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Global Women in Management Program Held in Nigeria   
June 22, 2008—Diana Abasi Udua, a participant in CEDPA's recent Global Women in Management training in Abuja, recalls that she once saw her mother display “a shocking level of courage,” she says. She was nine, and her father had just died. They lived in the southwestern Nigerian city of Eket, a rural community where her family had moved several years earlier, after leaving the prosperous port town of Calabar due to ethnic conflicts. Immediately after her father died, Diana’s uncles confiscated the family property. They said that since there was just one son among the four children in Diana’s family, the property should go to them, Diana says. They even moved to take over the funeral plans and demanded to receive the traditional burial payment from Diana’s father’s employer. In Nigeria, it is custom that “every important decision in the family should be taken by a male,” Diana says. So, when they took her husband’s property, Diana’s mother was silent. But when she saw she was going to be shut out of her husband’s funeral, her mother finally rebelled. Diana recalls a meeting with her uncles when “my mother stood up and said in tears, ‘I am not going to agree to this and I am never going to agree to this.’” The uncles and the rest of Diana’s father’s family disowned them, and there would be many years of financial hardship as her mother raised the children alone and scraped together money for school fees for all of them. Yet, the payoff for Diana was immeasurable. “I really saw that, after all, a woman can make her own decisions. And, I realized that if my mother didn’t have the education she had, she never could have done that.”
Diana is now a young woman of 25, working in Eket to ensure that other girls get the education that will empower them to make courageous decisions in their own lives. Her employer, Lilies Organization, is a Nigerian group that expands educational opportunities for children, provides skills training for women and youth, and supports people living with HIV and AIDS in the community. One of Diana’s passions is her work on the Better Life Options project, a non-formal girls’ education program that CEDPA runs in partnership with a number of community organizations in Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom State, which includes the village of Eket. The program is urgently needed because girls in Akwa Ibom face many obstacles, Diana says. “For girls, people believe that things are almost impossible. I think it is a cultural mindset. They are groomed that way,” she says. But through the Better Life Options program, parents and community leaders are encouraged to support girls’ education and empowerment. Groups such as Lilies meet with chiefs and other traditional leaders. They bring together parents and other community stakeholders to teach the value of sending girls to school. Girls in the Better Life Options program complete an extensive curriculum that teaches practical information on topics including health, as well as self-esteem, goal-setting and leadership.
Diana is one of 27 women from throughout Africa who is currently spending one month with CEDPA in Nigeria’s capital city of Abuja for extensive training in management and leadership. CEDPA’s Global Women in Management program, held June 2-27, strengthens participants’ program and financial management abilities as well as communication, fundraising and leadership skills. This is the first time CEDPA’s Global Women in Management program has been held in Nigeria. Now in its thirtieth year, the program is designed for mid-level women managers working in community organizations in developing countries. The ExxonMobil Foundation's Educating Women and Girls' Initiative has been the generous sponsor of the program since 2005, and also supports CEDPA's Better Life Option program in Nigeria. Diana believes that the course will greatly improve her work and her goal to ensure girls in Eket can reach their full potential. She says she has “already mapped a strategy” for when she returns to Eket. She cites the sessions on leadership and on how to manage conflicts. The workshop also helped change her view of monitoring and evaluation from “something I have to do to something that I think can help me improve my program.” Diana also said the workshop helped her recognize her true potential. “It was the first time I have had the opportunity to use all of my talents, to show all of my potential,” she says. “I didn’t know I could stretch so wide.” |
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