Godwin Haruna
17 June 2008
Lagos — A famous Chinese proverb counsels benefactors to teach their beneficiaries how to fish rather than giving the treasured delicacy away every day. The Institute of Research on African Women, Children and Culture, an initiative of Prof. Leslye Obiora, a Nigerian academic in the diaspora, is instilling entrepreneurial skills on an excluded segment of the population. The aim, she says, is to take them out of the poverty trap.
As the 82 year-old Mazi Animene sat in front of his hut that evening watching some youths come in one after the other; there was a glint of fulfillment in his eyes. For all it takes, the source of the old man's apparent happiness was the realization that the money they would drop for hiring his wheel barrows would be enough to feed his family comprising mainly of his wife and grand children. Added to that is Mrs. Animene's firewood business, which also brings some income to the family.
The Animenes live in Oguta, Imo State and both husband and wife are members of the Institute of Research on African Women, Children and Culture (IRAWCC). It is a multi-dimensional initiative of Prof. Leslye Obiora, a former Minister of Mines and Steel, who is presently a tenured professor at the University of Arizona in the United States. The IRAWCC initiative has an outreach at the Abia State University, a youth mentoring programme for some young students in Oguta, women empowerment programme, which encapsulates skills training and micro-credit access, legal unit with emphasis on social mobilization as well as a health platform to encourage healthy habit and good hygiene.
All these programmes are the initiatives of Prof. Obiora and are geared towards giving back to her country of birth, which she left more than 20 years ago to seek greener pastures. A Nigerian patriot of no mean standing, her initiative, which is running in two communities in Nigeria, is targeted against excluded members of the society, especially women and children.
Another leg of the programme is Alternative Learning for Mentoring in the Arts and Sustainability (ALMAS), which is a youth centred international network of community building workshops providing service and solutions with hands-on learning of arts and crafts, sustainable appropriate technology and vocational skills for the promotion of social and economic development.
For all these programmes, Obiora brought some resource persons comprising both young and established professionals from the United States into the country to impart the targeted group of professionals. Among those who have come and departed are, Mrs. Josh Schachter, Ms. Jacqueline Lemieux, Ms. Lauren Quigley and Ms. Melissa Seifert. Those still in the country and conducting various training programmes for the target group are Taryn Kong a doctoral student in the U. S., Gavin Kovite, a post graduate student of New York University Law School, Ms. Elizabeth Petit, an architect, who is also a medical student and her daughter, Kata Petit a young graduate. The young graduates among the team are members of the Students in Free Entreprise (SIFE) from the University of Arizona, United States.
Obiora told THISDAY in an interview that the partnership outreach will be kick-started by arranging for her retired colleague to serve as the first IRAWCC faculty fellow at the Abia State University Uturu. "Hopefully, he can stay in residence for a year and teach law. His wife is a judge in Tucson and it is my understanding she will join him to compliment the capacity building initiative", she stated.
According to her the couple would not be paid salary since they are pensioners, but would require accommodation here for the duration of their stay. She said other universities, which signify interest would be enlisted in the scheme.
During a visit to the university to intimate the vice-chancellor, Prof. Mkpa Mkpa, of the scheme, the elated VC thanked Obiora for the gestures. Mkpa expressed the university's readiness to partner with IRAWCC since we live in a world dominated by research. He said the university also has its SIFE programme, which he would like the members of the visiting team to interact with. He called for more assistance in equipping their library and other resource materials that would stimulate academic work.
The university SIFE coordinator, Dr. Greg Ibe, also expressed the desire of the university for an exchange programme to extend the frontiers of entrepreneurial knowledge. He said as an entrepreneur, he believed in the ideals of SIFE and that is why he has ensured that students of the school take active part in the activities of the group in Nigeria.
Later Obiora told THISDAY she was making arrangements in other areas to enhance knowledge. "Antonia Folarin-Scleicher is a Nigerian who runs a language resource centre at the University of Winscosin. We will work with her to facilitate a study exchange for the first IRAWCC Igbo language expert who will train at the University of Wincoscin to edit mutually the work of both the Wisconsin and Abia language arts. With the help of SIFE, we will aggressively engage in a book drive to equip a community library quartered at the university as a prototype of a system of grassroots library we are poised to catalyze", she said.
In a situation like that, she added that they would look for good spirited people who will defray the expenses of shipping the books from the United States. According to her, there are a number of other areas where a mutually beneficial collaboration could be established with institutions outside the country.
Giving details of what the team from the U.S. did while they were here or are still doing; Obiora said Elizabeth Petit will pilot an art and architecture workshop as a portal into mapping out a needs assessment for a character formation with ALMAS. She said she will teach the ideals of dignity, compassion and love for the human person among young school girls randomly selected from Oguta Girls High School. Petit herself said characters of young lads could be easily moulded before they step out of adolescence. Her daughter, Kata will bring to bear a training that uses dance and performing arts for rural outreach.
Taryn Kong teamed up with Elizabeth to build capacity, competence and skills on alternative energy, renewable resource and water purification. Schachter, who has left, conducted a workshop with young adults and equipped them with cameras for narrated snapshots of their world that will be used for a traveling exhibition in the middle of July.
The students, who were divided into five groups, had to demonstrate their business plans to guests and their instructors on the final day of their weeklong workshop. They were quartered and fed in the Oguta home of Prof. Obiora during the training.
The five groups presented business plans that are workable if backed with capital. The groups presented business plans that range from Fish store, Book and Gift Shop, Department Store to Boutique. The lead presenters demonstrated to the admiration of the audience that they had profitable business plan that their families could live on.
Speaking on this, Obiora said the initiative in Oguta formed the core of the IRAWCC grassroots outreach that is being replicated in Asaba and also, some parts of Lagos as a philanthropy project. "Within the auspices of the photo exhibition, we will conduct a silent charity auction to promote and sustain community self-help, which epitomizes IRAWCC outreaches. We have a bias for young adults as our experience with Odiso-Kin Corps bears out the reality that they are the lifeline of the programme such as the ones we catalyse and implement on shoe-string budgets", she said.
In an interview with THISDAY, Petit said ALMAS is based on universal values and virtues sensitive to the distinct needs and viewpoints of diverse, cultures, throughout the world empowering sustainable community building skills, arts, and design at a grassroots levels.
"ALMAS is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual arts and vocational workshop environment, honouring a racially diverse, spiritually rich community resource centre, an on-going process welcoming independent thought and research for an ever-advancing human sustainable community dedicated to the vision of the world," she said.
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