Hope Behind Bars Africa is pleased to formally announce the expansion of its board with two new members who will bring diverse expertise and insight to its work.
Over the years, we have worked diligently to ensure that our board and leadership represent a variety of experts from the fields of International Development, Law, as well as advocacy groups; and our new board additions are no exception. The new Board members resumed their tenure in October 2022 and would serve for a period of 3 years.
Meet our new board members:
Stanley Ibe is a leader at the forefront of driving innovation and positive change in the criminal justice field. His extensive experience and deep commitment to supporting justice systems to deliver better outcomes to the most vulnerable in society make him a remarkable asset.
Currently, Stanley serves as senior partner at Goodshare & Maxwells, a consulting firm with interests in law, rights, non-profit and international development. He is also a commonwealth scholar at the University of Oxford.
Prior to Goodshare & Maxwells, he helped initiate and/or nurture early access criminal justice projects in Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria and Sierra Leone as Legal Officer for Africa at the Open Society Justice Initiative. Under his co-leadership, a network of partners across Africa persuaded the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to adopt the guidelines on conditions of arrest, police custody and pretrial detention. He also designed/directed the inaugural Africa Human Rights Litigation course and served as counsel on record in the path-breaking advisory opinion of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the decriminalization of petty offences.
Stanley earned a master of business administration (MBA) from the University of Essex, UK and a second masters in law (LL.M) with specialization in globalization and human rights from Maastricht University, The Netherlands. He was a Reagan Fascell Democracy Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, Washington DC (2016/17) and a Draper Hills Summer Fellow at Stanford University’s Centre on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (2014).
He brings two decades experience in democratic governance, justice sector reform and rule of law programming to the board of Hope Behind Bars Africa. His other affiliations include membership of the editorial board of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) Law journal and life membership of Pan African Lawyers Union (PALU).
Mr. Gabriel Okeowo is the Country Director of Budgit Nigeria and a development sector professional with over 16 years of multi-stakeholder, country-level, and regional experience across Africa. He is competent in thematic areas which cut across social protection, human development, community development, health promotion, youth and family economy and livelihood, organizational development, and promotion of public sector transparency and accountability.
He has coordinated projects with funding support from Global Fund, World Bank, EU, British Council, Dutch Government, and other international foundations like Bill & Melinda Gate Foundation, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Open Society Foundation, Skoll Foundation, and Conrad Hilton Foundation. He serves as a volunteer faculty member of Fate Foundation entrepreneurship program and as a Mentor in the LEAP Africa’s Social Innovators’ Program. He is also currently serving as a member of the Advisory Committee for the development of South-West Agricultural Transformation Framework.
Ms. Winnie Ishaku, the newly appointed Secretary of the Board has worked as a volunteer with Hope Behind Bars Africa since its inception. A Lawyer and a Human Rights Advocate, she currently works as a Programs Officer with the National Association of Persons with Disabilities, the umbrella organization of persons with disabilities (across their diversities) in Nigeria.
In the past, she has worked as Programs Officer at Hope Behind Bars Africa, interned at Connected Development and was a Campaigns Volunteer for Amnesty International. Ms Ishaku is an alumnus of the YALI Network West Africa Program and a participant in the Nairobi Summer School on Climate Justice in Kenya.