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A skills
acquisition programme with the aim of empowering women begins today at
the Didi Museum Delta in Ogbe-Obi, Delta State. Organised in
conjunction with Ijedi Women Association, the programme ends with a
lecture and exhibition at the same venue on August 13. The exhibition
will showcase works produced by participants over the three days of the
training.

In a press briefing
held on August 4, owner and Manager of Didi Museums, Elizabeth Jibunoh,
explained the vision behind the training programme and exhibition.
According to her, it derives from two needs: the need to help provide a
means of living for the indigent women of Delta state; and the need to
revive the Akwa Ocha (white cloth) – a handmade fabric, which in her
words “had begun to be seen as relics of history.”

Reviving Akwa Ocha

Fabric, she said,
is one produce that will always find a market, “To cover what God has
given us is something so primary to every man, woman and child.” And
hand-woven cloth is considered particularly valuable: “Hand woven cloth
is one of the most expensive fabrics you can get. Mechanised fabric is
two a penny.” She also enumerated the uniqueness of the fabric, “No two
people can weave the Akwa Ocha the same way, it bears the signature of
the weaver; and therefore, no two fabrics are the same.”

Modeling the
fabric, Jibunoh explained that it is expensive ceremonial material that
costs about 40,000 naira. As a result of her interest in the continued
existence of the fabric, she went into its production five years ago;
and found interestingly, that her weavers were able to complete, in
just four days, an attire that had usually taken local weavers a time
span of four months to produce.

With this
realisation, Jibunoh saw an avenue to empower and enrich the female
youth and adult; and provide them with an opportunity to rise above
their status and become self sustaining individuals. “I took this
traditional thing back to the youth as a way of helping them realise
that it is not only oil money or the sales of recharge cards that can
cater for them financially.”

Underscoring her
concern for her people, she illustrated the handicap organisations like
hers have to address. “There are teenage mothers everywhere in Delta,
birthing babies from age 12 and walking aimlessly about; by the time
they are 25 years, they are spent. This dismal situation is what I am
hoping to redress with this initiative,” said Mrs Jibunoh.

For the girl child

With the programme,
Jibunoh hopes to educate the girl child to empower herself. She
advised, “Let us make sure that our girls are educationally empowered
but remain in the rural setting.” She reminisced that “The best part of
my life has been spent in my village. Every Nigerian tells me their
villages are the best villages. If our villages are the best places,
what then are we doing here (Lagos)?”

She revealed that
it was this sentiment that convinced her to relocate Didi Museum
activities from Lagos where it had been for 30 years, to Delta State.
“If anyone is good, they have to start from home.”

She plans to employ
the Delta branch of her museum as a tool for establishing tourism and
improving the situation of its indigenes. And this, she identified as
the reason for the training programme, which she described as “our
first annual outing.”

55 participants
have been registered for introductory courses in fabric making, tie and
dye, bead making, sculpting, painting and computer training, among
other skills.

The first day will
incorporate registration of delegates and participants, and courtesy
visits to traditional rulers in Delta, immediately followed by the
training classes that will run until the third day when activities will
culminate in a lecture to be delivered by Dan Usifo, and an exhibition
and possibly sales of the items exhibited.

The training will
be undertaken on a competitive basis, as there will be awards and
prizes for top placed participants. The revenue from sales, Jibunoh
said, will go into funding other training projects, as the NGO has few
institutional sponsors yet. Despite the financial constraints though,
training is free for participants, “In a place where people are
financially challenged, it will be crazy to ask them to bring even five
naira. But we are soliciting support, and as a non-governmental agency,
that is the only way to go about it.”

Are efforts being
made to popularise the Akwa-Ocha Fabric, like its south-western
counterpart, the Aso-oke? Yes, she said, “I have held exhibitions at
the Didi Museum several times to sell the fabrics, and have often been
commissioned to provide the fabric for occasions such as weddings and
traditional ceremonies. Also, fabric such as the Akwa Ocha, the Akwete
and the Aso-oke are very similar; once you understand the art of
weaving, you can weave any of the fabrics, so weavers are not limited
to producing any one fabric.”

Concluding the press conference, Mrs Jibunoh decried the
government’s lack of support for developmental courses and the need for
private individuals to take up the initiative, “The government has the
responsibility to empower the rural areas and direct people back to
those places; but since we know that the government cannot help us, we
are doing it individually. And I’ll tell you what I am doing: I am
empowering people through creativity.”