"What nonsense is this? A guy like Okuntimo should be given a chieftaincy title. The Ogonis should be grateful to him. The man is a fantastic soldier."...........more!
"I was at home getting ready to go to the waterside. I heard the soldiers so we all ran. My son forgot something so ran back to the house. The soldiers shot him dead in the stomach. They beat my husband and took him away with the chief, his borther" Ijaw woman from Kaiama.
WHO WE ARE
The Niger Delta Women for Justice (NDWJ) is a non-profit making, non-sectarian, civil society organisation, founded in December 1998. The organisation is a child of circumstance born out of 40 years of economic and environmental neglect of the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria, culminating in the militarisation of the region over the past 10 years and increased human rights violations.
NDWJ works in close collaboration with other grassroots organisations and women's groups in all of the 15 ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta. It is committed to improving the personal, economic and educational status of women and to ensuring that their environmental and human rights are upheld.
MISSION STATEMENT / VISION
NDWJ's vision is to facilitate the empowerment of disadvantaged women particularly those in rural areas, through programmes of participatory development. These programmes seek to transform all aspects of women's lives so that the women themselves begin to recognize their own potential and their rights and begin to speak through their own voices.
Programme Activities
The need for educational and income generating support for the women of the Niger Delta is tremendous. Women live in abject poverty and are subject to continued human rights violations from the Nigerian government and multinational oil companies. NDWJ aims to transform the lives of women through the following objectives:
Human Rights
To create an awareness amongst women about their human and environmental rights
To publicize human rights abuses through alerts, campaigns and partnerships with other organisations.
To encourage women in building up their confidence within their community.
To address issues on custom and religious practices that work to keep women in bondage.
Community Development
To strengthen women's potential to become self-reliant.
To increase the participation of women in the socio-economic development of their community in ways that can be sustained by them through their own efforts.
To promote networking, peer group learning and encourage mutual support between women of different ethnic nationalities in the Niger Delta.
Research and Information
To provide information on gender-related issues in education, health, income generation, finance, environmental damage, legal and human rights.
To undertake research to uncover and disseminate information on the realities of women's lives.
To document women's experiences and share lessons learned through exchange visits with organisations in neighbouring countries:
To monitor and asses the impact of NDWJ programmes.
