Group encourages women to embrace creative arts
By Aderogba George
A group of ladies on a platform tagged “A Woman With A Story (AWWAS), has begun efforts to encourage their fellow women to tell their life experiences/stories through creative arts.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the whole idea is about imbibing “creative expression and creative therapy” on women who have been abused and are dealing with emotional trauma.
The ladies, during their visit to Ushafa Pottery Centre, FCT, Abuja, where indigenous women are known for making local pots, stated that the idea was an initiative of Dankauna Foundation.
Miss Haye Okoh, the Project Coordinator for AWWAS, stated that the association intended to achieve an Africa where there would be no hiding place for any form of victimisation of women.
She said that AWWAS encouraged women to use different forms of creative expression like illustrative dance, photography, writing and other forms of creative arts to tell their emotional stories.
“So this year we are focusing on pottery as our creative arts because we know that pottery itself is a history marker.
“A lot of tribes and culture have used potteries to tell stories about their tribes, about their cultures, about different things that happened in their lives.
“So there are different tribes that have events that can be recounted on pieces of pot or ceramics; so we come here to Ushafa today to appreciate their craft.
“Ushafa women are known for pottery, their women are known to be potters, so we have come to do sort of fusion or a union between what we do as ours and what they do as potters.
“We are here to tell them that it is not just about making pots beautiful, but they must apply the techniques of story telling to their pots, to their creative arts.
“Expression of story on the pots whether good or bad gives the pots more value and makes it more long lasting,” she stressed.
She said that AWWAS was currently having discussion with some relevant organisations who were into dealing with domestic abuse against women, so that it could reach out to its targeted audience.
Mrs Tracy Isaac, the founder of Business Academy Africa, a partner with AWWAS, encouraged the women to continue the good work and make it more skillful and lively for the generation unborn.
Isaac who is also the initiator of “Sheboss”, a project meant to encourage women businesswise, appreciated the pottery women for possessing a unique and unusual skill.
According to her, the women have unusual and unique way of expressing their culture and heritage through the pot making.
She said it was important they kept pushing and showing the world the version of themselves.
She said that the pot making was a sort of expression, unlike the other crafts, adding that local pots was still one of the crafts that still had some history and story behind its production.
She disclosed that local pots production had been a craft passed down from one generation to another, adding that the craft must be kept and made more lively.
“The current reality of the world now is that the world is evolving, your customers don’t really come to you anymore, you have to go to your customers.
“This women have unusual and unique way of expressing their culture and heritage, so it is important that they keep pushing, and showing the world the version of themselves.
“Business Academic Africa, we are partnering with AWWAS; we come here on a needs assessment base; we have seen the women and we have understood their pains/points.
“Now we will go back and seat with other team members and create a programme that will allow them to create solid businesses; Sheboss is helping female community entrepreneurs to solve problems In their community.
“One of the ways that we can help them is by giving them the means to be seen globally so that their arts can be shared by people here and people outside, and if they are able to make that, they will make more money,” she said. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Idris Abdulrahman
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