Desire Lordson
Some community women from Rivers and Akwa Ibom States, gathered in Port Harcourt to say ‘No’ to environmental degradation.
They emphasized that the training by Nongovernmental Organizations Power Up Project to sensitize women on their rights to say no to environmental pollution, has helped them to gain some rights to their expression.
The women from Abua/Odual, Eleme Local Government Area in Rivers State and Ibeno Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State, who called for an end to environmental pollution, applauded Civil Society Organizations, for the backing to fight harmful environmental practices.
” … the right to say no as a movement, Kebetkache has given us an eye opener, before then we cannot come out to speak, some of us cannot read and write”.
At the close out, Director Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Dr. Emem Okon commended the water project in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State by the Hydrocarbon Pollution Remediation Project, HYPREP, and encouraged women of the Niger Delta region, to resist acts that could jeopardize their environment.
“These women in their local communities, raised their voices to join forces with other mainstream, Civil Society Organizations, have been talking about environmental degradation, so, we encouraged them to say no to big extraction that is killing the land and killing them … ”
In her presentation, a Director of Forestry in the Rivers State Ministry of Agriculture, Mrs. Nkemdirim Odoya, called for more empowerment for women, to enable them to maximize their potential.
” Some peculiar roles that women play in conservation, they hold traditional knowledge, they have the knowledge of herbs, medicinal plants that exist within their localities and we can also use that knowledge to conserve the environment, by preserving those plants”.
Comic Relief and Womin also supported the project to say no to environmental degradation.
