Stand Up for Women Society (SWS), a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), on Saturday, has advised women to unlock their potentials to ensure a better society.
Mrs Anne Anyaka, the South-South Vice President of SWS, gave the advice during a one -day sensitisation workshop organised by the group for Woji Community Women in Port Harcourt.
Anyaka said that the sensitisation programme was in commemoration of the 2025 International Women’s Day (IWD) celebration with the theme, “Accelerate Action.”
“The SWS is set up mainly to encourage women to stand up to their rights. We stand up for those women who didn’t do any wrong but unfortunately were violently mistreated by their husbands, husbands’ relatives and the society.
“We stand against child trafficking, domestic violence, sexual harassment, rape; we charge women to speak up against any form of abuse and not to be ashamed of stigmatisation,” she explained.
Anyaka encouraged the women to develop themselves on vocational skills and education.
According to her, do whatever you can to improve yourself as a woman, we don’t want you to be just dependent on your husband.
“If you’re just dependent and you are unfortunate, you don’t have a husband that values you, your life will be in jeopardy.
“Be proud of yourselves, build a responsible character trait that people would emulate for good.
“Work hard and do not allow people to treat them with disrespect, also respect people, give back to the society the measure you expect them to give to you”.
“She urged the men whose wives were abusing domestically to speak up too because women were supposed to be good ambassadors in their various homes and the society at large.
Anyaka said that God created women to give lives and they are home builders; although they might not look strong physically, they strong emotionally.
She said that women could endure hardship without breaking more than men and urged them to love themselves, help one another financially, materially, and spiritually to have a better society.
Also speaking, the Chairperson of SWS, Rivers Chapter, Mrs Edna Uchey-Adigwu, advised women to mentally educate themselves, invest in programmes or trainings that would improve their vocational skills.
Uchey-Adigwu also encouraged women to invest more on their children’ education, adding that if they train their children well, they have trained ambassadors that would uphold the nation’s economy and integrity.
“If a woman understands who she is, she will have a good marriage, training good children and obviously be in governance because she has what it takes to be a leader,’’ Uchey-Adigwu said.
Similarly, Mrs Ann Godwin, the Executive Director of Step-up Women Initiative in Journalism (SWIJ), urged governments at all levels to promote inclusive policies that would benefit and empower women.
Godwin also called on government to create conducive environment for women to thrive, stressing that the imperative for women empowerment as a key to building a peaceful and sustainable society could not be over-emphasised.
She also advised women to support and celebrate other women who have shown sterling leadership qualities and achieved great feats in their fields.
Godwin, however, urged the women who had attained amiable heights to genuinely support others to grow, adding, ‘’don’t remove the ladder after you have climbed”.