Gee! I’m so excited!
Pardon my manners. Hello, you’re welcome to Girl Power Afrique.
As a young and inquisitive young African woman, I can’t say I haven’t been intrigued by the happenings around the globe, especially concerning women and girls, over the years. All around the world, although women face a wide range of challenges, it has been interesting to watch and hear stories of women who have risen above the challenges they face, to become household names. Talk about the likes of Bonang Matheba,Graça Machel, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Aya Chebbi, Angélique Kidjo, etc.
African women have always been active in agriculture, trade, and other economic pursuits, but a majority of them are in the informal labor force. African women are guardians of their children's welfare and have explicit responsibility to provide for them materially. They are the household managers, providing food, nutrition, water, health, education, and family planning to an extent greater than elsewhere in the developing world.
This places heavy burdens on them, despite developments such as improved agriculture technology, availability of contraception, and changes in women's socioeconomic status, which one might think would have made their lives easier. In fact, it would be fair to say that their workload has increased with the changing economic and social situation in Africa. Women's economic capabilities, and in particular their ability to manage family welfare, are being threatened.
Most African women, in common with women all over the world, face a variety of legal, economic and social constraints. Some laws still treat them as minors. In Zaire, for instance, a woman must have her husband's consent to open a bank account. Women are known to grow 80 per cent of food produced in Africa, and yet few are allowed to own the land they work.
It is often more difficult for women to gain access to information and technology, resources and credit. Agricultural extension and formal financial institutions are biased towards a male clientele' despite women's importance as producers (this has spurred the growth of women's groups and cooperatives which give loans and other help). Women end up working twice as long as men, 15 to 18 hours a day, but often earn only one tenth as much. With such workloads, women often age prematurely.
So, although women play an important role in African society, they suffer legal, economic and social constraints.
In addition to all these, are various practices that harm women and girls, including, female genital mutilation/cutting, widowhood practices, breasts ironing, violence, to mention a few.
But I believe that together and supporting one another, we can rise above these challenges and be the best we can be.
Hence, the idea of GPA! Here, we inspire, support and look out for each other and as a result, grow together.
Please note that I don’t consider women to be in any form of competition with the men folk. I am simply of the opinion that everybody should be given equal opportunity to shine in their own way, irrespective of gender.
On this note, I say, welcome aboard!
Ogechi Vinaprisca Amadi
Founder, GPA
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