A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

Erica Williams and the Women's Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON)

Erica Williams was midway through studying for a Masters degree in African Studies at Yale University and starting a Ph.D. in Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University when she learned of the Advocacy Project’s work on trafficking, and more specifically about our close connection with the Women’s Consortium of Nigeria (WOCON).

It seemed like a perfect fit: Erica was deeply interested in the phenomenon of trafficking from Africa and also studying the language of Yoruba at Yale. AP had sent a mission to Nigeria to work with WOCON in 2000, and exposed the trade in young women from Nigerian villages. The vast majority end up as prostitutes on the streets of Italy. AP’s coverage was widely reprinted in the Nigerian press.

It was agreed that Erica would intern with WOCON for the summer, combining research for her own thesis with support for WOCON.

As well as interest, Erica brought impressive credentials to her internship. Between 1999 and 2001 she had worked and studied in Venezuela, Brazil and South Africa. In South Africa, she conducted historical and ethnographic research on a community museum at the University of Western Cape. She also worked at the Leadership Alliance Summer Research Early Identification Program at Howard University, in Washington. Here she organized material for the African Burial Ground Project in order to determine the changing classification of mixed-race people in North Carolina and Virginia.

Erica had received several travel and research scholarships from New York University, and had volunteered for several different organizations: Students Active for Ending Rape (SAFER), WomenCare, Face to Face International, The Center for African Spiritual Culture, InI Performance Club, NYU, Golden Rose Awards Banquet Committee, NYU. She had also served as Editorial Assistant, Academic Achievement Program Newsletter, NYU. These were impressive qualifications.

Prior to leaving for Nigeria, Erica made two visits down from Yale to Washington meet with the Advocacy Project. One of her visits coincided with an AP board meeting, which was attended by Olabisi Olateru-Olagbegi, founder and director of WOCON and a member of the AP board. The two established an immediate rapport and were able to discuss some of the more difficult aspects of living in Lagos. Erica was undaunted.


Erica Williams (right) met with Olabisi Olateru-Olagbegi,
director of WOCON, at the Advocacy Project in May 2002. Julie Lee (left) interned in Italy, where she worked with trafficked Nigerian girls.

At the same time, Erica – more than any other intern – raised penetrating questions about AP’s goal of “building the capacity” of its partners. She had pointed views about outsiders going into Africa and taking more than they give: “As an aspiring scholar-activist, I resist the notion of anthropological research being a one-way process in which the privileged, Western researcher journeys to a country in the Global South and takes their time, their insights, and their resources without giving anything in return.

But she also asked how could a young American woman presume to “build the capacity” of one of the foremost women’s organizations in Africa, and veteran campaigner and human rights activist like Olabisi Olateru-Olagbegi? Was this not highly presumptuous?

Erica felt that this was being downplayed by The Advocacy Project. As she wrote in her final assessment: “At the orientation, I noticed the beginning of a possible conflict of interest when I learned that interns were expected to engage in capacity-building at their organizations. Because my research focused on the grassroots activism of Nigerian NGOs to combat trafficking, my goal in working with WOCON was to learn from their expertise, and offer to help with the work in any way I could. However, I felt that AP was encouraging me to teach them how to do things ‘more effectively,’ which I read as ‘how we do things here in the West.


Erica with the WOCON staff in Lagos.

“I questioned my ability as a 23 year-old student who has only worked for one year at an NGO (in the capacity of a legal assistant) to tell a 50 year-old experienced, renowned human rights lawyer and activist how to run her organization. Perhaps this is the cultural anthropologist in me, but the fact that it was my first time being immersed in Nigerian culture and society made it even more difficult for me to analyze the capacity of their NGO according to the standards set by my culture.”

“I questioned my ability as a 23 year-old student who has only worked for one year at an NGO (in the capacity of a legal assistant) to tell a 50 year-old experienced, renowned human rights lawyer and activist how to run her organization.”

Erica and the AP Coordinator, Iain Guest, exchanged several notes on this before Erica left for Lagos. Iain pointed out that AP’s partners, like WOCON, have many different needs and that even helping to organize a filing system can “build capacity.” Producing material for a website, or putting together a database, can of course have a more lasting benefit. In addition, he wrote, “capacity-building” works both ways. As a member of AP’s board, Ms. Olateru-Olagbegi helps to strengthen AP’s with her advice. Erica’s own background suggested that she would have plenty to offer.

Young Nigeria.

But Erica’s doubts persisted after she reached Lagos and realized that WOCON had its own way of working. She wrote: “AP, myself, and future interns must recognize their position as outsiders to Nigeria and to WOCON. Being in that tenuous position creates a dynamic where it is difficult to tell people what they should do, because as outsiders we’re not even accustomed to living in their environment.

“For instance, with my office experience in the US, I’m used to organizing files in labeled manila folders and hanging file folders in file cabinets. Thus, I found WOCON’s filing system of long folders in a multi-shelved closet impossible to understand. But it works for them.

“My work experience in the US has also trained me to write out my daily activities, allot a specified amount of time to tasks, and rely heavily on the computer. This is an unattainable goal in Lagos because of the constant unexpected power outages and the fact that sending two emails can take you upwards of two hours. Future interns should be fully aware of the challenges they will face in Nigeria, and even then they may still have trouble adapting to the environment.”

“I found WOCON’s filing system of long folders in a multi-shelved closet impossible to understand. But it works for them.”

Erica also found Lagos to be hard work: “The daily struggles of life in Lagos were another challenge. Constant power outages, traffic jams, torrential rains and floods, painfully slow internet service, and the week-long fuel strike all conspired to make my work more difficult.”

In the end, Erica felt that her two roles, as an intern and as a researcher, pulled her in different directions. “It was difficult to balance what I needed to do for my research, what Advocacy Project wanted me to do, and what Mrs. Olateru-Olagbegi and WOCON wanted me to do, especially when they conflicted, or when focusing on one activity took time away from another.”

There were perhaps, other ways in which AP’s view of Erica’s internship were at odds with Erica’s own perceptions. AP had hoped that Erica would be in constant touch with Julie Lee, who interned with TAMPEP in Turin. Much of TAMPEP’s work involves counseling Nigerian girls who have been trafficked to Italy and AP was keen to facilitate contacts between WOCON and TAMPEP.

But this is a partnership that cannot be imposed from the outside, and can only develop at its own pace. During the summer, it became clear that WOCON was focusing more on the internal issue of child slavery than trafficking, while TAMPEP was developing its own contacts in Nigeria. Still, the directors of TAMPEP and WOCON share a lot of respect and friendship for each other.

Both organizations were able to work together, via their interns, when Erica and Julie critiqued the US State Department’s annual report on trafficking from the perspectives of their hosts. AP synthesized the material and issued it as a press release. This was widely read and commented on at UN meetings. AP received feedback from the Dutch government and the US State Department. It was one indication of how AP’s distribution network can disseminate the material of partners and ensure it reaches a wider audience.

Erica’s penetrating analysis of her stay with WOCON will be useful in laying the groundwork for the next intern, and in helping to address WOCON’s own information and technical needs.

• Read Erica's blog
• Email Erica
• Visit the WOCON website
• For AP’s profile of WOCON visit their partner page and their resources section.