By ESTHER ONYEGBULA

Olushola Akai is the Executive Director of Ajegunle Community project (ACP), a non governmental organisation borne out of the desire to give poor and disadvantaged women and youths the opportunity to stand for their rights and demand improved access to social, economic amenities without being discriminated or abused.

In line with this, ACP introduced array of programs including gender based and discrimination against women and girl-child, skill acquisitions, HIV/AIDS education, counseling legal aid and micro credit. In this interview, the Executive Director talks about the journey so far, the reason for increasing trend of gender based violence, the role of the society in curbing this ugly trend and other issues. Enjoy!!!

What’s the difference between the ACP  and other NGOs helping women?
There are many organisations that focus on gender issues and violence against women, but what makes ACP unique is the kind of people that we reach out to. We work with grassroot people, people in rural communities and vulnerable young girls and women.

What services do you provide for them?
We offer free legal services and counseling to youth and women who are victims of different forms of abuse. We provide empowerment for women through our skill acquisitions programmes, we also offer loans to women from ACP micro credit scheme. We also provide training and empowerment for women living with HIV/AIDS. We organize workshops on mobilization and sensitization of women on social issues like women’s rights, gender based violence, democracy and governance.

Our vision is to reduce social inequality among grassroots women and emancipate grassroots women from discriminatory practices like violence through enlightenment campaign education, legal protection and social economical issues.

We work in communities that are prone to notorious activities and filled with hardened criminals. We work with about 50 secondary schools, in Ajegunle community, Amuwo Odofin and Oshodi/ Isolo area. We chose Ajegunle because of its profile; high population density and living pattern; youths are exposed to lots of criminal activities. In order to make our youth programmes effective, we decided to set up ACP anti-violence clubs in about 50 schools in Ajeromi Ifelodun area, Amuwo Odofin and Oshodi Isolo local government areas.

Mrs Olushola Akai

The ACP anti-violence club was introduced in secondary schools as a platform for young girls to say no to premarital sex, sexual harassment, sexual violence, be assertive, and have negotiating skills, because we find out most of these girls don’t even know their left from their right. We carried out a survey in Ajegunle area and we found out that the rate of drop outs in these areas is so high.

The girls are dropping out of schools as a result of teenage pregnancy. We had to adopt the TOT training formula, training of trainers for each school, because we realized that we cannot train every one of them. So, we selected 16 students from each school and trained them and they went back to their schools to recruit and train more students into the club.

What were the benchmarks for selecting the areas you work with?
Before we chose these areas, we did a research and found out that some areas like Ajegunle is more prone to sex violence, rape, sexual harassment, and because of teenage pregnancy most young girls drop out of schools. In other areas like Amuwo Odofin, the rate of teenage pregnancy wasn’t that high. But in Oshodi/Isolo area, the rate was a bit on the high side but not as much as we have in Ajengule area.

How effective has ACP been?
Actually we have been able to tackle the issue of poverty within our capacity, through providing counseling, because we found out that it is not all women that need finance to start up their business. Some women have the finance but don’t know what to do. These set of people just need a little push in terms of counseling. We have also empowered a large number of women through our skill acquisitions programmes and our micro credit scheme.

Presently, violence against women seems on the rise. What could be the cause?
Actually what is responsible for the increasing rate of violence against women is the harsh economic situation of the country. Our democratic system is not favourable to the common Nigerian, and it is only favourable to those in political positions. The rate of women who are breadwinners in their homes is increasing. This invariably places such men in frustrating position. We have been  raised to accept that “the man is the head of the family” and even in the church we are told that a man who can’t provide for his family is worse than an infidel.

A man in this situation finds it difficult to come to terms when the wife becomes the main in the home. They begin to feel less  of a man, and irrelevant in their home.  Some see it as a dent on their pride, and a slight on their ego. And for some who can’t manage the situation properly, they begin to transfer aggression, demoralize the woman, and make her feel she is worth nothing instead of appreciating her effort. The case of the woman banker who was murdered by her idle husband is a terrible example of violence against women.

What can the society do to checkmate this hike in gender based violence?
With the law enacted on domestic violence against women by the Lagos state government, there is room for third party to report any case of violence to the police and police has a right to protect that person by not disclosing the identity of the third party. So what the society can do is to report any act of gender based violence being perpetuated in their community. They should not keep quiet because lives are involved.

Some say women encourage violence through their culture of silence….?
It is wrong for women who suffer domestic violence to maintain a culture of silence. The reason why a lot of women are dying silently is because they refuse to speak out. And the reason for gender based violence is because the women are not speaking out. It is better to speak out, tell people what you are going through and seek solution to address the issue, rather than die in silence. There are several shelters where women who suffer violence can go for assistance, like the Project Alert; the Lagos state government has a shelter for women as well.

What is the future of this project?
We intend to take this project out of Lagos to Delta state and to areas with high prevalence of gender based violence to the extent that people now see it as normal and a way of life. So in the next couple of years, this project will get to such areas. Also we would also work in the northern parts of the country, as we have identified that the peculiar gender issues in that area such as early marriage and a high rate of divorce which also has an increased level of VVF, is as a result of early marriage and childbirth. These are some of the future projects we intend to embark on.