By Onyewuchi Ojinnaka
Women all over the world celebrated their special day on Monday, which is globally known as International Women’s Day.
It is celebrated on March 8 of every year. It is a day set aside to celebrate women, their values, rights, achievements and aspirations.
It is a day marked with emphasis on gender equality, violence against women and girl child, a day set aside to challenge/remind women on their roles as mothers, women empowerment and family values.
In Nigeria, the event was well celebrated across the 36 states and Abuja by various women organisations, Civil Society Organisations and Gender based groups.
In Lagos, a group known as Grassroot People and Gender Development Center, commonly known as GRADE, joined the global community to celebrate the 2021 edition of the International Women’s Day celebrated each year on the 8th of March.
The day celebrates the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women from all walks of life, while highlighting the day-to-day problems they face in the professional environment.
Women from every corner of the globe come together on March 8, which is also a call to action for accelerating gender parity.
Speaking at the event marking the day, the Executive director of GRADE, Mrs. Vivian Ifeoma Emesowum said the theme of this 2021 International Women’s Day is “Choose To Challenge”.
The theme calls on all women to raise their hands up and choose to challenge gender bias and inequality, gender based violence, gender patriarchy, gender discrimination and stigmatisation and rape.
Mrs. Emesowum said, “a challenged world is an alert world. Women should be alert to confront the challenges that are emerging in today’s world coupled with the COVID-19 crisis. Standing up to these challenges will bring about the desired change”.
Due to COVID-19 guidelines, the Spark Discussion event was hosted on Girls Corner WhatsApp Group with over 200 girls and women. Girls Corner, an initiative of GRADE was established during the COVID 19 lockdown to educate girls and women on the rising cases of violence and empower them with necessary life skills to be self alert and confident.
While discussing on the choices which women make, the guest speaker, Mrs. Oladiti Oyegoke challenged women to make choices that will yield positive impact for themselves and their children.
She added that the choices women make are as a result of decisions taken which could be due “to our upbringing, marriage, health, religion or social status. However, we need to challenge negative thoughts that could lead to wrong choices and build self esteem to make the right choices we need in life”.
Also, speaking at the event, Mrs. Vickie Onyekuru challenged every woman to choose successful career in life by developing positive mindset and belief in herself to change the narrative, stressing that “for us to succeed as mothers, we need to avoid distractions and plan schedules that will lead to success”.
Another guest speaker, Mrs. Jane Iyoke, said that choices women make are beneficial not to themselves alone but to the society, family, community and the world at all. She added that “our background, environment, relationships, friends and families determine the choices we make as mothers”.
She posited that some of the choices we can make are to be compassionate, supportive, diligent and choice to make sacrifices that will put our name on paper.
However, the last but not the least speaker Mrs Olabisi Mekwuye shared story of a family member who made the choice of resigning from her Airline job when she had the opportunity of traveling round the world to carter for her disabled son.
“That singular decision she made many years ago has counted. Her son became an Olympic Champion, representing Nigeria in the Special Olympics winning gold medals and carrying the Nigerian flag with pride all over the world.”
Mrs Mekwuye added that the choices mothers make are devoid of self-centeredness. They are usually choices that are long term and usually end up in the best interest of the other person, expressing that choices mothers make are usually sacrificial.