Former Ekiti 1st Lady, Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi, will be 60 soon and City People recently asked her how she feels. We also asked how she plans to celebrate it.
“As I turn 60, the first thing that comes to mind is gratitude to Almighty God. I am grateful for Good health, my family, love all around me and all the blessings I have received. The journey has been an interesting one, full of hills and valleys.
I have so far had the opportunity to do something that I am deeply passionate about which is advocating for the rights of women. It is something I have been committed to right from when I was a teenager. Through research, Activism, writing, social change Philanthropy, capacity building, policy advocacy, political mobilisation and community engagement, I have used various platforms over the years to address the issue of uplifting the status of women.
I plan to thank God for his grace and mercy. My friends and mentees in civil society are organising an international conference in my honour on June 10th. A dear friend of mine Professor Abena Busia, Ghana’s Ambassador to Brazil will give the Birthday lecture. I will be presenting two new publications. ‘Demand and Supply’ is the first, a collection of my weekly Loud Whispers essays. The second book is an anthology of short stories and poems called ‘A Tray of Locust Beans’. The Above Whispers Foundation has a program known as The Wrapper Network. This is an online platform that supports young women with mentoring and social enterprise grants. We will be supporting a number of women during this period. We will also be sending gifts and donations to women’ projects in Ekiti and Ondo States. I have asked my friends and associates to make donations to Above Whispers Foundation, and the proceeds from my publications always go to the foundation.Someone who knows that you can go places on your own but much further with the support and solidarity of others.
Lets tell you more.
Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi was born in Liverpool, England on June 11, 1963. She has a BA (1984) and MA (1988) in History from the University of Ife, Nigeria (now Obafemi Awolowo University). She also received an MA in Gender and Society (1992) from Middlesex University, UK. She is a Women’s Rights Activist,Gender and Development Specialist, Social Entrepreneur, Policy Advocate, Social Change Philanthropist, Social Sector and Resource Mobilisation expert and Writer.She is currently CEO Above Whispers Media Group and founder of Above Whispers Foundation specializing in leadership development for women. She runs an online community called Abovewhispers.com where she writes an immensely popular weekly column called Loud Whispers. She set up ‘The Wrapper Network’ an online mentoring and support program for over 4,000 young women. She served as a United Nations Women Nigeria Senior Advisor (2017-2018) and is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Africa Leadership Center, King’s College, London.
During her years in the United Kingdom, Bisi worked in the Department of Health as an Administrative Officer. She then became the Director of Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA), an international development organisation for African women based in London, UK, with an Africa regional office in Kampala, Uganda, from 1991-2001. While she was the Director of AMwA, she established the African Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI), a training and networking forum for young African women. The leadership institute she developed has become such a powerful legacy that today, the AWLI has trained over 6,000 women across Africa, and most of these women are now in senior decision-making positions as Ministers, Members of Parliaments, academics, civil society leaders and employees of international organisations.
Bisi played a key role in shaping Civil Society Engagement for black and ethnic minority people in the UK and Europe, giving a voice to the concerns of people of African descent in various policy spaces. She was elected as Vice-Chair of the National Association of Women’s Organisations, England and Wales (1992-1994), she served as a Management Committee member of the London Rape Crisis Center, and was the UK representative on the Steering Committee of Women in Development Europe. She was part of a team of women who founded the Black, Migrant, Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Women’s Network in Europe (BWEN) in 1992 and served on the Executive Committee for five years. She also served as a member of the Africa Committee of the Migrants Forum of the European Union from 1992-1995. Bisi has been Co-Chair, International Network of Women’s Funds (2004-2006); Honorary President, Association for Women’s Rights in Development (AWID) (2003-2005); and Trustee, Comic Relief (UK) (1998-2001)
She led a delegation of African women in Europe to the UN Human Rights Conference in Vienna, Austria in 1993 as part of the global campaign of ‘Women’s rights are human rights’. In 1995, she coordinated a delegation of twenty women from Africa and Europe to the UN World Conference on Women in Beijing China. She also served on the Women’s Committee of the African Union for several years.
During her years in the United Kingdom, Bisi was very active in Pan-African organizing as well as political activism. She was a member of the Pan-African Movement, as well as a founding member of the New Nigerian Forum (NNF), an activist think-tank critical of military dictatorship in Nigeria. Alongside her husband Dr Kayode Fayemi and others, she worked tirelessly to draw attention to the many ways in which military rule was crippling Nigeria. She was Vice-Chair of the New Nigerian Forum as well as a member of the Editorial Board of Nigeria Now, a monthly newsletter published by NNF.
In 2000, Bisico-founded the African Women’s Development Fund, (AWDF) – the first Africa-wide grant-making foundation, which supports the work of organizations promoting women’s rights in Africa. Since it began grant-making in 2001, AWDF, based in Accra, Ghana, has supported over 3,000 women’s organisations in 42 African countries and the Middle East with millions of dollars in grants. AWDF has played a major role in the promotion and protection of women’s rights in Africa, through its support of grassroots initiatives, policy engagements and movement building for social justice, and is now one of the foremost Women’s Funds in the world. Bisi is one of the founders of the African Feminist Forum and she drafted the African Feminist Charter which was adopted at the first AFF which took place in Accra, Ghana in 2006. She served on the AFF Steering Committee from 2006-2016 and she is also a member of the Nigerian Feminist Forum Steering Committee.
An experienced Policy Advocate, Bisi led the campaign in Ekiti State to enact a Gender Based Violence Prohibition Law (GBV Law 2011, revised in October 2019) an Equal Opportunities Bill (2013) and a HIV Anti-Stigma Bill (2014). She also supported the passing of the Treatment, Care and Protection of Sexually Abused Minors Law (June 2020), the Ekiti Mental Health Law (October 2021)the Ekiti State Political Offices Gender Composition Law (March 2022) and the Multiple Births Trust Fund Law (October 2022).She advocated for the domestication of the National Gender Policy, making Ekiti State the first State in Nigeria to do so in October 2011.Due to her persistent advocacy, Ekiti State now has the most comprehensive legal and policy frameworks for the empowerment of women in Nigeria, and Ekiti State plays a key leadership role in the fight against sexual and gender-based violence.
Bisi initiated several impactful programs in Ekiti State, some of which include:
* The Multiple Births Trust Fund,which has supported hundreds of families with multiple births
* Establishment of theFunmi Olayinka Wellness and Diagnostic Center, October 2013
* Food Bank for the Elderly (OunjeArugbo)which provided food for 1,100 elderly people every month
* Keep Girls in School, an advocacy initiative. Erelu Fayemi’s relentless advocacy on theneed for girls to stay in school attracted the attention of the World Bank, who included Ekiti State in the Adolescent Girls in Learning and Empowerment project (AGILE)which will provide U$25m to Ekiti State over five years for various projects to support the education and retention of girls.
* Obinrin Kete Women’s Economic Empowerment program, with 3540 beneficiaries in all 177 wards of Ekiti State
* Drop the blades’ program to end Female Genital Mutilation, which has seen the empowerment of up to 250 ex-circumcisers as an incentive to stop the practice
* Construction of aSexual Assault Referral Center (Moremi Clinic) based at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital as well as two additional Sexual Assault Referral Centers at the General Hospital Ikole-Ekiti and General Hospital Ikere-Ekiti
* Ekiti State Shelter for Women and Girls:In 2013, Erelu Fayemi established the Ekiti Social Inclusion Center, a temporary shelter for women in distress. Thisled to the establishment of a permanent shelter, a 208 bed Transit Home and Vocational Center for Women and Girls in November 2020. The project was undertaken by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant on SDGs in the Presidency and was facilitated by Erelu Fayemi.
A well-known supporter of Arts, Culture and Fashion, Erelu Fayemi served as Chairperson of the Ekiti State Technical Consultative Committee on Culture, Arts and Tourism (2011-2014). Her leadership paved the way for the annual Ekiti Festival of Arts and Culture (EKIFEST) during the JKF1 and JKF2 administrations, including attracting the National Festival of Arts and Culture (NAFEST) to Ekiti State in November 2021. She also actively supports the local textiles industry, through raising the profile of the Association of Ekiti Weavers and promoting the use of Made in EkitiAso-Oke. She is the Global Ambassador for Africa Fashion Week London and a Matron of Fashion Designers Association of Nigeria (FADAN) She has empowered the fashion industry in Ekiti State through the establishment of aFADANEkiti chapter.
Bisi has worked hard to ensure that Ekiti women feature prominently in Leadership and Governance. Through her influence, a good number of women have held elective positions as Deputy-Governors, member House of Representatives, members State House of Assembly and in Local Government Councils. Ekiti women have also been well-represented in the State Executive Council, Boards and Parastatals and senior civil service. Erelu Fayemi is the convener of Forum for Women in Leadership (FOWIL), Forum of Spouses of Ekiti State Officials (FOSESO) and she influenced the establishment of Young Women in Politics, a network of over 5,000 young Ekiti women. She also recently encouraged the establishment of the Ekiti Female Elders Forum to ensure that elderly Ekiti women in politics are not marginalised. She is a grassroots political mobiliser, and loyal member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and campaigns tirelessly for the party’s candidates during election seasons. In June 2022, the APC Women’s Campaign Council which she chaired played a key role in the victory of the party at the polls. Due to her efforts, in March 2023, six women from Ekiti State won seats into the Ekiti State House of Assembly, the highest number in the country.
A recipient of numerous local and international awards, in April 2005, she received an award from the Sigrid Rausing Trust (UK) for outstanding leadership in promoting women’s rights. The prize money for the award went to AWDF (£100,000) and Bisi used this to launch a special HIV/AIDS Fund for African women. She leveraged this into millions of dollars which has supported hundreds of women-led HIV/AIDS initiatives across Africa.
She is a 2007 recipient of the ‘Changing the Face of Philanthropy’ award from the Women’s Funding Network, USA. She is a Synergos Institute Senior Fellow, as well as the 2000/2001 holder of the Dame Nita Barrow Distinguished Visitorship at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. In April 2009, Mrs. Fayemi was named by New African Magazine as one of the 20 most influential African women on the continent. In March 2011, she was listed among the world’s leading 100 persons working for the interests of women and girls by Women Deliver. She is also the recipient of the 2011 David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award, one of the most prestigious awards in the field of philanthropy, given by the Synergos Institute, New York. In December 2021, she was named as one of the 100 most influential leaders in civil society in Nigeria by National Network of NGOS in Nigeria, the umbrella body for CSOs in Nigeria. In March 2022 she was declared Outstanding Woman Leaderby the United Nations Development Program Nigeria, UN Women Nigeria, the European Union delegation to Nigeria, and the British High Commission. In November 2022, she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the African Philanthropy Network, a regional platform for African philanthropic institutions.
Bisi is a well-respected community leader and grassroots mobiliser. She holds the honorary traditional chieftaincy titles of Ochiorah of Imezi Owa, Ezeagwu Local Government, Enugu State, Nigeria (April 2008), Erelu of lsan Kingdom, in Oye Local Government Area of Ekiti State (March 2011) Ajiseye of Ado-Ekiti (December 2013) Iyalode of Ilafon-Ekiti (April 2019) and Olu Omo of Ilara-Mokin (November 2019). She is also the Atayese of Ikere-Ekiti (2013) and the Iyaniwura of Aiyede-Ekiti (2013). The Igbo community in Ekiti State made her ‘Nne Gburugburu’ of Ekiti in 2021. She is also the Fiwajoye of Otun-Ekiti (2022)the Yeye Oba of Erinmope-Ekiti (2022) and the Akorewoluof Ilawe-Ekiti (2022).
In 2013, as part of her 50th birthday celebrations, Bisi asked her vast networks and contacts not to buy her expensive gifts or take out newspaper adverts, but to contribute towards the construction of a building to house the Center for Gender and Social Policy Studies which she donated to her Alma Mater, the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. The Center was launched on September 29th 2014. In November 2014, the Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED) in Ogun State, Nigeria, awarded Mrs Fayemi a PhD in Sociology (Honoris Causa).
Bisi Chaired the Ekiti State Gender Based Violence Management Committee for the implementation of the GBV Law in Ekiti State as well as the Ekiti State AIDS Control Agency. She also served as Chair, Ekiti Values Orientation Committee which produced a values orientation roadmap and school textbooks for Ekiti State in 2021.
She was Chair, Nigeria Governors Wives Forum (2020-2022) and under her leadership, the NGWF became a visible and active platform for the protection of women and children. It was the NGWF that facilitated the State of Emergency against Gender Based Violence declared by the Nigeria Governors Forum in June 2020.
She is currently a member of both the Regional and National Steering Committees of the African Women Leaders Network, a board member of the African Women’s Development Fund, Ghana, Board member of Women at Risk International Foundation (WARIF) Nigeria, Board Member St Ives Communications (owners of Women’s Radio, Nigeria), Chair, Board of Trustees of the Nigeria Governors Wives Forum,and she serves on the Governing Council of Elizade University, Nigeria.
Bisi is the author of ‘Speaking for Myself’: Perspectives on Social, Political and Feminist Activism in Africa (2013), ‘Speaking above a Whisper’, (2013) an autobiography, ‘Loud Whispers’ (2017),’Where is your Wrapper?’ (2020), ‘Demand and Supply’ (2023) and ‘A Tray of Locust Beans (2023). She also co-edited ‘Voice, Power and Soul’, with Jessica Horn (2008) a compilation of images and stories of African Feminists.
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