WATCH (Women's Advocacy Through Cinema and Human Exchange) Project

The project is specifically designed to enable residents of low-income settlements to share their stories and challenges with the world through radio, film, press, and social media. WATCH therefore seeks to empower women to speak out for themselves, rather than speaking and advocating on behalf of women. For example, the campaign includes the production of documentary films that capture the personal stories of people living in urban poverty, highlighting the strengths displayed by the capital city's 'unsung' heroines to overcome day-to-day challenges. Videos that have been produced as part of the project include: 'Immunization Gap', which deals with the challenges of getting children immunised in the existing poor health system, and 'Water and Violence', which looks at why lacking access to water exposes women to violence.

WATCH is also implementing an advocacy campaign called "#55Days of Activism to End Urban Poverty in the FCT" (Federal Capital Territory). The campaign is linking the dual occasions of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (17 October 2016) and Human Rights Day (10 December 2016). For 55 days, the campaign team is mobilising public opinion through a variety of media channels including radio, print, and social media. The campaign targets are summarised in the petition "Step Down Poverty Step Up Human Rights" They were identified through a series of participatory needs assessments in four communities in the FCT, which includes Abuja and surrounding areas. The assessment sought to identify top priorities for action as identified by urban poor women and girls in the FCT, which include: 1) access to livelihoods; 2) access to water; 3) access to waste management and sanitation; 4) access to health care; and 5) access to education.

The petition urges all newly elected officials and administrators of the FCT to step up public service delivery to urban poor residents living in and around Abuja. Individuals and organisations are requested to sign up to show their support for the cause and to call on government to take action to address these urgent needs. Signatures are being gathered online as well as on paper to accommodate those who don’t have access to the internet. Instruction to gather hard copy signatures can be downloaded here.

The MIND Facebook page highlights some of the campaign activities related to this petition, as well as other media activities.

In addition, WATCH is working with the media to support the production of stories that amplify the voices of the city’s poor. The project is also organising mobile cinema screenings that give people in low-income neighbourhoods access to high-quality films to spark bottom-up dialogues on gender and urban poverty.

Gender, Poverty, Health, Education, and Water and Sanitation.

Rationale for the project:
"Just like many countries across the world, Nigeria is rapidly urbanising. About half of the country’s overall population is estimated to live in urban areas today. Abuja and its rapidly growing satellite towns are spearheading the country’s urbanisation rates: the capital city is estimated to be one of the fastest growing cities across the world. According to the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Muhammed, the population of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is expected to rise from five million in 2013 to 10 million in 2018."

In addition, "the influx of people in the FCT is accelerated by streams of internally displaced people running away from the continued severe violence in various parts of the country – including Boko Haram- inflicted violence in Nigeria’s northern states and ethnic conflicts and tensions between agriculturalists and pastoralists in the east/middle belts of the country. The rapid growth of squatter settlements in and around the city is putting excessive pressure on public facilities across the FCT."  For this reason, the WATCH project aims to draw attention to the urgent need to allocate adequate resources to improve the standards of living in low-income settlements across the FCT. "Unless people’s basic needs are being met - including their basic rights to water, food, secure housing, health care, and education - social tensions soon may accelerate around Abuja."

MIND is a Nigerian non-profit organisation that seeks to strengthen the public voices of groups who rarely have a chance to air their views in public - including women and girls. They equip people with research tools to examine their own situation and give them access to media skills and platforms to share their perspectives.