Letter writing is a method that WOA is adopting to LOBBY to increase awareness for the need to raise the profile of African women for international recognition for Africa’s reform.

Letters have been written to the following amongst others:

Her Majesty; the British Prime Minister; the British Deputy Prime Minister; the American First Lady, Mrs. Mitchell Obama; Secretary of State Mrs. Hilary Clinton; His Excellency Bi-Kin Moon: Secretary General of the United Nations; Deputy Secretary General of the United Nation amongst others.

Extract of letter to Her Majesty dated 12.08.10

“---It is urgently necessary to transform gender and reform Africa in order to bring humanity into balance. Africa was the cradle of life on Earth and where life was first born and nurtured. I am convinced that with the support of international media, so much can be achieved for African women.

My message is not popular. On my visits to Nigeria I have been severely harassed and brutalised along with grass roots women by the country’s security forces and, when I contested the Governorship of Delta State during the 2007 elections, I was forced to fly back to London after an explicit and immediate threat to my life.

Women of Africa aims to build the global capacity of African Women’s community based groups, structures and individuals, to lobby, advocate, train and provide development information to the communities, political leaders and other stakeholders to support the efforts of African Women in realising their rights, full potential so as to contribute equally to the national and international development initiatives in line with the millennium development goals, and so help to uplift Africans out of poverty and misery.

We aim to reinforce our international project in the UK through our cultural mediation and advocacy services that we have offered to African immigrant families since 1994.

Our immediate international project is to create the African Women’s Commission, for we believe that sustainability can only be achieved through structured institutional development, strong capacity building and strong informed international civil society to achieve the beneficiary acceptance of the project and continuity.

In formal terms this Convention will work to improve the capacity of African Civil society to engage in local decision-making processes; to engage in national decision-making processes; and to participate more effectively at the international level by providing innovative service delivery and service delivery in difficult environments.

This project is urgent now because, compared to the industrialized countries of Europe and the USA, women in Africa continue to be economically and politically disadvantaged. This inequality has led to a mass exodus of African women to Europe and North America where they are being socially and economically exploited. The Convention is needed to start to solve the following problems:

• Immigration problems currently faced in UK and other western countries.
• Fewer women having access to education, thus unable to compete for global formal jobs especially in Africa.
• Growing incidence of girl child trafficking and women and for economic survival.
• Low level of women’s participation in government and policy decision making nationally and internationally.
• Gender inequality in education denies the girl child and the woman to realize their full potential hence reducing quantity and quality of productivity in society.

ETC...”