About us

A network built by people who know what it's like.

Be Empowered Network is a registered Nigerian non-profit working to make mental health support ordinary, affordable and free of shame.

Our mission

To help people across Nigeria understand, protect and recover their mental health, through peer support, education and advocacy that meet them where they are.

We started in February 2017 because we saw a gap that no clinic could close on its own: the silence around mental health in our homes, schools, churches, mosques and offices, and the particular weight it places on women. Professional care matters, and we help people reach it, but most of the healing we've witnessed began with one honest conversation.

So we build the conditions for that conversation. Peer circles where people are heard without being fixed. Sessions that teach a class of 15-year-olds what anxiety actually is. Campaigns that give a manager the words to check in on a struggling colleague.

What we believe

Community is treatment. Belonging is not a soft extra; it is one of the strongest protective factors we have.
Language matters. We talk about mental health in the words people actually use, in the places they actually gather.
Early beats late. Teaching a school or workplace to spot the signs prevents crises that are far harder to undo.
Care must be affordable. Everything we run is free at the point of use. Nobody is turned away for lack of money.
Lived experience leads. People who have been there shape what we do and how we do it.

Nnenna Kalu, founder of Be Empowered Network

Nnenna Kalu Founder Tech and health professional

Our founder

It began where support ran out.

Be Empowered Network was founded by Nnenna Kalu, a tech and health professional with a deep conviction that technology can be used to build health solutions that actually reach people.

The network did not begin as a plan. It began in a depressive episode, and in the nuance of a mental health that did not fit the tidy categories around it. Nnenna was already supporting other women and creating wellness awareness, and the closer she looked, the more she saw the same thing: pressure and insecurity pressing on women from every side, with almost nowhere safe to put it down.

She built the thing she could not find. What started from a place of no support became a safe space for interaction and wholeness, where being heard by people who understand sits alongside professional intervention when it is needed.

“From a place of no support, to a safe space for interaction and wholeness.”
The idea Be Empowered Network was built on

Our history

From one woman's safe space to a registered network.

The network began in February 2017 as a space for women to speak honestly about what they were carrying, and quickly grew as it became clear how many others needed the same room, women and men alike.

As the circles grew, so did requests from schools and workplaces to come and speak. On 13 December 2019 the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria registered Be Empowered Network as an Incorporated Trustee (CAC/IT/NO 140796), giving the organisation a formal board of trustees and the ability to partner with institutions and receive donations transparently.

Today the network is volunteer-led and growing, with a focus on peer support, mental health literacy and public awareness, and a founding commitment that professional help is part of wholeness, not a last resort.

Feb 2017Founded by Nnenna Kalu
A safe space for women to talk about mental health, born out of her own experience of depression.
2017–2019First outreach
Early school and community sessions; the circles model takes shape.
13 Dec 2019CAC registration
Incorporated Trustees, CAC/IT/NO 140796. Board of trustees appointed.
TodayGrowing the circle
Peer circles, school and workplace programmes, annual awareness campaigns.

Governance

Board of Trustees

Be Empowered Network is governed by a board of trustees under its CAC registration. They are responsible for the organisation's direction, integrity and accountability.

Kalu Nnenna OkoroFounderTech and health professional
Erem UchennaConsultant · Executive Director, Ethos Studios · Director, WOW Production
Amechi NkechiLegal and compliance professional

Registered name: Be Empowered Network. Registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, Federal Republic of Nigeria, as Incorporated Trustees, CAC/IT/NO 140796.

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