Lessons from the 2022 World Health Summit
General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director, World Health Organization by Adetayo Adetokun We attended the World Health Summit from October 16 – 18, 2022, and had insightful takeaways, especially from the sessions curated for African healthcare and food systems. The World Health Summit (WHS) 2022, organized jointly with the World Health Organization (WHO) for the first time, is considered the world’s leading meeting on global health. Held under the patronage of German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHS 2022 aimed to stimulate innovative solutions to health challenges, foster global health as a critical political issue and promote a global health conversation in the spirit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The health systems in many communities in Africa are vastly inadequate today. Since the pandemic began, it has become increasingly obvious that our health systems have further disintegrated, with barely any systems in place to check this rot. The COVID-19 pandemic, which claimed the lives of nearly 80 million people worldwide, further showed how vulnerable our healthcare systems are. Our governments have yet to make the investments in our healthcare systems that would provide the requisite knowledge to improve or even manage the sector. As a result, millions of people who got the COVID-19 virus could not be saved, worsening the social contract between governments and their citizens. Almost all funds we received – whether for research, vaccination, or other health service delivery components – came from nations and organizations who have made these investments in their health systems and could afford to share their excess. We believe every neighbourhood, state, and nation across Africa should have effective and efficient healthcare systems. As more advocates begin to hold the government accountable, we are starting to witness a gradual transformation of the healthcare systems in Africa. At the summit, we attended two main sessions organized for Africa: The Road to 2023: Are we Achieving Universal Health Coverage? Transforming Food Systems for Healthy and Sustainable Diets Here are some of the excellent lessons we learned from these sessions. First Panel Session: The Road to 2023: Are we Achieving Universal Health Coverage? The speakers in this session included: Sandrine Bouttier-Stref, Global Head of Corporate Social Responsibility Sanoli; Alison Cox, Policy and Advocacy Director, Non-Communicable Diseases Alliance; Gabriela Cuevas Barrón, Universal Healthcare Coverage 2030, Co-Chair of the Steering Committee; Loyce Pace, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Assistant Secretary for Global Public Affairs; Dr. Luis Pizarro, Executive Director at Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi); and Dr. Peter Kwame Yeboah, Executive Director, Christian Health Association of Ghana. In this session, we learned that global health, numerous collaborations between product development partnerships and the pharmaceutical industry multilateral partnerships have already demonstrated the important role in driving access to healthcare in multiple low- to middle-income countries and across the most affected vulnerable populations. While it is clear that partnerships can result in significant benefits, challenging questions remain open. It showed us a clear road map to foster robust and sustainable collaborations that must be urgently developed to close the access gap and put us on the path to a world where equal access to quality health care is ensured for everybody. According to Gabriella Cuevas Barron, it took a pandemic that claimed the lives of more than six million people to realize how shaky the global healthcare system was. Although it may seem challenging, achieving universal healthcare coverage would be much simpler if monies were properly financed and monitored as they were used to develop the healthcare system. To ensure that nobody is left behind, we must include women and girls in these decisions. Peter Kwame Yeboah discussed the situation in Ghana and how they dealt with the recent healthcare crisis. In the last few years, religious and humanitarian organizations have assumed control of healthcare to improve coverage. In contrast to government-owned hospitals, they are nonetheless marginalized and subjected to extremely high standards, making them unable to perform as they should. To stop this, they must make sure that these partnerships are restructured. These selective regulations have made it difficult for these hospitals to operate. According to Luis Pizarro, it is crucial for every nation to be aware of the number of neglected diseases it has, particularly those in Africa. It is clear that several diseases impact millions of individuals, but because they reside in underprivileged areas, little attention is paid to them, and no solutions are explored. Ideas are excellent, but they need great finance to take flight. Thus nations seeking to attain universal healthcare coverage by 2030 must start providing funds for outstanding ideas. In her address, Alison Cox stated that 80% of current fatalities are brought on by Non-Communicable diseases (NCDs) and that this number might increase to 52 million in the upcoming year. Only 1% of individuals with NCDs have access to effective therapies. Since millions of people worldwide suffer from numerous chronic and lifelong diseases, most of which are chronic and lifelong, partnerships are crucial to addressing the NCD problem. We require funding from a variety of sources, including private organizations and individual donors to NCD funds. Regarding equity, she emphasized its significance. To eradicate NCDs, we must begin with the most disadvantaged populations. The significance of the pharmaceutical industry in assisting with the attainment of universal healthcare coverage was discussed by Sandrine Boutlier-Stref. The importance of understanding how these sectors contribute to making pharmaceuticals more accessible to people all around the world cannot be overstated. To reach a compromise where innovations are produced to address urgent problems, the government and the business sector must cooperate. Loyce Pace spoke on empowering healthcare professionals. Everyone who works in the healthcare industry needs to be given a chance to express themselves and complete their tasks in a calm setting that supports them. When we accomplish this, we’ll be able to gauge our readiness to meet the 2030 goal of universal healthcare coverage. Second Panel Session: Transforming Food Systems
Red Card to ‘Sextortion’
By Grace Anaja We attended the RedCard2Sextortion Campaign launch and panel discussion organized by Devatop Centre for Africa Development and supported by the United States Embassy in Nigeria on December 9, 2022, at the Raw Materials and Research and Development Council, Abuja. The discussions aimed to highlight and address sexual violence to commemorate the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence (GBV). Devatop Centre for Africa Development is a youth-led nonprofit organization that focuses on combating and preventing human trafficking, empowering women and youths, and educational transformation. Sextortion is coined from the words ‘sex’ and ‘extortion’, which usually occurs between an individual of higher authority coercing another from a lower cadre, demanding sexual favors. It is multidimensional as it occurs physically and online and cuts across various demographics: age, status, class, etc. Sextortion can also be in the form of cyber crimes like blackmail and threats by posting individuals’ private content, such as nude images, online for a fee. The forum was also an opportunity to commemorate International Anti–Corruption Day, which takes place on December 9 every year, as sextortion is a form of corruption. In his opening address, the Executive Director of Devatop, Joseph Chidiebere Osuigwe, sees sextortion as a hidden pandemic in the educational, religious, corporate, and non-corporate systems. He spoke about the varying forms of sextortion: in the educational system, it is termed sex for grades or admission; in the religious system, it is sex for deliverance, prayer, or breakthrough; in the corporate world, it is sex for promotion or employment; in the banking and finance sector, it is sex for investment, and so on. He reiterated the need to create awareness and combat the issue. Julie McKay, the representative of the United States Embassy, gave her remark and renewed the United States’ commitment to end GBV as online sexual harassment and exploitation are criminal offenses, and perpetrators use fraud, force, and coercion. She spoke about educating people, especially minors, about online sexual exploitation and abuse and showing compassion for victims. She urged everyone to increase the momentum towards ending GBV. There was a video report of the TALKAM project, a technology-driven program that was created to encourage individuals and critical stakeholders to speak up to end GBV, forestall human trafficking, and prosecute human rights violators. The project began in Kaduna, Niger, and the Federal Capital Territory in Nigeria to address all forms of gender-based violence – physical, sexual, psychological abuse, and economic isolation – through various approaches such as weekly radio programs, social media awareness, skit production, debates, video competitions and more. The project is in its fourth phase, which features an internship program involving teachers, youth, community leaders, women leaders, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), etc., who were trained as advocates to orient and empower women against GBV and human trafficking at the grassroots level and beyond. From a legal angle, the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act 2015 is a provision in the constitution to address the exploitation of individuals and prohibit all forms of violence. However, significant hindrances to ending GBV are the fact that certain provisions are not included in the act, the delay in passing the Sex-for-Grades bill into law, and the failure to provide safe spaces for victims and survivors to speak up. In the corporate world, every organization must implement policies against sexual harassment and sexual abuse. These policies can only be implemented in formalized settings. Some of the biggest perpetrators and most significant enablers of sextortion include the culture of silence and inadequate frameworks for prosecuting offenders. Survivors are afraid of the backlash from society in the form of victim shaming and victim blaming, which further emboldens perpetrators and family members who believe speaking up would lead to a scandal for the victim and the family. African society is highly patriarchal in nature, and this is ingrained in our culture and religion. Some sexual harassment policies are ineffective, and enough awareness has not been created in tertiary institutions. There is no specific law that criminalizes sexual harassment in universities. With the involvement of relevant stakeholders, possible solutions can be applied, such as providing mechanisms within schools to punish perpetrators and psychological support for survivors. Institutions should have specific policies and legal frameworks to address sextortion. Social media campaigns help to create more awareness about sextortion and technological innovations, especially mobile applications that are available for reporting cases of sexual harassment, as well as safe spaces to engage in conversations surrounding this issue. Avenues should be created in religious spaces to create awareness. Provisions should be made to avoid the re-victimization of individuals by lecturers or other staff in institutions and organizations. Parents should also be involved in the awareness processes and childcare service providers for those with disabilities and anyone vulnerable. The war against GBV in the form of sextortion is still ongoing, and through more concerted efforts, we can win this fight. It is possible. Cross-section of Panelists at the Red Card to Sextortion Event
1 Girl 1 Pad Campaign
Shades of Us is a forum for open discussions on issues affecting Africa, Africans and people of African descent, with a view of changing the ‘dark continent’ narrative of Africa. Since our inception in 2014, most of our work have been online campaigns for or against social issues and dysfunction. At the start of the year, we pledged to start doing more people-to-people work to affect our society; one community at a time. It is in lieu of this that we are partnering with Save our Women (SOW) Foundation for the ‘1 Girl, 1 Pad’ campaign. Save Our Women (SOW) Foundation seeks to help young girls be their best in everything they do. Also partnering with Save Our Women (SOW) Foundation is Women Regaining Value, a not-for-profit organization aimed at empowering women lost to social degradation. Here is what you need to know about the project and how you can be a part of it. WHAT IS ‘1GIRL 1PAD’? ‘Project 1Girl 1Pad’ is a campaign that is aimed at reaching out to young women in Internally Displaced Persons camp in Kaduna. This campaign would involve engaging women in Kaduna and its environs to donate a single pad towards the success of the campaign. Our goal is to ensure every female in the selected IDP camp has enough pads for the next 3 months assuming she has a menstrual period of 3days. WHY ‘1GIRL 1PAD’? Girls in IDP camps have had a hard time maintaining menstrual hygiene during their periods due to the inability to have and purchase sanitary pads. So ‘1Girl, 1 Pad’ project seeks to help these girls by providing pads through building a culture of giving back and volunteerism among women. WHEN IS ‘1GIRL 1PAD’? The campaign ends with a visit to an IDP camp on the 28th of May, 2017, in commemoration of International Menstrual Hygiene Day. The build up to the campaign will run all through May with campaign awareness visits to schools in Kaduna. HOW CAN I BE A PART? Make a donation of a pad today. You can also ask your friends and followers to be a part of the campaign by sharing posts about the project using the #1Girl1Pad and #May28 hashtags. To donate a pad, contact the following people;
A Gathering of Women in Film
Panel session at the National Female Filmmakers’ Congress. “Women belong in all spaces.” We are glad to see that more women have accepted this and are creating rooms for themselves to be seen and heard. While there is still so much work to be done, we are seeing women buck against gender norms in career choices because, and it is sad that this has to be said…careers are not gendered. We are especially ecstatic about the number of women who are taking on roles in all areas of filmmaking: writing, editing, directing, production, marketing, distribution etc. You are as likely today to see a woman rigging her own camera and lights as you are to see one in the biggest rooms where film publicity and distribution are discussed. This is such a flex! It is why when we heard about the conference for women in film, we were excited to attend. The National Female Filmmakers Congress was organized by Girls Voices Initiative, conveners of Women’s International Film Festival Nigeria (WIFFEN), on October 11, 2022 at the Shehu Musa Yar’adua Centre in Abuja. The congress was a gathering of filmmakers to celebrate women in film, the International Day of the Girl Child and World Mental Health Day. It was an avenue to watch films made by women, listen to filmmakers share their experiences in the industry, and generally pick up lessons that we could adopt to improve our work as filmmakers. Cross-section of participants at the event. Welcome remarks were given by Emmanuelle Blatmann, the French Ambassador to Nigeria, and Mrs. Carolyn Seaman, Creative Director, Girls Voices Initiative. Two films were screened at the event: Miss Binary by Girls Nation (Kano) and The Burial of all Women by Girls Nation (Abuja). The films centered on resilience and mental health, and were a powerful watch. Following the film screening was a panel discussion on the films that had been viewed. Panelists included Halima Ben-Umar, Maryam Abubakar, Binwana Gazuwa, Amaka Agudiegwu, Asabe Madaki from Girl Nation in Kano and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. They shared their experiences and how the Girl Nation program has impacted their life and work. Panel session with Nadine Ibrahim and Rahama Sadau. Other panel sessions were “Tips on Global Standard Productions (Netflix, Amazon Prime, International Film Festival etc.)” with Nadine Ibrahim of Nalia Media and Rahama Sadau, Actor and Producer at Dee Dee Films where they urged filmmakers to be authentic, detail and quality oriented, and to build a portfolio that proves the quality of their work. There were breakout sessions around funding films, and the legal aspects of filmmaking with Mr. Muhammad S. Bawa and Barr. Ese Igbako Esq. respectively. Overall, we think it was a great event and opportunity to engage with a gathering of women in film.
All We Learned at Google For Africa 2022
We attended the first Google for Africa event in 2021 and were impressed by how much Google was investing in Africa to improve educational, technology, entrepreneurial and developmental indices across the continent. We learned of the plan to invest $1Billion over a period of five years to support a range of initiatives from improved connectivity to investment in startups to help boost Africa’s digital transformation. The second virtual Google for Africa 2022 event was held on October 5-7, 2022, and the global tech giant shared how it is delivering on its commitment to support various initiatives: from improved connectivity to investment in startups and nonprofits. It was an opportunity to learn what Google is doing on the continent to improve our economic indices and overall development. Here are some of the key points we found fascinating at the event. In his opening remarks, Nitin Gajria, the Managing Director of Google, shared that Google was investing the $1 billion in Africa Digital Transformation in four areas: affordable access and helpful products; digital transformation for African businesses: investment in African Entrepreneurs; and support for non-profits in Africa. Investment in African Entrepreneurs through Google for Start-Ups provides equity-free finance, work space, and access to expert advisers. Last year Google for starters launched Black Founders’ Fund to invest in black-led startups in Africa and through Google for Nonprofits, Google is donating $1 million in ad grants every month and helping people collaborate with Google Workspace and Google Career Certificate scholarships. James Mayinka, Senior Vice President of Technology and Society at Google, spoke on Building the Future together. Something powerful about his speech was the need to understand that partnership is an essential foundation we need to capitalize on. The potential technology offers Africa for growth, prosperity, and opportunities cannot be overemphasized because 19 of the 20 fastest-growing countries in the world are in Africa and the African economy has the potential to grow by $180 billion in 2025. This potential would create increased opportunity, let families earn a living, and expand the incredible pool of talents and entrepreneur energy on the continent. He also mentioned that at the United Nations General Assembly, Google announced a renewed commitment to use Artificial Intelligence to monitor the progress on the Sustainable Development Goals. The commitment includes a $25 million fund to support non-governmental and non-profit organizations in this work. We were excited to hear that all the projects supported will be open source to ensure that the progress made by one organization will be accessible to others so they can build and expand on it. Ghana seemed deeply committed to benefiting from these opportunities. Dr. Manamudu Bawumia, Vice President of Ghana, delivered a speech titled, “Helpful Partnerships for Digital Transformation”. He made candid explanations that in Ghana, they have put the private sector at the front and center because the private sector is the innovation in the technology space, they can bring a lot of financing to the table and they have an incentive to keep the systems that are deployed to work efficiently. He explained their partnership with Google which has enabled job creation through the launch of the Artificial Intelligent Research Center: the only one in Africa, based in Accra, Ghana. Niral Patel, Director of Google Cloud, Africa, spoke on Digital transformation with Google Cloud. We learned that Google operates the cleanest cloud in the industry. It has been carbon neutral since 2007 and the goal is to operate on carbon-free energy by 2030. This would make Google the first cloud to achieve this. He announced that a google cloud region would be open in South Africa, building cloud interconnect sites in Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi. In doing so, they are building full-scale cloud capacity for Africa. This will help businesses adopt new technology and unleash new opportunities for the people of Africa. And just when we wondered if there was no woman in the lineup of speakers, Agnes Gathaiya, Country Director, Google East Africa, was introduced. She spoke on Building for Africa with Africa by Africans and shared the improvements in language accessibility and barriers using Google. “If you talk to a person in a language they understand, it goes to their head. But if you talk to them in their language, it goes to their heart.” We learned that Google keyboard has about 200+ African languages and that Google made progress in ensuring letters and ascent that contribute to the richness of our African languages are available for text on our devices. One of the most fascinating things we gleaned from her presentation was that, through Google Source Initiatives, the community helps train machine learning models to improve speech recognition technologies. Also, the Africa Product Development Center in Nairobi, Kenya, is the first of its kind, where talents joining the team will help create full products and services for the continent. She announced that Google also launched Interview Warm Up, which helps people practice for interviews and get more confident about the interview process. Google was speaking the language we loved to hear about our continent. But there was more. Ola Fadipe, Senior Director, People Operation, Google, delved into the ‘Investing Africa’s Talents’ presentation. She declared that Google for Startups is supporting entrepreneurs who are solving local problems. And that the second part of the fund will support 60 African startups with $1 million in equity-free funding, $200,000 in Google cloud credits, and mentorship. And 50% of these are Women-led Startups. Whoopee! Some examples of job seekers’ support that she mentioned were: Google Career Certificate program where 87% of graduates have reported a positive career outcome within 6 months of completion; the Google African Developer Scholarship program which has helped 105,000 African developers on Android web and Google cloud technology, exceeding the original plan of 100,000 developers; Partnership with the Kenya Ministry of Education, the Technical and Vocational Education and Training Authorities, and the Africa Center for Advanced Technology helped to train 300 tutors from 45 institutions across Kenya to
Happening in September: The 2021 Abuja Literary and Arts Festival
We. Are. Excited. About. #ALitFest21! The fourth edition of the Abuja Literary and Arts Festival is about to happen and we are super elated! If you know us, you know we are huge fans of the festival. We can’t wait to be a part of the festivities, conversation and all the events lined up towards making art work. Check out their official press release below. The fourth Abuja Literary and Arts Festival [ALitFest21] presented by the Abuja Literary Society [ALS] is set to take from 25th September to 2nd October 2021. Now in its fourth year, ALitFest21 has become a landmark of Abuja’s cultural scene. The theme this year is ‘Making Art Work.’ With this theme, we invite speakers and attendees to explore tools, systems and institutions that will help creatives generate sustainable livelihoods from their art while using it to promotes community values. According to Festival Director, Teniola Tayo, “We would like to take things a step beyond conversations so the idea behind this theme is to programme the festival around finding solutions to the challenges facing the literary space in Nigeria and in Africa.” Last year, the festival was held virtually and extended its shores beyond Nigeria to other parts of Africa, and the rest of the world. This was a necessity in view of the global pandemic. We were also able to include the African diaspora in our conversations with cross over panels that included Africans and African Americans. The results of that virtual festival far outweighed our expectations and therefore, this year, we propose to host a hybrid festival which is scheduled to take place in two separate spaces: virtual and physical. The physical space which will follow COVID-19 protocols, would be held in Abuja and will require a token donation for tickets which can be gotten via Afritickets while the virtual space will be on Zoom, registration links will be shared on the festival website: www.alitfest.com and on its social media handles [Twitter @alitfest, Instagram @alitfest_, Facebook @Abuja Literary and Arts Festival]. Proposed activities on the festival’s program include panel discussions, poetry for stage, festival anthology, roundtable on creating a bestsellers list in Nigeria, art exhibition, fiction, poetry and script writing workshops, language translation competition, secondary school debate competition, outreach at camp for Internally Displaced Persons, intensive boot camp for creatives, book chats, poetry grand slam, writing competitions, book and arts fair, as well as a closing music concert. Pre-festival activities include; a 3-day writing workshop which seeks to empower participants with the skills and know-how that would enable them take their craft to the next level which include improved writing quality, networking, publishing, earning among others. The workshop will hold virtually for selected participants. ALitFest21 pre-festival activities also include a book drive whereby donated books would be taken and distributed to families at an Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp in Abuja. Books are being received at RovingHeights Bookstore, CVS Plaza, 145 Adetokunbo Ademola Cres, Wuse 2, Abuja. The ALITFEST is an annual celebration of the arts and literature from across the country and continent, since its inception the festival has explored insightful themes; In 2018 “Nigeria to the World”, 2019 “Arts and Social Consciousness” and 2020,” The Art of Empathy”. It has also seen speakers and panellists that transcends the Nigeria Literary and cultural space which include: Helon Habila, Edwige Dro, Sawad Hussain, Dike Chukwumerije, Kola Tubosun, Tsitsi Dangaremgba, Toni Kan, Dapo Olorunyomi, Chika Oduah, Segun Adeniyi, Ayodele Olofintuade, Chuma Nwokolo, Chris Ngwodo, Abdulkareem Baba Aminu, Editi Effiong, T. J. Benson, Eketi Edima Ette, Osasu Igbinedion, Tunde Leye, Oyinkan Braithwaite, Esther Mirembe Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Layla Ali Othman, Odafe Atogun, Edify Yakusak, Bash Amuneni among others. The festival is grateful for the partnership of South Africa based Geko Publishing in the execution of the 2021 festival. For partnership enquiries, please email teni@alitfest.com. Signed Teniola Tayo Festival Director [teni@alitfest.com]. Whewww! It sounds like it is going to be a power packed couple of days. We are going to be attending. And we hope to see you there. Here are some pictures from the 2019 #ALitFest.
Join Us to Commemorate International Day of the Girl
Shades of Us is supporting Girls Virtual Summit 2020, an event hosted by SWAG Initiative to commemorate International Day of the Girl. Here is what you need to know about the event. International Day of the Girl Child is an international observance day declared by the United Nations; it is also called the Day of the Girl. October 11, 2012 was the first day of the Girl Child. The observation supports more opportunity for girls and increases awareness of gender inequality faced by girls worldwide based upon their gender. This inequality includes areas such as access to education, nutrition, legal rights, medical care, and protection from discrimination, violence against women and forced child marriage. The celebration of the day also reflects the successful emergence of girls and young women as cohort in development policy, programming, campaigning and research. To commemorate this day, SWAG Initiative is organizing Girls Virtual Summit 2020, an event scheduled to hold on Sunday October 11, 2020, for girls all around the world. Girls Virtual Summit 2020 will bring together over 200 girls from around the world. It’s going to be a girl-centred event bringing notable and influential women from across the globe to interact and inspire these girls. Having recognised that girls are faced with various challenges, we seek to enlighten, educate, inform and teach girls how to live, stay safe and thrive in a world where girls are being molested, victimised and marginalised. We also intend to produce strong female leaders who will impact their generation, make positive changes and affect the world at large. At the end of the event, girls should be consciously aware of their roles, importance and worth and, should be able to act in their various capacities and step down this knowledge to their peers thereby changing their communities. Before the event, Girls will be asked to send in creative videos of spoken words, drama, talk show, dance, and lots more. Selected videos will be aired during Girls Virtual Summit on 11th October, 2020, and participants will also be rewarded. Date: Sunday October 11, 2O20 Time: 3PM (WAT) Use this link to register: http://bit.ly/GVS_2020
Girls Hold Up Half the Sky
Participants at the Speech Contest I have been volunteering with Sow Purpose Initiativesince 2017. At that time, it was called SOW Foundation and the general mandate was to empower young (and vulnerable) women and girls by reaffirming their worth, addressing societal bias that keep these women and girls struggling to catch up with men and boys in this century, and promoting a culture of excellence for them. When the founder, Dr. Victoria Kumekor, reached out to me in 2017 to give a talk to the girls about body positivity, I was excited to do it. A number of students were chosen from different schools in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria, for the pilot event. It was a beautiful event where we got to bond with students from different backgrounds and ideologies. I knew that I was invited to teach the girls, but it really was a give-and-take session; I learned so much from our interaction. Seeing how much we inspired these young women, I decided that I would continue to volunteer with the Initiative as long as I was required to. So when Dr. Victoria, or as I call her – Vick, reached out to me to talk about the event planned for this year, I knew that I was going to make myself available. While the first two sessions had happened in Zaria, this one was going to happen in Akure, Ondo State. I remember when I saw the theme for this year’s event; ‘Half The Sky’. I wondered what it was about and asked Victoria to explain. She sent me the working document for the event. When I finally understood what she meant, I was even more excited. But more than that, I was pumped that the format for this year’s event was a little different from the previous two. SOW Purpose Initiative was going to organize workshops on educating girls and discussions on equality in the different schools they had reached out to, with a speech contest by representatives of each school serving as the culmination of these workshops. These workshops were meant to dispel myth and misconceptions about the place of girls and women in the home, their immediate community and the world at large. After months of planning, the events began to draw near. The team started with workshops in each of the schools and on October 12, 2019, the speech contest was held in commemoration of the International Day for the Girl Child. The workshops were eye opening…but not as shocking as I would have expected. I think I am now jaded but that is a conversation for another day. When the conversations started with the students in their schools, two major talking points were focused on; 1. Career choices the students felt were off-limit to girls; and 2. Their thoughts on basic equality, human respect and rights. Photos from the Workshop Most of the students – and it begs to be emphasized that this includes male and female students – believed that girls shouldn’t be in engineering, construction, mining, carpentry, politics, professional driving (and they didn’t mean Formula 1), and a couple of other supposedly male dominated careers. They all agreed that these jobs were ‘inappropriate’ for women and girls as they were not ‘strong enough’. In similar fashion, when asked if girls should be respected the same way boys are, there was a resounding ‘no’. The reasons were many: ‘Girls were made to serve boys by God’, ‘Boys are more special than girls’, ‘Boys are physically stronger than girls’, ‘Girls are incompetent’, ‘If given same level of respect girls tend to misuse it’ and the ever present and usually unsurprising, ‘Girls are not equal to boys’. They were literally parroting what the greater society thought and felt towards women and girls. But as unsurprising as it all was, I was still sad that at their young ages, they already had these beliefs that seemed so set in stone. Could we really change their views? Not to be daunted, the Initiative explained why these postulations were untrue and why it was of utmost importance that these students unlearn the things they held as truths. Each of the schools were then tasked with presenting one boy and one girl who would speak about girls holding up half the sky at the speech contest. The day finally arrived. As the students began to trickle into the venue of the event, I wondered what I was going to be hearing from them. I was to serve as a judge for the contest and I think I was probably more nervous than the students. I am very easy to read, and I needed to get my poker face on. Soon enough, we were good to go. The Judges. From left to right: Mr. Eze Chinedu, Dr. Oguntade Funmilayo and Ramatu Ada Ochekliye (me). It was interesting hearing the students speak about the topic. With many of the boys and girls, you could tell they were just going through the motions. With others, their belief shone through. Two girls in particular caught my interest; Okhiulu Gima from Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA) Group of Schools and Nancy Orisamolor from Becky Parker School, both in Akure. Gima was amazing with her storytelling, linking each of her points to the next in a way that just made you stay glued to what she was saying. It is important that I mention that she was soft-spoken; something that could have worked against her as most of the other students were boisterous. But her cool and calm, coupled with her storytelling technique, kept me rivetted. Nancy on the other hand brought her points home. While most of the other speakers were mentioning Malala Yousafzai – I mean, everyone mentioned her! – Nancy led by sharing the work of Becky Anyanwu-Akeredolu: an aquaculture farmer; proponent for early detection of, and curing cancer; and First Lady of Ondo State. Nancy mentioned other women who were Nigerian, before she spread out to
The 2019 Writivism Festival
The 2019 Writivism Festival is here and we are pumped! Here is all you need to know about the festival…and why you should definitely attend. When you come to the festival Expressed in modern diction, “Ugandan party life will finish your money.” The plus side here is; no one has to spend on an entrance free to join in on the fun. At no cost, you get the chance to be entertained by the most sought after performers in the creative realm. The Writivism festival is a unique merry-making ceremony. The event celebrates African culture with emphasis on creative arts in every aspect that is; photography, poetry recitals, fashion, music to say the least. The festival is also held to celebrate African literature and remind you that books are very much enjoyable; you just haven’t landed on a good story yet. Artistic performances; every play, drama, concert, poem is formed out of words then brought to life through melody, body language and speech. Performances by award winning writers like Harriet Anena, Joshua Mmali and several short films will be screened. The festival is a family event. We have organized children’s activities too to make it as inclusive as possible. There will be a kid’s corner too facilitated by the celebrated Acan Innocent who has just recently released a kid’s book titled Black, Yellow, Red. Key note conversations; on topics like race and nationalism featuring figures like Apolo Makubya and Jennifer Makumbi not forgetting book launches. The annual festival is arguably East Africa’s leading literary festival and has become a fixture on the arts calendar of the region. Important books like Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu which won her the Windham Campbell Prize for Literature and No Violet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, among others were unveiled a tour festival. Legendary figures in African literature like Uganda’s John Nagenda, Zimbabwe’s Tsitsi Dangarembga, Kenya’s Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Nigeria’s EC Osondu and Chika Unigwe and South Sudan’s Taban Lo Liyong have spoken at the Writivism Festival. Mention any important name in contemporary African Literature and intellectual circles and they have appeared at the Writivism Festival at some point. The 2019 festival brings back Ugandan Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Chair of the Writivism Short Story Prize judging panel, winner of the Kwani Manuscript Prize, Commonwealth Prize and lecturer of Creative Writing in the United Kingdom) with her new book,Manchester Happened as well as Zimbabwean Panashe Chigumadzi (winner of the K. Selo Duiker Literary Prize and doctoral fellow at Harvard University) with her new book, These bones will rise again. Activities of the festival Photography Exhibition Short films Fashion, Music and Poetry Night Kids’ book club Book launches Book Party: 2017 and 2018 Writivism anthologies Poetry Performances Film Night Books, T. Shirts, alcohol and other merchandise on sale Happy Hour alcohol party Follow the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the hashtags; #Writivism2019 #UnbreakableBonds #EastAfricaArts More information below.
We Are Going to the 2019 Abuja Literary Festival!
The Abuja Literary Festival is back! I attended the Abuja Literary festival for the first time in 2018. I think it was the first edition of the event and my first literary festival. In all honesty, I assumed the event was going to be snooze fest of reading and panel discussions. I specifically picked aspects of the festival to attend that I knew would most likely be fun; poetry slams, movie screenings and a panel discussion on marketing films in Nigeria and to a global audience. But by God! I was wowed! The first thing that was a pointer to the fact that I was going to have a great time was the number of books I saw on sale. It was positively orgasmic to see that many books in one place…and at the price they were going for! It wasn’t too long before I was busting out my card and picking up new ‘buddies’. Oh! I went hungry for a while after that but it was well worth it. The panel sessions I attended were genuinely interesting and the conversations greatly appreciated. I felt everything! If you had been looking at me, you would have seen me nodding my head in agreement with feminists, nearly cussing out a white man who said something along the lines of African writers needing to ‘stick to their own culture’, getting pissed the hell off when people said things that were just plain wrong, and even finding a new crush whose voice was just amazing! (I know! Weirdo!) I was supposed to attend a screening of 93 Days, a film by Steve Gukasshowing how Nigerian doctors led by Stella Adadevoh help curb the spread of the extremely deadly Ebola outbreak in Nigeria. Due to technical difficulties, the movie time kept getting shifted and because I lived in the outskirts of town and couldn’t be out too late at night, I didn’t see the screening. It was a sore point for me and I almost didn’t return to the rest of the festival. Then I heard that Dike Chukwumerije, the renowned spoken word and performance poet and award winning author was going to have a performance. I was elated. Oh! I had never seen Dike perform, nor had I heard about his performance but since I hadn’t seen a play in forever, the thought of being immersed in live performance had me giddy with excitement. It was, without doubt, one of the best moments of my entire year! My goodness! There were a million times I wanted to just jump out of my seat and hug the essence out of him! The play was thatgood! I laughed, cried, danced, reflected and hoped for a better Nigeria. I think this begs to be said again; it was, without doubt, one of the best moments of 2018 for me. So when I heard that the festival was coming back for a second year, I was just about ready to bust out my dance moves. Here is the official poster of the 2019 Abuja Literary Festival. Can. You. See. Our. Logo. Right. There?! Yes! It is with great pleasure that I announce our big news; Shades of Usis supporting the Abuja Literary Festival this year! Can you tell how EXCITED we are?! (If you are new to my blog, you will see a lot of ‘we’ when I talk about the blog. If you stick around, you will figure out why.) Okay…I am going to taper down and explain this better. My entire experience made me really look at the festival as a whole. It is an opportunity to discuss social, economic and political issues from the literary point of view. This is in line with my overall goal with Shades of Us. So I had this A-ha moment where I wondered how I could support this movement, and what it would entail. I spoke to the convener of the event, Buchi Onyebule, and we got talking. It was such a pleasure to have him accept my contribution to the festival. As can be seen on the poster, the theme for the festival is ‘Art and Social Consciousness’ and it would feature panel discussions, book readings, movie screenings, performances and a host of other events. I am eager about the movie that would be screening – as expected – and I want to see what plays would be showcased. This year however, I am not going to cherry pick the events that I would attend. As much as I can, I am going to be totally immersed in the entire festival! I would be there from the opening ceremony to the last hurrah on July 13th. This is where I ask you to be part of the event. I can talk about how great it would all be but… it really wouldn’t do justice to it. You would have to experience it to enjoy it. As you are well aware, putting up a festival like this costs a lot of money. Where you can, reach out to Buchi and ask how you can sponsor an aspect of the festival. You can also volunteer your time to help ensure the entire process is flawless. And the easiest thing you can do is share the posters on your social media platforms to help increase visibility and engagement. I am hoping that if nothing else, you would do that. While I would not have a stand nor do I have a physical product to push, I would most definitely be interacting with as many people as I possibly can. We are keeping the introvert at home for this one! I can’t wait to see you at the 2019 Abuja Literary Festival! If you see me, holla at your girl. Let us talk, interact, share ideas, promote reading and literacy in Africa, and generally just enjoy ourselves. I am excited! Are you?! Ramatu Ada Ochekliye, Founder and Content Creator, Shades of Us
