ERA/FoEN Empowers 30 Women In Edo Community

The Environmental Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has empowered 30 women, whose environment has been impacted by activities of multinational corporations.
The Interim Administrator, ERA/FoEN, Rita Uwaka, said at a one-day workshop for the women that the empowerment was aimed at supporting the women from impacted communities.
Uwaka said the support would come through a structured learning and healing programme that would equip them with information on environmental issues, their rights, and their struggles with support for alternative livelihood options.
The one-day workshop with theme: ‘Promoting Solidarity Economy. Building Resilience,’ attracted women from than 15 communities spread across six local government areas of Edo State. The women were trained on snail farming, mushroom cultivation, and soap making, with the potential to grow into a thriving local economy powered by women.
Uwaka, who lamented that the impact of deforestation and industrial plantation expansion in the Niger Delta region has impacted every aspect of life, said this makes it more necessary to train and empower the women, whom she described as most affected, on alternative sources of livelihood.
“Women in these communities are particularly vulnerable, facing violence, disruptions to their livelihoods, health hazards, displacement, and increased gender inequalities. This workshop addresses these challenges by providing a supportive learning, healing, and empowerment environment,” she said.
According to her, “The once lush forests that provided for us are disappearing, taking with them resources that have sustained us for generations. We face challenges in providing for our families, accessing clean water, and in holding onto traditions that are rooted in the land. These are not just environmental losses; they are also social and economic ones.”
She expressed her organisation’s commitment to building a solidarity economy where every impacted community woman has skills, resources, and a support network that values her contributions and ensures her sustainability.
According to Uwaka, the workshop was not just to train the women but also to “provide a safe space for emotional healing, resilience building, and a collective solidarity economy for women impacted by deforestation and land grabs for industrial plantation expansion in Edo State.”
The Interim Administrator, while assuring the women that they would not be left alone after the training, disclosed that “a modest grant will be given to all impacted women by Environmental Rights Action.”
Uwaka stated, “Women’s rights are human rights; Plant Actions are not Forests. People Before Profit. We are Hurting. Save Our Forests. Avert Climate Crisis.”
Giving testimony on how her community has been impacted and suffered, Deborah Omoruyi of Ora community said, “Multinationals took over our farm, now we don’t have land to farm. We go to other communities to rent land for as high as N70,000 to farm. And once you delay in renewing your rent, they threaten you with quit notice.”
Osaremen Jimoh, from Odiguetue community also lamented that due to deforestation and industrial plantation expansion, they have no land to farm, adding that this is their major livelihood.
For Esther lguodala, from Ekuosa community in Ikpoba-Okha local government area, their farms had been taken over by Fulani herdsmen. She said when they plant, before the time of the harvest, cows would enter the farms and consume the crops.
Mrs. Iguodala said governments was not helping them to secure their land but was rather leaving them to suffer untold hardship.