Complete Integration and Emancipation of Women: Road Map to the Actualization of Millennium Development Goals” was the theme of the conference at the 2013 Women Advancement Forum in Johannesburg, South Africa on the 2nd of May, 2013. Women from all walks of life from all the African continents across the globe were in attendance and deliberations were very meaningful and worthwhile.
Mrs. Amosun who attended the conference explained that women emancipation would remain a mere slogan or at the peripheral of matters unless women are properly integrated into the society and given leadership role. We must adopt practical approaches by taking concrete steps to give adequate recognition to women and give them greater roles to perform in our quest to develop our society. This forum has given us the opportunity to ventilate our deeper thoughts and ideas with the hope of aggregating them for action plans and implementation,” she said.
The Wife of the Former Governor stated that gone are those days that women were happy to watch men put on their suits and head to the office, while they wear their house-coats, stay home and keep house. “Our women no longer desire to take the back seat or remain irrelevant or invisible like yesteryears,” she noted.
As a Guidance Counsellor by profession I would like to mention that while we wait to attain those leadership roles, we shouldn’t fold our hands and bow our heads in despair. I am a stickler for vocational training and believe that the best way to empower a woman or girl, besides education or in addition to education is to teach them a skill. If you have a skill you can survive if you are not lazy,” she said, adding that “you can perfect whatever skill it is you acquired and you will never be shoved aside or left behind. Your skill if perfected will be sought after, will feed you, will free you and will get you noticed and make you a force to be reckoned with in your locality or beyond,” Concerned about where the deliberations at the conference would go from here, the wife of the governor stressed that there was no excuse not to follow up on the deliberations of conferences like this, she highlighted the fact that “A lot of us attend conferences, make promises, resolutions and believe we have found solutions but on leaving the conferences all is lost and it becomes a wasted effort. May I suggest that we always remember to put a time frame or time limit for our set goals to be achieved.”
“We have to take a step further by nominating a few leaders among us to harness our expectations and desires and take them to the doorsteps of African leaders who will (with enough persuasion) act upon our requests.”
The conference happened to fall on Mrs. Amosun’s birthday and it was a beautiful moment when unknowingly to Mrs. Amosun, the women in attendance chose one of the tea breaks to transform the conference room into a birthday hall, hastily putting banners up and wheeling a birthday cake in! Mrs. Amosun was stunned, elated and appreciative when she walked back in, thinking they were reconvening only for cheers of ” Happy Birthday” to fill the room! She felt highly honored that such important women across the globe would go through so much effort to celebrate her birthday with her.
As if this wasn’t enough of a high point, on day 2 of the conference, during the awards night dinner, Mrs. Amosun was honored with an award, in recognition of her fulfilling and meeting the 7 millennium Development Goals, under Uplift Development Foundation, she again was highly touched and elated.
