“I am the continuation of my grandmother and mother’s dreams and prayers. I was raised by my grandmother till age three in Bo, Sierra Leone and was globally nurtured in over 12-countries by the time I turned 18. What threads my experiences are my grandmother’s teachings on the importance of human dignity. Safety and dignity are fundamental for people to surpass surviving to truly thrive. To understand my values and what drives me, is to understand that I seek truth, fight for truth, and speak truth to power because I am of the belief that, all people, regardless of geography, race, gender or religion must be fully seen and valued. I believe that when people are seen, in the fullness of their intersecting identities in culture, in social norms, in policy and in law; when people are accounted for and loved for it - people shine. People are then more inclined to collaborate, uplift, care, and act for the greater good. My grandmother was a nurse and traditional leader, she served her community from a place of healing, compassion, extending care without judgement, to each person that crossed her path. These are the teachings that shape how I come to the work of global sustainable development, I work from a place that seeks and offers transformative justice and healing. I am committed to shifting and sharing power to build more equitable communities, especially for brown, indigenous and black women, and girls globally.
BIOGRAPHY BLURB
Fatou Wurie is an award-winning Scholar, Sustainable Development Practitioner and Communicator leveraging her 15 years of experience at the nexus of technology, gender equality and health policy to engineer social change. She has worked extensively in the non-profit space, starting her career in Maternal and Newborn Health Advocacy Policy where she served as Regional Advocacy Advisor for six-African countries. She went on to serve in consulting and technical roles with governments, in the United Nations, UNICEF and the WHO Foundation. She has led and built high-impact global health, gender, protection programs and deployed to several global public health emergencies spanning 10 countries.
Fatou’s expansive career is fueled by her commitment to transformative justice and health equity. Her work spans multiple mediums & multiple disciplines. She is a TEDx speaker on Climate and Women’s Financing, and a Moth Storyteller published in their NY Times best seller ‘Occasional Magic’. Fatou has collaborated with the New School of Design, contributing to a case study on social change for their book, “Design for Social Innovation: Case Studies from Around the World”. During the Ebola Outbreak she co-authored a paper on “Psychosocial effects of an Ebola outbreak at individual, community and international levels” published in the WHO bulletin. Her work is featured in Al-Jazeera, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Amnesty International and UNICEF blogs. She is the first Sierra Leonean Mo Ibrahim African Leader Fellow at the African Development Bank (AfDB), she is an Oxford University Alumnus, former President of the Oxford Women in Politics Society, a Doctoral Candidate and Prajna Leadership and Julio Frenk Fellow at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Fatou is presently on a mission to elevate under-researched, under-resourced and under-funded women's uterine health issues, placing African women at the forefront of policy, health delivery and financing.
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT & PUBLIC HEALTH
Fatou has influenced, built and led at the intersection of tech-innovation, the development emergency nexus, public health in emergencies and movement building. She has designed rights-based programs focused on girls and women; tackled global health outbreaks in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); built health information chatbots deployed in over 50 countries with 20-25 million message exchanges, and responded to humanitarian crisis’ in Mozambique, Malawi, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and North-East Nigeria. She has worked extensively on creating and implementing innovative and gender-responsive frameworks in challenging areas such the protection from sexual exploitation and abuse; measuring reach and impact of programmatic solutions for girls and women in humanitarian contexts as well as assessing perception, attitudes, social norms and shifts using technology. She has wide-ranging experience providing strategic oversight and technical support to multi-country systems.
Fatou’s entry point into public health was working for FCDO funded multi-country funded project implemented by Options UK , as Regional Advocacy lead on Maternal and Newborn Health in six-African countries. In 2015, Fatou founded The Survivor Dream Project, a two-year women and girls’ centered Ebola response project. SDP provided psychosocial support , pathways to education and employment and advocated for increased resourcing and access to health and other social services for women and girls Ebola survivors. She then went on to work for UNICEF Sierra Leone, and later UNICEF in New York and Geneva shaping global programs as Global Gender & Innovations Coordinator and Emergency Specialist - Digital Engagement Lead. She also served as Senior Consultant to the newly formed WHO Foundation, contributing to the early stage thinking around the Commission on ‘Racism, Structural Discrimination and Global Health’.
WRITING
A creative at heart, Fatou weaves the art and science of storytelling through photography, video and narrative to translate, bridge and connect cross-sectoral programs, institutions, policies and people to activate shared understanding and collective action. She started blogging 16 years ago on a personal site and has written several articles on Maternal Newborn Health, gender equality and political leadership. She was an avid Huffington Post blogger and has contributed pieces to Africa Is a Country, Amnesty International, African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) and several others. Fatou is also a contributing voice and writer to the New York Times Best Seller ‘The Moth’s – Occasional Magic’ as well as ‘Write to Speak – African Women Leaders’, and Routledge published ‘Design for Social Innovation – Case Studies from Around the World’.
SPEAKING
Fatou speaks at universities, civil society forums, Foundations and United Nations bodies on gender and health, social innovation, and the development-humanitarian nexus from a social justice, equity, and inclusion lens. Notably, Fatou has spoken on the Climate Gender Nexus at TEDx Mayor of Freetown and hosted ‘Global Stories of Women and Girls’ on the Moth’s Story Hour which features on NPR and in local radio stations across the U.S.
WORKING GROUPS & BOARDS
Fatou is on the technical working group at the Now Generation Network Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIGA), Mo Ibrahim Foundation, the WHO Expert Panel on Ethical Considerations of Social Listening and Infodemic Management and the Innovation Equity Forum (IEF), Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
EDUCATION & FELLOWSHIPS
Fatou is an Abshire-Inamori Fellow and a Mo Ibrahim Fellow. She attained her B.A in Gender Studies and Political Science from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and her Master’s in Public Policy (MPP) from the University of Oxford, Blavatnik School of Public Policy. She is currently a Doctorate in Public Health (DrPH) Candidate at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
PHILANTHROPY
Founded in May of 2023, the Amanah Foundation is born to support maternal and newborn health in Sierra Leone. The Amanah Foundation amplifies care, joy and dignity to single mothers and newborns through carefully curated care packages and support to neonatal units across Sierra Leone. The Amanah Foundation will launch officially in September of 2024.
HEART SPACE
Fatou is proudly a new mama, the eldest sister of three women and a daughter to incredible parents. She deeply loves and thanks her family for supporting and uplifting her dreams.
