[APCPress] Local group says: Sectarian violence in Nigeria can be beaten

[Karen Higgs]

Dear friends in the press

APC first came into contact with the rural Nigerian group Fantsuam 
Foundation when they won the 2001 APC Africa Hafkin Prize. At the time, 
Fantsuam ran a small micro-credit scheme and had introduced computer 
training for their borrowers – though Kazanka Comfort who ran the 
foundation told us that her dream was to eventually see women in all the 
local communities linked up by email so that when there were outbreaks 
of sectarian violence the women could email each other and get help.

Since 2001 Fantsuam has taken technology far in their efforts to 
alleviate poverty. They've set up a high tech training academy and 
provide internet to thousands of people. Since 2004 they have been using 
GEM –APC's Gender Evaluation Methodology– to evaluate the extent to 
which they are changing the lives of women in their communities. In the 
latest outbreak of sectarian violence this week Fantsuam has had to help 
bury 287 dead – and they were almost all women and children.  In the 
month of Women's Day and at the same time as the UN Commission on the 
Status of Women is meeting in New York, Fantsuam sees the extension of 
GEM into the broader Nigerian community as a potential solution.

We thought this news may be of interest to you. There are contact 
details below.

Best
Karen

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GEM in Hard Times: Sectarian violence in Nigeria can be beaten

KAFANCHAN, NIGERIA Thursday March 11 (John Dada, Fantsuam Foundation) – 
Within a space of two months, from January, sectarian strife has ripped 
through our communities in Jos, Plateau State. The first violence was 
city-based and left hundreds of persons maimed or killed and livelihoods 
and homes destroyed. Then reprisal killings took over in the midnight 
hours of March 7 2010 attacking three rural communities. A mass burial 
took place the day before yesterday and body counts are close to three 
hundred with over 80% of them women and children.

It is ironic that in this month of the Celebration of Women’s Day, such 
atrocities are being visited on innocent women and children.

We had a GEM story of change [stories which illustrate the impact GEM 
has had on a particular person or community] to share about a young 
woman of 21,  Zugwai, and how she finally found the courage to use an 
existing grievance procedure to challenge sexual harassment in her place 
of work (the grievance procedure itself was an outcome of a GEM process 
in her organisation). Her courage was an eye opener for her colleagues 
and she reports that she has felt safer and more confident in her work 
since the issues were resolved, and that her male colleagues too had 
expressed appreciation to her for helping to stamp out a near-cultural 
acceptability of sexual harassment.

The recent violence visited on our communities however has challenged 
Fantsuam Foundation to re-examine Zugwai’s story of change and 
contextualise it.

Zugwai’s victory pales in significance when viewed through the prism of 
the expression of disdain, hostility and utter disrespect for women as 
seen in the recent massacres in Jos.

It has been a global experience that in war situations, the greatest 
casualties are always women and children: this was starkly brought home 
to us this week. In the midst of the anguish, weeping and wailing, I had 
the privilege of seeing the resilience of the women folk when a pregnant 
mother began to experience birth spasms. The women quickly mobilised and 
within a couple of hours a new baby was born in the Fantsuam compound, 
and the mother was well enough to go back home.

The tragedy of the recent killings in Plateau State runs deep, exposing 
a dying cultural value of the sacredness of human life and especially of 
the respect for women as givers of life. When a cultural reversal occurs 
as a result of deepening poverty, and economic alienation to the extent 
that the fabrics of communal sanity are destroyed, GEM takes on a deeper 
meaning.

GEM is a tool whose ultimate meaning is the preservation of human life 
and dignity. A community that loses that sense of sanctity of human life 
is clearly on a suicide slope. When women who are culturally regarded 
and respected as sources of life are brutally murdered along with young 
children, the future of entire communities and nation is truncated.

To espouse GEM principles therefore demands a re-examination of the 
basic values of equitable living. No community can thrive on inequity 
for long; when traditional values that enhance equity are jettisoned, 
there are no winners and the entire nation suffers irreparable damage to 
its psyche and its corporate existence.

It is no longer sufficient for Fantsuam Foundation to be satisfied that 
it has mainstreamed gender, and have individual stories of change to 
share, we have to take a long and hard look at the social milieu in 
which we operate.

Given the socio-cultural realities of our host communities, we are now 
asking how can we get GEM fast-tracked and deployed in the larger 
communities? GEM has become for us a lifeline, a distant ray at the end 
of the tunnel, to get our communities out of this quagmire.


Nigerian survivors recall Jos massacre (BBC News) 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8561748.stm

John Dada, Fantsuam Foundation talks about GEM http://vimeo.com/9067233
Email: johndada at fantsuam.org
Mobile: 234 (0) 802-782-0332

Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Evaluation_Methodology
http://www.apc.org/en/projects/gem
GEM is an evaluation methodology that integrates a gender analysis into 
evaluations of initiatives that use information and communication 
technologies (ICTs) for social change. It provides a means for 
determining whether ICTs are worsening or really improving women’s lives 
and gender relations, as well as for promoting positive change at the 
individual, institutional, community and broader social levels.

Fantsuam Foundation http://www.fantsuamfoundation.org

END