most to get there. Nyamayaro grew up in a rural village in Zimbabwe, where droughts were common and hunger was a feature of her childhood. In fact, when out searching for something to eat, aged eight, Nyamayaro collapsed. She would have died of starvation if it hadn’t been for the UNICEF worker who found her. ‘She gave me a bowl of porridge and literally saved my life,’ Nyamayaro says.
It was a transformational moment that would go on to inspire her life’s purpose. Following her encounter with ‘the girl in the blue uniform’, as Nyamayaro remembers her, she vowed to dedicate her life to helping others in the same way she’d been helped. As soon as she was old enough to understand the girl was an aid worker for UNICEF, Nyamayaro decided that she too wanted to work for the UN.
But the path there was far from smooth. ‘Everything that could have gone wrong, went wrong,’ Nyamayaro laughs. After gathering enough money to get a plane ticket out of Africa for the first time aged 25 (thanks to her beloved grandmother, who sold her goats and cows to help her afford it), she arrived in London in 2000 with no friends, family or contacts and just £250 to her name. There, she stayed in a hostel that was infested with rats, and walked the streets looking for work.
One day, she went into what she thought were the UN offices to ask for a job – only to be told that the closest actual offices were in Geneva, and this (UNA-UK) was a separate organisation altogether. How did Nyamayaro deal with such setbacks? ‘My Gogo, my grandmother, had instilled in me a “never give up” attitude, and I don’t know how I would have coped without it,’ she says. ‘Also, we learn a lot about ourselves during moments of “failure”. For me, my setbacks made me realise how determined and resilient I really was.’
‘I had a “never give up” attitude instilled in me’
It was this ‘never give up’ attitude that saw Nyamayaro get her first job as a caretaker at the hostel she lived in, save enough to put herself through a degree in International Relations at The London College, and eventually achieve her ambition of working for the United Nations. It happened in 2003, when the UN established a London-based team focusing on HIV/AIDS in Africa. Despite the fact Nyamayaro did not meet the job requirements (they were looking for a Phd researcher with 12 years’ experience), she rang the hiring manager once a week for 17 weeks until they agreed to meet.
It was in this ‘pity interview’ that Nyamayaro persuaded the team that they would need an assistant. And she was hired (albeit, in an unpaid position).
She has since worked her way up, all the way to where she is today – a speaker, campaigner and author, talking to me over Zoom from California. While Nyamayaro usually lives in New York with her husband, she’s currently on the West Coast promoting the release of her first book, I Am A Girl From Africa, a deeply moving memoir of her journey.
Over the past two decades, the humanitarian has worked at the World Health Organization, UN Women, and UNAIDS, as well as founding her own NGO, Africayouth. But the pivotal moment in her journey was when she launched the Heforshe movement, a global alliance for gender equality, seven years ago. ‘I knew so many men who wanted to do good by society,’ she says. ‘So I realised we were missing an opportunity by only having a conversation about women.’ But, initially, her idea was met with scepticism.
‘People either thought it was never going to work, because men wouldn’t want to talk about feminism, or they saw it as engaging with the oppressors,’ she says, shaking her head. ‘But it’s the same reason why people of all races need to be engaged in Black Lives Matter and #Stopasianhate. We have to work as a collective.’
Nyamayaro describes collaborating with Emma Watson, who was the face of the campaign, as ‘incredible’. But how did it come about? ‘Just by daring to ask,’ she exclaims. ‘I didn’t know Emma prior to Heforshe, I just reached out to her publicist, saying: “Hey, I’m trying to launch a movement and I think Emma would be the right messenger for it.”’
To Nyamayaro’s surprise, Emma agreed to hear her out. They met over tea in London and Nyamayaro describes it as ‘a great meeting of minds’. ‘She understood what was at stake and was prepared to put in the work,’ Nyamayaro explains, crediting Emma Watson’s iconic Heforshe speech, which has had over 4m views on Youtube, as the reason the movement did so well. Although Nyamayaro’s own TED Talk
– ‘An Invitation To Men Who Want A Better World For Women’ – which garnered more than 1m views itself, certainly did its fair share.
Nyamayaro admits it was surreal to see Heforshe becoming a worldwide, game-changing conversation – and one that’s still relevant today. In the fortnight before our chat, the heartbreaking case of Sarah Everard, who was killed while walking home in south London, reopened a deluge of discussion around women’s safety and what men need to do. What does Nyamayaro make of it all? ‘I have goosebumps thinking about it,’ she says, lifting her arm up to the camera as proof. ‘It could have been me. I spent months on the streets of London, pounding the pavement looking for work. It could have been me.’ She takes a moment, visibly upset. ‘But again,’ she says, gathering herself, ‘it reaffirmed my belief that we do need men engaged. We need to stop putting the responsibility on women to not get attacked. It’s unfair.’
Nyamayaro says she has many wonderful men in her own life; both her father and uncle have always been great feminist role models. But it’s Nyamayaro’s husband, Jay, who she says is her ‘rock’, and ‘the original Heforshe’. The pair have been together for 15 years; he works in the media and has always supported her career. ‘From the moment he met me, he knew my work was integral to who I am and he has prioritised that, sometimes adjusting his own work life, to accommodate.’
He’s also someone she can lean on. ‘The humanitarian field can be quite lonely, and it can be quite sad, because you visit communities and you can’t imagine the pain,’ she says. ‘So you need someone who you can rely on for support; someone you can be vulnerable with.’ What does she do when that pain weighs her down? ‘I allow myself to be sad,’ she says. ‘I take that moment. And if I have to cry, I will cry.’
Outside work, Nyamayaro finds joy in spending ‘half my free time’ talking to family, most of whom are spread out across the African continent, on Whatsapp. As for the other half, she’s no stranger to Netflix, she says, reeling off some shows she’s been binge-watching recently: The Crown, Schitt’s Creek and The Queen’s Gambit among them.
It’s interesting to hear such a phenomenally successful and clearly busy woman talking about these things, so I wonder how she balances it all. She looks thoughtful. ‘I’m going to be completely vulnerable with you,’ she says. ‘I don’t think I’m very good at balance. That’s something that needs to be worked on. I don’t sleep as much as I should. I don’t unplug as much as I should. And I think my friends will tell you they wish they saw me more than they do. So I’m not perfect.’
What would help her sleep more, she says, is if more people realised the change we can all make. ‘Part of the motivation for writing my book was to inspire other people to be part of creating change in the world,’ she says. ‘If one malnourished African girl can make a contribution, imagine the power that we all have to create a bit of change. It doesn’t have to be something big, because even tiny actions can have a ripple effect.’
As for those ideas of hers: ‘perhaps the reason so many people say they’re too ambitious is because I dare to look at the world in a much more optimistic way than most people do,’ she muses. ‘I’m always trying to find the light, and that hope. And I’ve learned that even when it’s flickering low, it’s always there.’
‘The humanitarian field can be quite lonely and sad’