Anne-Stella Fomunbod, an educationist by profession and a voluntarily-retired pedagogic inspector for secondary education in Cameroon, is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Interfaith Vision Foundation (IVFCam), which is a humanitarian organization in Cameroon working to promote human rights, good governance, health & HIV/AIDS prevention and the socio-economic empowerment of women, widows and orphans.
Through her organization, Stella, who is an advocate for women’s rights and participation, has lobbied for the legal protection of women’s rights, culminating in the passage of the landmark Metta Charter on Widowhood (January 2010.) This catalyzed the creation of women’s committees on 59 local councils and also mobilized, constituted and gained legal recognition for 53 women’s groups as task forces for human rights, provided farm tools and small seed grants for income-generation and agricultural activities to poor women through a “Rural Women’s Empowerment Fund,” and provides training for the same village councils and municipalities where Stella once fought so hard for the representation of women.
Her contributions to Cameroon, other African nations, and nations in Asia has earned her national and international recognition including the National Award for the Advancement of Women in 2004, the Reagan Fascell Fellowship Award in 2009, the Women’s World Summit Foundation’s Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life in 2010, and now the Synergos Senior Fellowship.