A voice for widows
BY CHIGOZIE UDEMEZUE
As a lawyer and someone with a keen focus on providing advocacy and legal intervention to vulnerable people in society, particularly widows in Africa, my experiences and knowledge of the law has equipped me to be a better change maker. When confronted with the many issues that widows face, especially those regarding human rights violations, my legal background assists in helping them find solutions or redress in the law.
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n 2008, I founded the Healing Hearts Widows Support Foundation Inc. (HHWSF) in Nigeria and our approach is very simple. At HHWSF, we have always asked, ‘why should a widow lose her sense of dignity, livelihood, pride, or hope because she lost her husband?’ No doubt, death is a sorrowful thing, and it is right for a bereaved person to mourn the deceased; but, sadly, African women are at the receiving end of negative stigmas that come with the death of their husbands. This has led our team to approach charity and advocacy for widows in a more pragmatic and far-reaching way.
Initial exposure to the treatment of widows As a child in the 1980s, I encountered first-hand how widows were treated. I remember delivering meals to an elderly blind widow and attending funerals where you could see how the widows were being treated. In those days, I would take food items from the house without permission, and give them out to widows who lived or worked at the market on my way to high school. When I was working as a lawyer at Women’s Aid Collective, I was exposed further to the many gory tales of how widows were being accused, molested, or discriminated against by their communities. I was often moved to tears listening to their ordeals. Women’s Aid Collective provided legal support to indigent women and girls, and among them were widows and their children. I was part of the team responsible for attending to their different needs regarding human rights violations. That experience sowed a seed in my heart and, having taken part in the International Visitor Leadership Program (a professional exchange program for emerging leaders in their field), this exposure was the push I needed to do more. I resisted the urge to do this for more than two years, yet my husband constantly encouraged me, saying that I was born and equipped to do so. My husband was supportive, participated in our activities and provided the funding at the initial stage, which eventually led to the birth of HHWSF.
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