Agatha Chukwueke-Nnaji

Agatha is transforming the service sector in Nigeria by professionalizing the hospitality industry through job skills training, standardizing employee-employer relations, and advocacy work.

Agatha believes that the commonly held disregard for and consequent mistreatment of domestic service and hospitality workers in Nigeria can be eliminated if the workers are equipped with professional skills and are legally protected in their industries. According to Agatha, a change in the service sector is the only solution to forced labor, human trafficking, and other abuses of service employees, especially domestic servants and low-level hotel and restaurant staff. Agatha has established a domestic and hotel/restaurant services program to train workers and assist them with finding secure jobs. In addition, Agatha is reducing exploitation by unionizing workers, providing employers with a code of conduct, mediating in employer/employee disputes, advocating for protective legislation and reporting physically violent employers to the appropriate authorities. Through the Dewdrop Foundation, Agatha is creating employment standards for the service sector, revitalizing a significant part of Nigeria’s informal economy.

An estimated 20% of Nigeria’s workforce is comprised of individuals working in service industries. Yet in Nigerian society domestic care and lower cadre hotel and restaurant work are not regarded as real professions requiring a skill set. Often people enter them as temporary means to earn money for education or other career goals. The reality is that with worsening economic conditions and the growing demand for services, more and more people who enter the industry as temporary staff are finding themselves stuck, unable to raise enough money to leave their positions. The lack of a formal adult education system in Nigeria contributes to this problem. Because most of these workers have little or no skills on entering the service industry, they are usually poorly paid and mistreated. Furthermore, positions such as maids and child caretakers are often dead ends because the skills learned are not transferable to other jobs.
Human trafficking is an important part of the exploitation of Nigerian service industry employees. Human trafficking is spreading ever wider across West Africa for many reasons, including war and economic hardship. A more recent contributor is the increased demand for house servants in urban centers as more middle class women get office and day jobs. Child traffickers or “placement agents” sell village children into urban homes and hotels, where these indentured child servants fall victim to child molestation, low wages and other abuses. Child traffickers also take advantage of a cultural tradition known as “fostering,” a commonplace custom of sending a child to live and work for a more prosperous urban family in return for educational and vocational advancement. Today, this system is often abused, and children are forced to work as domestic servants without receiving any formal education. For these domestic workers, contracts are not commonly drawn up, leaving employees dependent on the benevolence of their employers for medical care, wage increases, and educational opportunities. Most domestic workers quietly bear emotional and physical abuse rather than disclose their situation or demand better treatment.
Despite their significant numbers, service sector workers are, in many regards, an invisible population, subject to a wide range of abuses. The Nigerian government has not addressed employment issues in the service industry or other parts of the informal economy, despite the staggering statistic that the informal sector employs 45-60% of the urban labor work force. The rights of domestic and hotel/restaurant staff have not been considered in state or federal government bodies. The Nigerian Labor Union has yet to include informal workers, and no unions protect service sector employees. Citizen sector organizations have thus far provided support only in cases of extreme human rights violations, such as when women fall victim to serious violence, rape or murder. In general, these organizations have not targeted workers’ rights or the informal economy in their work. The invisibility of unskilled service industry workers has left them little opportunity to change or improve their situations.

Agatha is addressing the root causes of labor and human rights abuses of service sector employees through a three-tiered strategy of skill-building trainings, employment workshops and advocacy work. First, Agatha provides practical and life skills training to people entering the service sector in order to increase their professionalism, and by consequence, negotiating power. Second, Agatha educates employers about the proper code of conduct towards domestic servants, hotel and restaurant staff. Finally, she advocates for service employees’ rights, lobbying for their inclusion and protection in Nigerian labor laws.
The Dewdrop Foundation, Agatha’s organization, offers a comprehensive curriculum for domestic workers and others interested in service industry jobs. Agatha’s curriculum offers a well-balanced mix of theory in classroom instruction, tangible training, and practical field experience. The curriculum has three different levels: 1) A three month part-time certificate course teaching basic skills for domestic service positions, including hygiene, nutrition, first aid, and etiquette; 2) A three month part-time certificate course teaching skills in students’ specific fields of interest, such as housekeeping, gardening, or culinary arts; and 3) A three month part-time certificate course teaching students about job searches, salary/benefit negotiation and providing hands-on work experience with select businesses and organizations. Agatha charges a token registration fee (around $3.68 USD), all of which goes to support students who cannot afford to pay. The Dewdrop Foundation is also supported by a “finders” fee charged to employers for successful placements. In addition, institutions where the graduates will work often cover the cost of training or offer loans to students.
Agatha’s pilot program in Abuja has 11 students ranging from 13 to 22 years old, and is seeking additional space to accommodate a growing waiting list of program participants. Agatha’s holistic curriculum has garnered a good deal of notoriety within Abuja and has won the “seal of approval” from the appropriate educational authorities. Her courses are more comprehensive than those given by the Nigerian National Directorate of Employment, a government agency that trains young people in vocational skills.
The second part of Agatha’s strategy is to educate employers on the proper treatment of service sector employees and to create a code of conduct for the service sector. This is a critical part of her initiative because the mistreatment of domestic servants has become so entrenched in Nigerian society that most employers consider it normal to physically, verbally and emotionally abuse their domestic workers. To reverse this phenomenon, Agatha is raising public awareness of the need to standardize labor practices and encourage professionalism within the service sector. She conducts workshops on employee-employer relations and provides information leaflets to human resource departments on labor issues. She also helps resolve conflicts between employers and their employees.
Finally, believing that skill training is futile without a change in the service industry itself, Agatha puts a lot of effort towards advocating for service sector reform. She is carrying out a vigorous campaign to ensure better wages for domestic service workers. Recognizing that domestic servants are the best advocates for their own welfare, she is helping them organize into unions. She is also working with other citizen sector organizations to send a bill to the federal government for the protection of the rights of domestic servants. Another critical component of Agatha’s advocacy is for the legal recognition of domestic work as a protected sector with a minimum employment age of 16. Agatha is also lobbying the government in partnership with other civil society organizations working in the areas of human rights and child trafficking.
The Dewdrop Foundation has recently been appointed the New Partnership for Africa’s Development in Tourism and Hospitality. Next year, Agatha is planning to expand to Kaduna state, where she will partner with citizen sector organizations focused on women and children’s rights and adapt her model to the more conservative cultures of northern Nigeria.

The daughter of an affluent Nigerian, Agatha grew up with domestic servants, one of whom, in particular, was very close to her. Although by all standards this domestic servant was treated very well, Agatha could not help but observe that despite all her years of service, she never progressed financially because she was uneducated and unskilled. Today, Agatha and her other siblings are paying for the education and upkeep of the woman’s children because of her years of loyalty to the family. But Agatha is displeased with this arrangement, believing that a woman with numerous years of work experience should not depend on the good will of benevolent employers, but should be able to support herself. Based on the life and experience of this one caregiver, Agatha resolved to do something about the condition of those in the service industry in Nigeria.
Agatha studied Company Administration at the Institute of Management and Technology in Enugu, Nigeria and later graduated with a Masters Degree in Tourism Administration from George Washington University (GWU) in U.S.A. In 1989, she joined Sheraton Hotels and Towers as a Director of Sales in Nigeria with overseeing responsibilities in other Sheraton Hotels in West Africa. She is also a certified Trainer for Sheraton Hotels in Africa and Middle East. She also worked for Sheraton in Atlanta, Georgia, before resigning from the company and founding the Dewdrop Foundation in 2001.
In addition to serving as CEO of Dewdrop Foundation, Agatha is a founding member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR) Abuja Chapter, Founder of the Abuja Horticultural Society (AHS) and the pioneer Lady Captain of IBB Golf & Country Club Abuja. Agatha is a vocal advocate for the rights of the disenfranchised and actively involved in improving the welfare of those in the service industry. She is a recipient of numerous awards including the Nigerian Women’s Award in Hospitality and Tourism, the Martin Luther King Jr. award for community service and the Nigerian Heart Care Foundation award for community service.