(Video Clip)
Women
make an Impact on the way their country runs
CFC was invited to take part in a spirited,
meeting of broadcasters who met in Paris for a conference
hosted by UNESCO in February 2000, sponsored by the European
Commission’s Directorate for Employment, Industrial and Social
Affairs, and the Directorate for Development to promote better
understanding of development issues. The filmmakers agreed
to collaborate on the series From Rhetoric to Reality:
Women Broadcasting for Change. The outcome is 32 wide-ranging
programmes covering issues from women in power to the increasing
feminisation of poverty. CFC’s program, Against the Odds,
is part of this series, focusing on democracy and good governance
as it relates to women in Nigeria.
CFC’s production team decided to profile the
work of two very different women’s activists – highlighting
differences in age, regional focus, and cultural background,
and providing a profile of the dynamic Nigerian woman struggling
for recognition and equal participation. The film traces the
impact of these two dynamic women in improving the lives of
the people they lead.
Chief Bisi Ogunleye, Coordinator of the Country
Women Association of Nigeria (COWAN), provides insight in
to grass roots development activities including micro credit
schemes, rural women parliament forums and networking with
traditional male and female rulers, and election training.
"Nigeria is fully ready for a woman President”
says Chief Ogunleye “Women of this country, the time has come
for us not to wait for anybody to invite us, we must invite
ourselves. Women will lead this country because they can do
it better". Her organisation COWAN assists with the micro-financing
of small-scale female entrepreneurs in the rural areas in
order to empower women.
Honourable Harriman echoes these comments
"I think there’s an ego problem here. It must have been
very difficult for my competitors to accept being defeated
by a woman and by a very wide margin. Nigerian women should
not be scared of anything. They should have courage to do
whatever they want to do".
As the Representative for Warri, she fights
for the rights of people in the oil rich Niger Delta. The
film shows Harriman meeting with communities and her efforts
to ensure that constituents who are treated badly by oil industries
receive fair compensation. “The type of constituency I represent
is well endowed, but unfortunately not for the indigenes”
She often has to use her position on several committees to
make multinationals face the consequences of their pollution.
Against the Odds reflects just one
aspect of women struggling for their human rights. The entire
series, From Rhetoric to Reality, looks at our increasingly
globalised world, five years on from the Beijing International
Conference on Women, and reflects the issues raised by women
filmmakers from 26 countries and their perspectives on the
progress - and set backs - made by women in their countries.
The series looks at the difference women have
made in the peace process in Northern Ireland, and Temi Harriman’s
fight against huge opposition to win her rightful place as
an elected member of the Nigerian government. On violence,
the horrific rape and disfigurement of twenty-four year old
Makhosi in South Africa, trafficking of women for sexual exploitation
in Lithuania. On reproductive health, the soaring rate of
teenage pregnancies in Scotland. The series examines women's
progress on the road to equality, and assesses how much further
there is to go. As Dr Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of the
United Nations Population Fund comments: "You need leadership,
you need active advocacy and civil society groups to speak
out about these issues. You need women themselves to speak
out but you also need men to support that change."
The entire series was broadcast from 23rd
- 28th June, 2000 on BBC World. Please visit TVE’s
website for more information on the series http://www.tve.org/life/
The international series From Rhetoric
to Reality: Broadcasting for Change has also been re-versioned
into Spanish, French and English and is available for non-broadcast
use from CFC and TVE.
For our Nigerian audience, please contact
our office in Lagos (tel) 261 0179 (fax) 261 0539, email:
cfc@hyperia.com to obtain
Rhetoric to Reality.
For our audience outside of Nigeria,
please contact TVE: Dina Junkermann (ph): 0207 586 5528,
(fax):0207 586 4866, email: dina.junkermann@tve.org
.uk.
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