Before I progress on this topic, I like to explain the key words in the topic. Think globally means put the globe i.e. the world in your perspective when taking decisions. Act Locally means impart on your constituency i.e. surroundings where you find yourself. Leadership Initiatives means actions that ordinarily emanates from a leader. My environment is my surrounding.
A leader is a director who acts to achieve set goals. He takes up lead roles which others around him consciously or unconsciously follow. An ideal leader is a liberal man, unselfish in his ways. He always aim to be on top of the game.
The phrase Think Globally Act Locally has often been used by environmentalists to sum up a strategy devoted to conserving the earth’s scare resources at the local level. The phrase originated from Rene Dubos, an advisor to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972. More recently, business executives borrowed the idea to emphasis on the need for building capability at the country or regional level even as they pursue global growth. But now the millennial generation i.e. Americans born between 1982 and 2003 are giving the phrase on entirely new meaning as they intensify efforts to change the world – one local community at a time.
The millennials are optimists who never give in to threats but rather look for a liberal way of providing solutions to challenges. Millennials’ ability to make virtual friends instanteously on facebook or h5 with Iranian protesters provides a practical example of the generation’s pragmatic approach to solving puzzles.
Think Globally, Act Locally: Leadership Initiatives for Me and My Environment for the purpose of this workshop is all about deciding to start paying attention to your surroundings, asking yourself, what is happening in the neighbourhood? What are the problems my country is facing? Why are the problems there? What quota can I contribute to solve the problems?
How can l help that boy in my class that has stopped coming to school because he could not pay his school fees anymore? Should l tell my daddy or my pastor of his case? If they cannot pay his school fees, they could know someone who can help or even offer the boy a scholarship. By so caring, you have blessed a life with a fortune, an action which will have a multiplier effect on the society.
Think Globally and Act Locally is a call to individuals particularly youths to engage themselves actively in issues affecting them. You should ask yourself who do l want to be. Which career do l want to pursue? How does it benefit me? Will being a doctor be profitable to my family? Will it make a positive impart on the society, my country and the world at large.
Chinnamanda Adiche, a Nigerian writer who won the Orange prize in 2007, an international award must have had the global perspective of imparting on her environment, her country and the world at large which she succeeded in achieving. She did her country proud by winning an international award.
The greatest threat that the Nigerian youth face today is exclusion and marginalisation in issues affecting their lives. Youths are the promise of the future and failure to invest in them poses great constrain on the potential for future development. The need to make youths centre of the decision making process on issues affecting their lives cannot be underestimated. Although the need for youths’ active participation in issues affecting their lives, informed the advent of the Convention on the Right of the Child (CRC) and the Child Right Act (which has proved so far to be nothing but another window dressing project of the Nigerian government) not much has been done by the government to make youths play a significant role in issues affecting them.
I will end this talk with the story of Sara. Sara is a little girl of 17 years old. She volunteered to be an interpreter for an NGO which is into adult literacy for village women somewhere in the eastern part of Nigeria. After serving the NGO for a considerable period of time, she got a scholarship to study medicine abroad. It was the track record of her humanitarian service to the villagers that earn her the visa to make her dream come true.
I conclude by saying that the decision to give concern to your environment, to help somebody somewhere and thereby make a positive impart on the society and the world will turn around to make your an ICON, someone to be celebrated.
Thank you.
A presentation made by Omokemi Akinbodunse, a legal practitioner in September 2009 at GET GLOBAL 2009, an annual programme organised for teenagers by Human Development Initiatives (HDI), a Nigerian non profit organisation based in Lagos.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 26, 2010
WELCOME SPEECH DELIVERED BY MISS OMOKEMI AKINBODUNSE AT W.TEC CELEBRATION OF INTERNATIONAL WOMEN RIGHT WEEK
The Chairperson, Ladies and Gentlemen.
We are honoured by your distinguished presence in this important occasion of celebrating 2010 International Women Right Week. The need for this workshop can not be overemphasized. As we are all well aware, the Nigerian woman needs to be liberated from certain patriarchal beliefs and norms that are injurious to her right. An average Nigerian woman is trained to be subservient to her husband and his relations. Her state is such that even where her husband and her in laws are hostile to her, she has to continue to be submissive and loyal. The requirement for submissiveness cut across all stratum in the society. The Nigerian woman believes that her husband is her crown such that she places the man just next to God before (at times) her children or even her career. This is more so where the man does not give money for house keep and beats her.
The woman is ready to give everything within her power to keep her home. For the fear that her children may lost their focus in life if she is not around them as they grow, she stick to her cantankerous husband. Some women cannot afford to leave their matrimonial home because they can not fend for themselves.
Thus the clarion call for Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities, Progress for All, the theme of 2010 International Women Right Week seems like a dream so vague to achieve for the Nigerian State.
It is fifteen years since the Beijing Conference and nothing much has been achieved to better the lot of the Nigerian woman. Nigeria has the second highest world record of maternal mortality. The country has not yet reached the 30 percent Affirmative Action on women in politics and governance. Despite making up 49% of the population with a literacy level of 47%, women have less than 15% representation in governance1
The subordination of women and domestic violence show that estimate of abused women is 70% per year and the majority (51.6%) of victims were pregnant women assaulted by their husbands. At least one out of every 3 women is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her life time 2 . There is no national law prohibiting domestic violence and in Lagos state where the law is passed the penalty section is so light that an accused person can easily treat the law with disdain. In fact the law is yet to be given full publicity in the state. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international instrument which ensures equal right for women worldwide ratified by Nigeria in 1985 is stuck in the National Assembly. The treaty has only been domesticated in Anambra and Imo State. The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa is also yet to be domesticated.
Lack of access to resources, low level of literacy and the violent nature of policies in Nigeria are attributed to women’s low representation
To bring the picture home and make a case for urgent redress W.TEC has organized this workshop in celebration of International Women’s Right Week. A cardinal purpose for event is to wake up and indeed raise women to take strategic positions in technology and governance.
On behalf of W.TEC, l wish everyone present here today a fruitful and robust deliberation as we commit ourselves to make Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities, Progress for All a reality for the Nigerian state.
Thank you
We are honoured by your distinguished presence in this important occasion of celebrating 2010 International Women Right Week. The need for this workshop can not be overemphasized. As we are all well aware, the Nigerian woman needs to be liberated from certain patriarchal beliefs and norms that are injurious to her right. An average Nigerian woman is trained to be subservient to her husband and his relations. Her state is such that even where her husband and her in laws are hostile to her, she has to continue to be submissive and loyal. The requirement for submissiveness cut across all stratum in the society. The Nigerian woman believes that her husband is her crown such that she places the man just next to God before (at times) her children or even her career. This is more so where the man does not give money for house keep and beats her.
The woman is ready to give everything within her power to keep her home. For the fear that her children may lost their focus in life if she is not around them as they grow, she stick to her cantankerous husband. Some women cannot afford to leave their matrimonial home because they can not fend for themselves.
Thus the clarion call for Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities, Progress for All, the theme of 2010 International Women Right Week seems like a dream so vague to achieve for the Nigerian State.
It is fifteen years since the Beijing Conference and nothing much has been achieved to better the lot of the Nigerian woman. Nigeria has the second highest world record of maternal mortality. The country has not yet reached the 30 percent Affirmative Action on women in politics and governance. Despite making up 49% of the population with a literacy level of 47%, women have less than 15% representation in governance1
The subordination of women and domestic violence show that estimate of abused women is 70% per year and the majority (51.6%) of victims were pregnant women assaulted by their husbands. At least one out of every 3 women is likely to be beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused in her life time 2 . There is no national law prohibiting domestic violence and in Lagos state where the law is passed the penalty section is so light that an accused person can easily treat the law with disdain. In fact the law is yet to be given full publicity in the state. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), an international instrument which ensures equal right for women worldwide ratified by Nigeria in 1985 is stuck in the National Assembly. The treaty has only been domesticated in Anambra and Imo State. The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa is also yet to be domesticated.
Lack of access to resources, low level of literacy and the violent nature of policies in Nigeria are attributed to women’s low representation
To bring the picture home and make a case for urgent redress W.TEC has organized this workshop in celebration of International Women’s Right Week. A cardinal purpose for event is to wake up and indeed raise women to take strategic positions in technology and governance.
On behalf of W.TEC, l wish everyone present here today a fruitful and robust deliberation as we commit ourselves to make Equal Rights, Equal Opportunities, Progress for All a reality for the Nigerian state.
Thank you
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