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… Highlight Foundation’s Support for Equality, Social Inclusion and Environmental Justice
By Paul Williams
Community women in the Niger Delta, under the aegis of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, have joined the international celebration of Ford Foundation’s 65 years of promoting human development.
This was as the women, joined by civil society actors, government representatives, Persons Living with Disability and community leaders, at the Kebetkache-organised ‘Ford Foundation: Celebrating 65 Years of Justice and Solidarity’ in Port Harcourt on Wednesday November 26, 2025, described Ford Foundation’s work in West Africa and Nigeria as a beacon of light and hope for the actualisation of women equality, social inclusion and environmental justice in the embattled Niger Delta.
Executive Director of Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Dr. Emem Okon, in an address on the theme of the event, ‘Feminism and Societal Development,’ said, support from Ford Foundation has enabled the organisation to build the capacity of “women rising for resource justice in the Niger Delta.”
She explained that, “Since the beginning of this month, in all the countries in West Africa where Ford has had intervention, Ford Foundation is being celebrated. Kebetkache, as one of the grantees of Ford Foundation, is joining this celebration.
“We are celebrating 65 years of promoting social justice, democracy and good governance, community development, gender justice, peace and security, and women’s inclusion in natural resource governance,” she said.
Dr. Okon said Kebetkache started working with Ford Foundation in 2018, adding that Ford “has supported us since then to build women grassroots leadership.”
This support, she said, has led to Kebetkache building the leadership capacities of over 5 000 community women leaders across the Niger Delta region. “These community women are also making impact creating changes in their own communities and also impacting and building a new generation of feminist leaders in the communities,” she said.
Dr. Okon recalled that, “When we started with Ford in 2018, we started creating awareness on Beneficial Ownership Disclosure and the Natural Resource Management Policy. Some observed that Kebetkache is a gender organization, Why don’t they work on the gender process? But the work we have done over the years is not just gender. It is gender intersecting with the environment, with Natural Resource Management, because this is something unique and peculiar about the Niger Delta where we are based and where we work.
“We observed a gap when it comes to natural resource management, campaigns for environmental justice in the Niger Delta and for resource control. Not that women were not part of it, but women’s contributions were not very visible. That was the gap we noticed, and we treated Kebetkache as a very important platform to give voice for community women to also speak about how the oil economy is affecting them.
“What we have done with Ford is build women leadership, advocate for inclusion, and as we can see today, not just inclusion of women, but young persons, and also persons with disability.
“We demand compensation (for impact of oil exploration) on women. Women should be the first to be considered for compensation. They have suffered, they have lost their traditional occupations (such as fishing and farming), and they have been displaced from their homes. They need alternatives and compensation,” she said.
Dr. Okon said the partnership with Ford Foundation “has done a lot. to strengthen the institutional capacity of Kebetkase and by strengthening the institutional capacity of Kebetkache it also strengthens the work that Kebetkache carries out in the communities in the Niger Delta specifically making the contributions of women at the community level to be more visible at the national level, at the international level and also creating that platform for community women to talk about their issues articulate their issues make their demands carry out activities to hold government and corporations accountable.”
Chief Constance Meju, publisher of National Point Newspaper and Kebetkache board member, said following the partnership between Ford Foundation and Kebetkache, “Now, we have women of the Niger Delta more empowered on how to live their lives, on how to adapt to climate change, on how to take care of their health, and how to speak up. We are pushing them to demand a space on the decision tables, whether in the family, in the community, in the state, and the nation.
“I want to thank Ford, because when Ford came, the impression was that Kebetkache was not big enough to be part of the Ford partnership. But over time, Ford has stood and helped Kebetkache to build its capacity. Today, the women of Niger Delta are happier, they are more developed, they are more exposed,” Chief Meju said.
Community women, Patience Osaro-ejiji, from Eleme, and Lezina Patrick, from Tai, both in Rivers State, said working with Kebetkache and Ford Foundation has impacted greatly on their lives, families and communities.
Osaro-ejiji said, “There has been a lot of capacity training for us. Ford has been so impactful on Kebetkache, and through Kebetkache, they have impacted on us.
“A lot of us, community women, before we got to know Kebetkache, we could not stand and speak for ourselves. But because of the capacity training, which have been so impactful, we too, in turn, are impacting our communities,” she said.
Lezina Patrick noted that impact of Ford Foundation in Tai Local Government Area of Rivers State, through Kebetkache, is so strong that it is felt in all the wards of the LGA.
“Ford Foundation is in all the communities in Taï, because when they empower Kebetkache, when they fund Kebetkache, Kebetkache in turn impacts on the community women by building their capacity, by making them to know their rights, by asking for their rights to be on the right table.
“Before this time we were not aware, we only hear environmental this, environmental that. We were thinking all those environmental problems were because of the sins we have committed before, witches or our mother-in-laws. We never knew that all those were because of water pollution, air pollution, gas-flaring and all. It was through Ford Foundation and Kebetkache we got to know that all those things are bad to our environment.
“So I want to thank Ford Foundation. I say kudos to them. They should keep their flag flying, they should keep empowering Kebetkache, so that Kebetkache can keep going to the remote communities to empower the women,” she said.
