Meet GRÓ GEST 2026 Fellow Norah Lumny Ngwa

You know the stories where they talk about these great inventors, how they failed so many times with their inventions but kept going until they succeeded? Well, I would say I am one who almost gave up after the first try. I am no inventor of some big innovation but just a Girl who really desires to be a Gender Officer and sought opportunities to build that dream. In 2023, I stumbled on the GRÓ GEST Programme and oh yes, it was a wow moment for me because I had finally found that Programme that aligned to my dream of supporting women and girls who have or are experiencing violence in their lifetime. My shocker came when I was waitlisted and didn’t make it to the final selection. Somehow, in 2024, I didn’t apply - I guess I unconsciously said to myself that I would just stick to doing my work in the community because I was working in addressing violence against women and girls and promoting gender equality already. And then came 2025, when I told myself, "Norah, for you to succeed you must accept that denial sometimes will be the answer, and you won´t know the outcome until you try again." And yes, I applied again, and here I am in 2026 in my room at Sæmundargata 21, Háskóli Íslands in the early hours of a Tuesday morning, writing this story. 

This programme is so dear to me because it aligns just perfectly with my ambition of being a Gender Officer. More like a square peg in a square hole. I have been working for over five years as a Community Engagement Officer for gender centered projects for a grassroot, women-led organization and over this time, my desire to serve girls better has kept growing. Though my academic background on Communication and Development Studies had given me some grounding on project implementation and community engagement, I knew I needed something more specific, and when I first saw the GRÓ GEST call in 2023, I knew this was the place I needed to be.

As a girl growing up in a highly patriarchal system, I have seen multiple levels of discrimination from my own experiences as well as those of women and girls around me. Women from all works of life experience violence and this has always got me thinking; recent coursework in the GEST programme has been focusing a lot on the intersectionality of gender-based violence and I have learned how the experiences of women are not based on their gender only. Women’s intersectionality include class, religion, ethnicity, race, and a lot more, which greatly influence their experiences of privilege or oppression over their lifetime. I am writing this just a day after we started the module on Gender, Violence and Security and after the first class, I look forward to what the other days will unfold. It’s a lot of reflections and emotions for me as someone who works and lives in the conflict affected North West Region of Cameroon.

I do believe this course will play a great role in shaping my work back home and improve my project which is focused on combating conflict-related sexual and physical violence against women and girls in the communities where I work where I see the interconnectedness of women’s experience of oppression.

I look forward to how the module on Gender, Violence and Security will unfold - I know it’s going to awaken a lot of emotions within me, but I am all in.

I also see my time here in Iceland with the GEST programme as an opportunity to escape my lived realities; escaping isn’t about running away but an opportunity to think through from a different environment how I can contribute my own quota in addressing violence against women and girls back home. I also believe the GEST programme so far has given me the opportunity to not bury the anger and hurt from losing loved ones in war times to living in constant fear of the unknown and seeing women being harassed every day. I believe I won’t be leaving Iceland the same – I will be healed to an extent and empowered for the work ahead. In keeping with my organization’s slogan “Making a difference”, I hope to make a difference while here in Iceland and back home in the lives of women and girls.