Environment

Professor Binta Abdulkarim was born on February 10, 1956, in Anchau, a town east of Zaria, in Kaduna State, northern Nigeria. She is the Coordinator of Gender Studies, at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and is also Director of Girl Child Education there. She received her degree in Geography from Ahmadu Bello University and along with her leadership role in Gender Studies at ABU which began in 2003, she teaches courses in the Department of Geography and in the Faculty of Science Education. Her special interest in the education and well-being of women at ABU has led to her participation in ASUU (the Academic Staff Union of Universities) as financial secretary, in the National Association of University Women (Nigeria), and in the federal Anti-Corruption Unit, as the university representative who oversees sexual harassment cases at Ahmadu Bello University. She is also an active participant in the World Association of Victimology and has attended association meetings in Nairobi, Amsterdam, and Nigeria, where she contributed to discussions of the victims of weather extremes and the after-effects of war.

Keywords: academia and women's studies, community activism, environment

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Abiola Akiyode-Afolabi was born in 1971 in Ilorin, Kwara State Nigeria. Akiyode-Afolabi studied law at the Obafemi Awolowo University. She received her LLM from the Notre Dame School of Law in the US and a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), the University of London where she specialized in women’s peace and security studies. In 2002, she established the Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC), a not-for-profit focused on maternal and reproductive health advocacy, gender-based violence, and social justice. She also teaches International Humanitarian Law at the University of Lagos. Akiyoda-Afolabi organized grassroot networks connecting women in Nigeria. Such networks have been established in colleges across Nigeria. Read #Womanifesto: What Nigerian Women Want, an important document in Nigerian women’s movement efforts that Akiyode-Afolabi collaborated on, here.

Keywords: academia and women's studies, community activism, environment

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video

Urvashi Butalia, born in 1952, is a co-founder of Kali for Women, India's first feminist publishing house. She has worked as an editor at the Oxford University Press and Zed Press Books and taught publishing at Delhi University. She has won several awards, among them the Nikai Asia Prize for Culture (2003) and the Pandora Women in Publishing Award (2000).
Keywords: environment, media, academia and women's studies, art/writing as activism, intersectionality
Media: Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio

Teruko Karikome, founder and former Executive Director (2007~2019) of NPO Women’s Space Fukushima (https://www.npo-womensspacefukushima.com/, formerly, Association Supporting Women’s Independence), Koriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture. She has long and extensive experience promoting women’s rights and wellbeing including previously serving as the Director of the Koriyama City’s Maternal and Child Welfare Center. Following the Great East Japan Disaster in 2011, her NPO managed “Women’s Space” in the biggest evacuation shelter in Fukushima, and continues to operate programs such as telephone counseling, support groups, and workshops on gender-based violence, while advocating for policy attention to women in Fukushima. Although she stepped down from the Executive Director, she continues to be actively involved in the growing program activities of Women’s Space Fukushima.  

Keywords: environment, gender-based violence, reform of domestic/family roles, community activism

Media: Transcript (English, Japanese), YouTube Video (Japanese, English Subtitles)

Heidi Meinzolt-Depner is a language teacher, engaged since the 1970s in the peace movement and transnational political activism. She is a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and she focuses on alternatives to traditional 'security' politics. She was one of the co-founders of the Greens in Bayern. From 1987 to 1991, she became regional spokeswoman for the Greens in Bayern, as part of the Alliance 90/The Greens coalition. During her political career within the Greens, she took on multiple roles, including as spokesperson for the Bavarian state association and for regional and national task forces on European and peace politics. She was board member of the European Greens, as well as district chair and candidate to the German and European Parliaments. She left the Greens Bayern in 2001 after 19 years, to focus on her engagement on other initiatives and in NGOs.

Keywords: politics and the law, education

Media: Transcript (English, German), Video, YouTube Video (English, German), Name Pronunciation Audio

Olanike Olugboji, born in 1974, is the founder/director of Women’s Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE). While attending elementary and high schools at Command Children’s School and Federal Government College Kaduna, respectively, she developed the habit of picking up litter. Following her education in technology and urban and regional planning, she began pursuing her dream of working towards a sustainable, clean and safe environment while supporting women’s health and empowerment, through the clean cookstoves initiative. Ms. Olugbogi hopes to contribute to producing a younger generation of Nigerians that is more committed to nurturing their environment through the Women’s Initiative for Sustainable Environment (WISE).

Keywords: environment, community activism, education

Media: Name Pronunciation Audio, Transcript, Video, YouTube Video