Diana Abasi Udua, NigeriaEnsuring Girls are Educated in Nigeria  Diana Abasi Udua, a participant in CEDPA's 2008 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 Eket, a rural community in the southwestern Nigerian city of Eket. 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 in her 20s, working in Eket to ensure that other girls get the education that will empower them to make courageous decisions in their own lives. 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. 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.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 program, Diana is making a difference for these girls, and encouraging parents and community leaders to support girls’ education and empowerment, with great success. |
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