Mary Izobo, the guest of Episode 19 of the podcast The Road Less Traveled, wears many hats. She is an international human rights lawyer, governance specialist, and is currently studying for her PhD in International Law and Governance at the University of Pretoria.

In this episode, we ask her more about her gender advocate hat as the Founder and Executive Director of The Amazon Leadership Initiative (TheALI). It is a non-profit organization that empowers women and girls, fosters inclusivity in leadership roles, and provides mentorship, education, and capacity development to alleviate gender inequality.

She had not realised before the master that the work she was doing was human rights. Since she graduated, her understanding of human rights became clearer, more lucid and applying the knowledge to the practice. She insists as well that: “You don't need a human rights degree to stand against injustice. I believe that injustice transcends the career interests. There are so many individuals who did not have a human rights degree and are renowned activists.”

Mary has 3 pieces of advice for anybody who wants to start their own initiative: ​

• Passion: your passion will take you anywhere you want to go.
• Determination: be hard-working and not give up.
• Commitment: you should always remember your why: why you started with the organization in the first place.

​​She also mentioned that what makes her go through bad days is the fact that she created a tribe for herself (family, friends and supportive people).

There is one song that stood out for her when she is having a bad day: Marvick City, God will work it out.