‘Women influential in rise of Christianity’

A band of forgotten women were hugely influential in the rise of Christianity, a five-year study has found, NaijaAgroNet can authoritatively report.

Professor Kate Cooper of The University of Manchester, told NaijaAgroNet, their contribution has been neglected by the mainstream churches in her new book released this August.

NaijaAgroNet gather that the study identified dozens of forgotten Christian women who were influential in the first and second centuries, during a period when Christianity was - in some respects - more progressive towards women than today.

According to Professor Cooper, women played a central role in spreading the new Christian faith through informal friendship and family networks.

Their authority within Christian communities was earned through their role as parents, community organizers, and small business owners.

One, Lydia the Purple-seller of Philippi remembered in the Bible’s Book of Acts, was the first person to sponsor St Paul.

Another woman, Perpetua, who lived in Carthage at the end of the second century, was famous at the time for refusing to denounce her faith, choosing martyrdom against her father’s wishes.

Her diary, written while she awaited execution in prison, was a radical document which would be seen in today’s world as extreme and very unlike the official Christian views of what the Christian woman should be, says Professor Cooper.

One of the most important, she says, is Thecla of Iconium, believed by second century Christians to have been one of St Paul’s disciples.

Referring to the ‘Acts of Paul and Thecla’, an anonymous second century text, Professor Cooper shows how Thekla rebelled against her family to refuse marriage - an unthinkable act at the time.

“Though there is no certain evidence that Thecla existed, her story was hugely influential in the first few hundred years of early Christianity,” said Professor Cooper.

“The influence of her story was far-reaching, in that it became the root of the Catholic theology of chastity and virginity.

“Every major Christian male writer in the fourth century had a sister, and these young women were encouraged to follow Thecla’s example. Rather than criticizing her for disobeying her mother, the early Church celebrated her courage.

“Christianity was quite revolutionary in the way it treated its women, especially when you realise how sexist the ancient world was.

“So it’s sad that Thecla and her contemporaries are not properly remembered and honoured today. They should be an inspiration: for example to the people campaigning for women bishops and priests.”

Women, says Professor Cooper, regularly preached the gospel in the first two centuries of Christianity, and in some communities women carried out baptisms.

It wasn’t until the Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity, in around 313 AD, the religion became institutionalised: male bishops were now government officials and women came to be seen as players in the background rather than public figures.

Professor Cooper added: “These women – saints who had a radical and powerful presence in the early church – have been hidden in plain sight.

“Many Gospel stories, for example – such as the story of Mary and Martha in the Gospel of Luke – can tell us far more about women’s role if we stop to pay close attention – something male writers have not done.

“The ancient sources mention the women, but over time less and less attention was given to their role. Really, they have been airbrushed out of history.

“It is quite sad that a religion which began with a mother and her wonderful baby should still have so much difficulty with remembering to honour the contribution of its women.”

Correspondent/NaijaAgroNet 
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Gender issues: NEPAD v. GIZ mark women day with football match

Two women’s soccer teams from the African Union’s NEPAD Agency and the German Development Agency (GIZ), would clash this afternoon in a special soccer tournmanment aimed at raising awareness of Gender issues.

NaijaAgroNet gathered that former Banyana Banyana star, Keneilwe Mathibela would be at hand to give the women support, in the amateur game which kicks off at 14:00 at the CSIR sports field in Pretoria.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that this is the second time the two teams will meet in a match that was first played last August 9, to mark National Women’s month.

NEPAD says the aim of the tournament in addition to enhancing the partnership between GIZ and NEPAD is to highlight the important work the two organisations are doing to promote women’s empowerment.

Among the several interventions and programmes NEPAD’s involved in, is support through the Gender Spanish Fund which promotes women’s empowerment via partner-led projects in west and southern African regional economic groups, ECOWAS and COMESA regional groups.

On behalf of the German Government, GIZ has been supporting the NEPAD in implementing its agricultural programme CAADP, since 2007. The emphasis of GIZ’s support is on policy advice, agricultural training and on adapting agriculture to the consequences of climate change. Other support to NEPAD is for infrastructure, both development aspects that have a bearing on women’s uplifting

The two teams will compete for a trophy in a match that will be attended by staff from organisations, friends and family as well as the media.

Staff Correspondent/NaijaAgroNet

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Solar empowerment for Nigerian women

Women @ the Training Workshop

          The need to empower Nigerian women, especially in the area of technical know-how for solar lanterns and mobile phone chargers as shown by Solar Jooce and partners, is an encouraging initiative that deserves commendation and support, writes REMMY NWEKE.

When you educate a woman, you educate a nation,” those were probably the words of the elders, which have continued to be relevant now and in the future.

The above quote has become a mantra of sort for women advocacy groups and even some men right activists, women in many countries have been often than not classified as bulk of every population, yet women comprise the largest marginalized group in Sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank’s statistical analysis on African gender programmes.

In spite of the fact that the economic empowerment for women has formed topics of discussion at various women economic programmes and also as a Millennium Development Goal (MDG), remain unresolved to a large extent.

DigitalSENSE News recalls that recently during this year’s Women and Girls in ICT Day, the Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Dr. Hamadoun I. Touré emphasized on ITU Plenipotentiary Resolution 70 of 2010, which instituted fourth Thursday of April annually to be Women and Girls ICT Day.

He noted that women are the bedrock of the societies and pillars of strength in every family as well as the community. Yet, gender inequalities remain deeply entrenched. Pointing out that women and girls are denied access to basic health care and education and equal opportunities at work. 

 

Additionally, Dr. Toure said, women face segregation in economic, political and social decision-making and often suffer violence and discrimination, declaring that this situation is unacceptable and must be addressed with all the means available to ITU, including technologies.

Thus experts at renewableenergyworld.com, classified renewable energy technologies to include solar, wind power, geothermal, bio-energy, hydro-power, ocean, hydrogen and fuel cells alongside other supportive energy systems.

Obviously in line with such a call by ITU boss, the management of Solar Jooce Nigeria, recently entered into a deal with the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) to empower women with practical training on solar devices.

In an interview with the project coordinator for Solar Jooce, Anne Agbakoba, said in Lagos that Solar Jooce is a social enterprise dedicated to improving the quality of life of rural communities in Nigeria that have little or no access to electricity.

She also said that the recently concluded first phase of training of some rural Oyo women, who received training on how to repair basic solar lanterns and phone charging units.

She pointed out that this follows the sealing of the deal to train these rural women in Oyo State between the Executive Director, BATN Foundation, Mr. Gbenga Ibikunle and the chief executive officer, Solar Jooce, Mr. David Agbakoba.

The Solar Jooce boss, Mr. Agbakoba was quoted as saying that of the world’s 1.6 billion people living without electricity, 80 per cent live in Sub Saharan Africa.

Women @ the Training Workshop

Agbakoba, revealed to DigitalSENSE News that the main objective of the agreement in its pilot stage was to train an initial 20 rural ladies to become solar technicians and to help them set up solar micro-business.

This, she said, has kicked-off with the training which covers four local governments in Oyo State, namely Itesiwaju, Kajola, Oyo West, and Iseyin. The exercise, she said, is meant to empower the ladies to light up their communities and spread the use of solar as an alternative to dangerous and expensive fossil fuelled lighting such as the kerosene lamps.

She also confirmed to DigitalSENSE News that the initiative would be moved to other states across the federation with the collaboration of British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation, an independent charitable organization incorporated in Nigeria with the vision to improve the quality of life of citizens in rural and urban in Nigeria.

Equally, she explained that the initiative entails a marketing and financial management training entitled ‘Growing your new solar Micro-business’ which was conducted in Yoruba by Mrs. Yemi Owolabi, executive director, Finance of Standard Chartered Bank, Nigeria.

Head Trainer at the session and a Kenyan, Mr. Momanyi Oreri said he was delighted to have come to Nigeria under an Africa-Africa co-operation. He was amazed by how fast the rural women - illiterate, semi literate and literate; grasped the concept of diodes, resistors among others and were able to produce lanterns in four weeks.

One of the lady trainees, Mrs. Musiliu Olaitan, fondly called ‘Alhaja-Jesu’ because she recently converted from Islam to Christianity, said she was an illiterate but the training had given her the confidence to feel like a literate, that is to say, she could now do the impossible, and an opportunity to start a lucrative solar micro-business.

The Solar Jooce women’s empowerment initiative, DigitalSENSE News gathered, is a small step in the frightening task of providing a clean, alternative source of electricity, alleviating poverty, and providing opportunities for rural families in Nigeria.

Also, DigitalSENSE News recalls that the training workshop supported by the Hertz Corporation, C & I Leasing (transport & logistics), Sesema PR and the Bishop of Ajayi Crowther Diocese, Bishop O. O. Oduntan, is the first phase of the initiative, which consist of massive awareness creation about the use and benefits of solar applications through the donation of combined solar lantern and phone charging unit to a community in the 36 states of the country.

Ms Agbakoba further revealed that the second phase has been structured to be a long-term capacity building scheme to train women in the assembling and troubleshooting solar applications in order for them to be able to start their own small solar trade with its first pilot in June 2012.

As we look forward to the second, which is likely to produce another round of at least, 20 rural women participant at the end, it’s important that the organization gets support to deliver on its promise of taking the project across all the six geo-zones in the country.

If nothing else, these women should be encouraged by at least patronage from their communities of the lanterns assembled by them and given the opportunity to fix them when at fault. That way, they may not only be improving on their technical expertise of the solar tools, but have the courage to employ other women in their communities with adequate empowerment.

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Solar Jooce, BATNF train women solar technicians

Women at the training exercise

          In a bid to reduce unemployment among women in Nigeria, Solar Jooce and British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation (BATNF) have concluded the first phase of training of the some rural Oyo women on assemblage and repairs of basic solar lanterns and phone charging units.

This follows the recent signing of an agreement to train these rural women in Oyo State and sealed between the Executive Director, BATN Foundation, Mr. Gbenga Ibikunle and the chief executive officer, Solar Jooce, Mr. David Agbakoba.

Speaking on the development, Solar Jooce boss, Mr. Agbakoba noted that of the world's 1.6 billion people living without electricity, 80 per cent live in Sub Saharan Africa.

Solar Jooce, a social enterprise dedicated to improve the quality of life of rural communities in Nigeria that have little or no access to electricity, through its coordinator, Anne Agbakoba, revealed to NaijaAgroNet that the main objective of the agreement in its pilot stage was to train an initial 20 rural ladies to become solar technicians and to help them set up solar micro-business.

This, she said, has kicked-off with the training which covers four local governments in Oyo State, namely Areas in Oyo state - Itesiwaju, Kajola, Oyo West, and Iseyin. The exercise, she said, is meant to empower the ladies to light up their communities and spread the use of solar as an alternative to dangerous and expensive fossil fuelled lighting such as the kerosene lamps.

She also confirmed to NaijaAgroNet that the initiative would be moved to other states across the federation with the collaboration of British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation, an independent charitable organization incorporated in Nigeria with the vision to improve the quality of life of citizens in rural and urban in Nigeria.

Women at the training exercise 

Equally, she explained that the initiative entails a marketing and financial management training entitled ‘Growing your new solar Micro-business’ was conducted in Yoruba by Mrs. Yemi Owolabi, executive director, Finance of Standard Chartered Bank, Nigeria.

The Solar Jooce women’s empowerment initiative, NaijaAgroNet gathered, is a small step in the daunting task of providing a clean, alternative source of electricity, alleviating poverty, and providing opportunities for rural families in Nigeria.

NaijaAgroNet recalls that the training workshop is also supported by the Hertz Corporation, C & I Leasing (transport & logistics), Sesema PR, and the Bishop of Ajayi Crowther Diocese, Bishop O. O. Oduntan.

The first phases of the initiative was a massive awareness creation about the use and benefits of solar applications through the donation of combined solar lantern and phone charging unit to a community in the 36 states of the country.

Further, the second phase, NaijaAgroNet gathered is a long-term capacity building scheme which to train women in the assembling and troubleshooting solar applications in order for them to be able to start their own small solar trade with its first pilot in June 2012.

Remmy Nweke

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Capacity trends in Nigeria’s agro value chain

Ordinarily, a value chain depicts a chain of activities for a firm operating in a particular industry, like agriculture.

Typically, the agriculture activities very often start with the search for seedlings, followed by the fertilizer acquisition after the clearing of farm lands, only then can the seedlings be planted.

Nowadays, there are various sets of people who specialize in various farming including clearing of lands and in the eastern Nigeria, those are known as the ‘Abakalikis.’ They are also useful during the harvest seasons, according to Madam Okwy, rice farmer at Awba-Ofemili in Anambra State.

She says, another value chain of note are those who put the seedlings on the grounds or cleared farm land for such purposes and those usually coming from neighbour towns, where either wages for farm workers are very low or lack the relevant arable lands. These set of workers go to their home towns as soon as the planting season is over, but once its harvest time, they return.

The food industry has been severally described as a complex, and a collection of diverse businesses that congregate to supply much of the food energy consumed by the world population.

Therefore, it is pertinent to state that though subsistence farmers; those known to grow for self or mere family survival could be considered outside of the scope of the modern food industry, because their original plan was not to engage in large scale farming for commercial purposes.

So, food industry  could be rightly said to involve several stages including regulation at different levels; be it local, regional, national and international rules and regulations for food production and sales, consist of food quality and food safety, and industry lobbying activities.

And to unlock the potential of agriculture to create jobs, the Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, disclosed that there is need to engage the energy, dynamism and entrepreneurship of the youth.

Adesina said that the President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration no longer treats agriculture as a development programme, declaring that the goal of the government is to treat agriculture as a business and to make the nation an agriculturally industrialized economy.

To this end, he said that under the Agricultural Transformation Agenda, this administration intends to add some 20 million tonnes of food to the domestic food supply with the creation of 3.5 million jobs in all the agriculture value chains before the end of year 2015.

Subsistence farming, he noted, is not viable to feed a nation, hence the importance of expanding the level of use of tractors in the country to boost the agriculture investment by small, medium and large scale farmers.

According to him, agriculture sector is the fastest in terms of employment generation, thus has the capacity to change the trend of economic growth in the country.

Adesina in his remarks at the Ekiti State’s Youth in Commercial Agribusiness Development Programme recently, noting that Governor Kayode Fayemi’s decision to involve the state’s youth in agriculture deserves commendation.

To raise the level of use of improved seeds, Adesina said his Ministry financed the entire seed supply for the country which amounts to N2.7 billion for the 2012 season, adding that the finance, is not from the government but the use of guarantees for banks to lend to seed companies.

Also, he affirmed that the Federal Government was able to secure financing for the supply of fertilizers for 2012, at the level of N27 billion from commercial banks using guarantees from the Ministry of Finance.

In a related development an agreement to establish and implement an agricultural development project was signed by Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) and Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO).

Alhaji Muhammad Nadada Umar, SMEDAN Director-General said the agreement, tagged SMEDAN-VSO Agro-Enterprise Project, is to engage women and youths between the ages of 18 and 35 years in agrobiz.

NaijaAgroNet learnt at the signing session that the agreement combines expertise of both bodies would add tremendous value to the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and the nation’s economy.

The pilot programme, Umar revealed would be established in four states; Nasarawa, Ondo, Kaduna and Cross Rivers States. Pointing out, “Our organizations both share the same values in respect of assisting disadvantaged people. SMEDAN, as a gender-sensitive organization, with our high level of professionalism, has a lot to offer to this nation.”

It was not surprising therefore that a multi-million Naira assembly plant was being targeted, a North American company, AGCO which specializes in manufacturing of agricultural equipments, in anticipation of Nigeria’s dream to grow the sector with 300,000 within the next three years.

AGCO, DigitalSENSE News gathered, offers a full product line including tractors, combines, hay tools, sprayers, forage equipment, groundscare and implements through more than 8,500 independent dealers and distributors around the world.

DigitalSENSE News investigations also revealed that AGCO is likely to provide this number of tractors through its worldwide retail financing scheme known as Agricredit joint venture.

Experts at Investopedia says joint venture is the cooperation of two or more individuals or businesses in which each agrees to share profit, loss and control in a specific enterprise. Describing it as a good way for companies to partner without having to merge and are typically taxed as a partnership.

Affirming this development, Dr. Adesina, emphasised that AGCO is the largest manufacturer of Marcy Ferguson tractors globally and that Federal Government has advanced strategies for the establishment of assembly plants in the country following a discussion with the manufacturer in April.

“Nigeria needs at least 300,000 tractors, to enable our youth to get into agriculture as a business,” he declared, pointing out that already the Nigerian government has concluded farmers’ census, while introducing an agric-wallet and employment of 36 agriculture directors, who have been deployed nationwide at the state capitals.

As we look forward to a better youth empowerment with all these laudable government programmes, it is high-time to walk the talk, while the Universities of Agriculture across the country should take up adequate research initiatives on agricultural related products for better production at the end of every farming season.

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