From staring at the stickers in my room that read “Our Rights Are Not Optional”, and “Against Her Will Is Against The Law” to believe I wasn’t fundamentally less based on my gender or anything else, to my Dad buying me “A Girl Who Can” . I was riding on the ties of believing I could. Until I was tossed into the world without my permission, into the twists and shut down simply on the basics of my gender and my disability, turns out I couldn’t, because they said so.
I still believed I could, even though believing as I grew started leaning towards conformation here and there in a bid to not be too different, to look like those before me, to not be too loud, to not be heartbroken. Embodying multiple marginalized identities came with its own experiences, violence against me was leveled on multiple grounds, but I had to run to it with Ye and Amen. My voice hidden away, patterned existence based of a mans “acceptance” at the end of the day, popping babies and total submission.
My ability to dream was trampled upon, I couldn’t dream outside what I see women who look like me do, to be honest, I didn’t even see or know so many women who looked like me then. There lies the importance of representation, our stories were under reported or reported from an angle that was not inspirational to me. There was no one to look at and say “…. looks like me, that means I can maybe do something similar.”
Anger, the root of my being, developed from an early age, reading the newspapers and watching the news wheeled towards me and knocked the disactivism down. Anger they say, has a long history of bringing about positive change, I was angry, I am angry, we should all be angry.
In conversations with my classmates and teachers in Secondary School, a new birth emerged. The new birth of me wasn’t sudden, it didn’t just happen, it took, reading, researching through history, listening, listening again and again, seeing the pattern of women being unable to. The new birth of me, standing in front of the mirror in my bathroom and saying loudly within that “In a world of problems, I want to be one of the solutions” before the words jumped out and became a scream, a determination, a decision, an intention, an action.
I Am A Feminist.
I went on to apply for the Margaret Ekpo Youth Fellowship, without their permission or validation.
On being selected as 1 of the 20 emerging Women Rights Activist for the Margaret Ekpo Youth Fellowship, it was such a trill, and my heart was so overwhelmed, felt it needed more space to be contained. It was to serve as a platform to amplify our voices on works we do already, to engage with the works of other women as well as a platform for an Intergenerational discuss between different generations of activists. In an overall, to learn of the what then, what now and what next of women’s rights activism in Nigeria.
For me, it was to scream out my existence and our representation, to adequate shared my experience(s) in a way that that hasn’t been told before and question the often exclusionary activism. And of course, listening, learning, building, growing.
The First Retreat
I never have a chance to hide who I am, my presence walks into the room before I do, I have a presence that sparks curiosity in the minds of those perceiving.
I am a woman living with disability in Nigeria.
I was scared, not of the knowledge to be gotten but of the anxiety being with unknown individuals brings, of ableism, of inaccessible facilities, of being told directly or indirectly, I didn’t belong in a place that should be home.
That wasn’t it. It was strange, but it came with a breathe of fresh air, it was also with mildly accessible facility and I belonged there because I do, no negotiations.
I found depth to my voice I never knew existed, I was in the room with women, women like me, traveling in the same direction, fighting for the same thing; equal access and opportunity, justice, freedom.
The distinctiveness of the retreat was the intergenerational and intersectional dialogue, with a focus on sharing multiple experiences of ALL women, a detailed analysis of the feminist theories, Developing a strategic advocacy plan, adapting to new technology for advocacy and so much more.
In a bid to not bore the eyes by giving a full revelation of the sections in the retreat, Here are some of the quotes from the Retreat:
“The power of movement and why they matter is that they are committed to tackling the roots of injustice, not just symptoms, and in making long-term changes for their members, most importantly, they are led and directed by the people with the greatest stake in making that change”
“Transformative change needs to occur in individual consciousness, access to resources and opportunities, formal law policies and informal cultural norms and exclusionary practices”
“Power do not operate alone, it is embedded in and works in cooperation with all the other power structures that create inequality in the world”
“Fighting for women’s Rights is deeply political, the personal is political and the political is personal”
-Amy Oyekunle
“There is an interconnectedness of our struggles through the system”
-Nike Esiet
“Biggest problem in tackling fundamentalism is Religion”
“We do not live a single issue life”
-Iheoma Obibi
“History is very vital and important to Activism”
“It is a radical act to take care of yourself, Rest is radical”
“Well being is not a burden or a luxury, it is an individual and collective need”
-Buky Williams
“Activism: Taking action against injustice with the aim of creating and inspiring social change” — Afolabi Alaiyode
“Do not shrink yourself to fit into a space for people”
“Your voice matters, raise your voice! Amplifying your voice gives hope to thousand of other”
-Wemimo Adewumi
My overall favorite that has become my mantra, my chant, my living is
“Our feminist identify is not qualified with ‘Ifs’, ‘Buts’, or ‘Howevers’. We are Feminists. Full Stop” — African Feminist Forum
What Next ?
The question of “what next?” lies within our individual willingness and ability to do, build and maintain a healthy community, to see beyond the benefit of competition into the benefit of collaboration and most importantly, checking in with ourselves.
It was and is transgressive, liberating and empowering. The depth of my voice that was reached, the fire ignited in me, the force, the change, the louding voice, can not be put down or told quite, not just me, but we, us.
We are here, we are now.
I am a Margaret Ekpo Youth Fellow
Thank You YouthHubAfrica and Ford Foundation.
