“Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow” is 2022 theme for IWD but I’m not using that.
Today, MOUAU women celebrate the IWD to God’s glory. It is usually on 8th of March, a day set aside to celebrate women, our achievements, doggedness, resilience, endurance, perseverance, and feats. It is heart-warming to know that Women and girls, can aspire to be who and what they want to be through an intentional process that can “Break the bias.” We all, men and women alike, are the proponents and promoters of bias either unconsciously or consciously. For example, when we speak about a nurse, our minds automatically think of a woman whereas, we imagine a CEO to be a man. Why can’t the reverse be the norm?
Women need to be encouraged to have a voice, be confident and engaging in all sectors through planned capacity building, excellent role modelling and mentoring systems. These ultimately, would unleash our hidden powers and potentials as game changers, playing critical roles as leaders, trail blazers in the society like Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, President, WTO, Hajiya Amina Zubair, Deputy Secretary General of UN, and Mrs Folorunsho Alakija, the richest woman in Nigeria, just to mention a few.
I have been specially privileged to work in international organizations whose focus is on investing the educational, socio-economic empowerment and improving the health indices for women and children towards the attainment of their full potentials. However, the question we need to ponder on is, for example, do girls and boys have equal access to education, work placement and opportunities? If the answer is NO, then we must address the root of these biases such as lack of adequate support, and resources, often compounded by the fact that we are not given due recognition, credit and under-valued for our rich contributions to humanity and development. These potentially results in gender inequities.
We have to change the narrative and break the bias by supporting one another and also, convincing the men to support us in order to reach the pinnacles in our respective fields. Such support is needed today to pool funds to ensure that the much-needed bus for this association is realizable. I welcome and solicit the support of all our esteemed guests to please, donate generously towards this noble objective.