The themes of social justice and gender inclusion dominated discussions at the premiere of ‘Earth Women’, a poignant docudrama that explores the plight of women living in areas impacted by extractive activities, including oil and gas exploration and mining.
The premiere of Earth Women was held alongside the third Community and Human Rights (CAHR) Awards, which honours individuals and organisations contributing selflessly to community development and inclusion in Africa; both initiatives of CSR-in-Action Advocacy, the development-focused arm of the CSR-in-Action Group.
According to the Bekeme Masade-Olowola, CSR-in-Action’s Chief Executive and Earth Women’s Executive Producer, who visualised the concept for the documentary, when natural disasters occur, said women suffer immensely because their sources of livelihood are threatened, and they often do not have control over what happens to them in such situations. Nevertheless, women continue to thrive and find better ways to survive.
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“This documentary is inspired by our deep understanding of the multi-layered challenges in the extractive industries, having worked for the past ten years, on a common platform for resolving these socio-political crises by bringing together key stakeholders in government, business and the communities,” Masade-Olowola said.
Earth Women, produced by CSR-in-Action Advocacy, which was founded by Masade-Olowola 11 years ago, and is now a foremost sustainability consulting and advocacy outfit, was primarily funded by Ford Foundation, the international organisation which supports social justice, and has Ego Boyo, veteran thespian, and Meka Olowola, communication expert, as co-Executive Producers of the docudrama.
“Wherever you find benefits in the form of natural resources, you find women and girls unfairly excluded from conversations around these resources. Women continue to be marginalised in both formal and informal spaces,” said Funke Baruwa, Country Director, West Africa for Ford Foundation. “However, we are really happy that women continue to challenge this marginalisation and continue to push through to make sure that our voices are heard.”
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“We are supporting organisations like CSR-in-Action because we believe that supporting them will help in identifying gaps and driving programs and strategies that address challenges that women face in the extractive sector,” Baruwa added.
The ‘SITEI-Woman’ project, a series of initiatives targeted at empowering women, especially those impacted by the extractive industries in Nigeria, which is an offshoot of the 10-year-old Sustainability in the Extractive Industries (SITEI) Initiative, of CSR-in-Action which is aimed at fostering fiscal and social justice for communities with oil and gas and mining resources.
According to Meka Olowola who is the chairman, SITEI organising committee, the SITEI-Woman initiative is a platform for driving social justice for women and promoting gender inclusion.
“Through SITEI-Woman, we want to help deconstruct some of the paradigms that have kept women away from vital decisions that have overarching impact on their lives, especially with regards to resources available in extractive communities. We believe that empowered women will lead to peaceful and prosperous communities,” he added.
The Executive Secretary, Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr. Ogbonnaya Orji, commended the consistent commitment of Masade-Olowola and the CSR-in- Action team to finding sustainable solutions to the challenges facing the extractive industries sector in Nigeria, having provided a platform for various stakeholders in the sector through SITEI for the past 10 years.
“These challenges can only be resolved through collaborative efforts by multiple stakeholders including the government, extractive companies, communities and the civil society. In the past ten years through the SITEI platform, Bekeme and her team have helped identify many of these problems and inspired the search for collaborative solutions to them,” said Orji.
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