When i was working in oxford which buttons on my crit was really a pinnacle moment my mother was very proud just like the children. What do you think. You can do in 1020 years how is it going to help anybody to improve the lives of the people that live in our village. Of. Its a wonderful. Time for me because i have seen the other side of what was i didnt imagine much in the oratory and what is even more exciting is that ive seen you apply i researched on in africa. Something i couldnt imagine you when i was 25. Somebody. My name is sheila. I was born in nigeria i studied medical biochemistry and then went on to do a ph d. In plant biochemistry. I did some of her stock troll in oxford at the institute of viral ajeet and environmental microbiology. And i specialized on a system called the bacula virus Expression System which is a methodology that you used to genetically modify viruses. About time i went to university i felt really prepared for the world and then i realized perhaps i was i wasnt quite as. Gender dynamics i didnt understand it im 18 years old i mean the university the idea that people had that women couldnt do things was shown to me because id never been in an environment where people just thought as a woman youre less than i mean it just didnt make any sense to me. After i married and had children. I really wasnt interested in going back to science because it was just too difficult. I was fortunate that my exhusband actually had studied women in development and he said you know the statistics number one of women who get to do ph d. Like any women in the u. K. Is like 1st of all at that times that its 6 percent they do ph d. Male or female of the population and over how many of them are women its less than half its probably like 10 percent over that how many of them african you actually have to go back i realise that i wanted to do more in Community Work so right now im working a lot with the un environment and on environmental work with different agencies. The big sign to fix. Our time is Climate Change Climate Change and hard effects us in so many ways. In africa the discourse the conversation is around adapting to Climate Change. African countries and developing countries basically not because of Climate Change say but theyre the ones suffering the most from the impact so how the conversation in Climate Changes is developed countries must mitigate reduce their emissions im african countries must adapt. So with Climate Change a number of scientific lines of inquiry but i would say in terms of what we are interested in in some of the creatures that weve worked with its to do with Climate Change and health. Climate changes cause malaria epidemics to be more prevalent malaria cholera all of these things that have to do with the ecosystem changing so now youre looking at how Climate Change is affecting the disease. Disease outbreaks and how now the system can adapt better. To syria strategically important in the Western Region of kenya because it borders Lake Victoria and the lake is very important because it borders uganda tanzania kenya im all of those communities living around there are living off the resources of the lake and the lake is being rapidly degraded. So getting communities to understand how theyre all impacting each other is an important part of the work were doing in getting people to understand what ecosystems are and also what they can do to restore their lives. This is the smaller now. That the other one is bigger and then people use it like they just fry how much they kill we particularly decided to work with women because we understand how women very quickly see the big picture of their work and their position in community. But in the bigger frame how do we get women who are farming in different parts of the lake to understand. How pesticides can run off into the lake and affect the livelihoods of women on the other side who are fishing how do we connect these groups to begin to understand the impact. And how do we then connect the factories that are. Polluting the lake to understand what a devastating impact it is to the communities that they are living in so everybody thats working around there. Has an impact and has a responsibility. To. Kisumu is a county that adopted me when i came back to. Kenya in 24915 so its a county that i feel very close john very personally invested in the future soon. So one of the projects that were involved in working on and going to increasingly put our resources and energy is the water hyacinth project increasingly. Its important that communities understand the science that affects them and so when we look at communities like kisumu. Which is very much impacted by a pest on the lake. When communities are not empowered to help to understand that system they cant make decisions or you know come on. Ya want one when you dont need you more to me and i do our very large. You know come on i know you go into our you know view on that. You know you can use all. You live on there you know one and one was well run one man im not a millionaire you know i work with. A man. I was born in a place like this in nigeria. I study science because when i was growing up as a child i was very interested in in sex and i would play by the river so i was curious about the Natural World scientists are studying science and i became a scientist then one day i came back to my mother and i said to her oh look im in a magazine see me this is my work theyre talking about the work that im doing and she said it is good my daughter it is good but how is this work that you are doing here going to relate to the people back home so when she asked me that question i didnt have an answer. What is it that we can do to transform the lives of women and we were looking at everything the city Health Agriculture all the different sectors what kind of science can we bring to make a difference to the lives of everyone in the city. We have to bring anything we have learned from anywhere and planted where we can have effect and with people that we love so as we move we must all move to get it to a Better Future because that is what we want for ourselves and our children and by gods grace i have the time we reached 2030 those see a different piece in this canyon after it. This really touches my heart working with women across the lake who harvest the water hyacinth because the work that i was doing from ph d. On was looking at past we are looking at how to help people manage pests better so that they can enhance their livelihoods. There was a lot of what i asked in but because. The moment you start seeing long grass. Coming out of it that you know its the life cycles coming to and so that is a time it is a yes it sinks to the bottom of the water and within no time again its the water body. What the women were able to do is to understand that although its a pass they can harvest it in the same way as they harvest some of the pirates and all the other resources there and that they can use it to make products and over time theyve begun to make more more sophisticated products and theyve begun to open up markets for high end goods. And. I can see this growing as the machinery to mold bigger products comes but it starts with the women going out into the late getting the water hyacinth relieving it into threads and very manually developing the road bed gets made into the part of the. Meat so when i got involved with the water hyacinth project and began to see what they were doing you know the work that came to me was like wow just moving from pest to profit really its just a very simple trajectory. When we went into the community to talk to the women they had formed into a collective which had a name in which. Were fighting away poverty that was the name of the group but now this time when we went to ask them the name of the group they said you know were now the women who live under the shade and honestly. I nearly cried because that really shows the transformation of our community they renamed themselves they were like you no longer chasing poverty we have a livelihood were living under the shade were no longer suffering from the harshness the wind vironment we figured out how to make this and this is who we now are and that was the most emotional and. So on the 8th of march International Womens day we formally launched now a the network of africa women environmentalist to showcase African Women environmentalist of all Different Levels and how they can be brought to help the ecosystems restoration agenda. From. The word over yeah the other ladies are waiting sure were going meet them yes let me just put this here and then well get a brilliant brilliant lets lets just grab it and then lets get you all the big madam ok. She now welcome back yes this is exciting i need to introduce you saw this is the head of our Africa Office here at un environment and this is leading our energy work on the african continent and janet who is the head over our gender program here and i dont even want yes yes yes she was at the launch of mao indeed it just happened that on the 1st of march the United Nations through the government of all salvador put together a resolution which was passed on the 1st of march for the un decade on eco system restoration and we know how much land on this continent is degraded you know how many women are suffering so this decade is now 2021 through 2030 the last 10 years of the Sustainable Development goals one of the things we found and rob it of governance is that women are not at the Decision Making we might see that women are the ones who are in touch with their environment because of the work they do a daily basis but in terms of Decision Making the not theyre involved in because they feel the brunt of the decision by their. Own down upon disadvantage one of the areas of focus ignored was an energy waste at Climate Change i mean this is story everywhere i think interface between all these fundamental forces assia and this is that but its a zillion words and in no way. Exactly and i think for us part of our thinking around the network on African Women environmentalists was what weve just discussed with the political element. Which i think was so important and also looking at the realities what is the reality in in women who live its going to take off doing more and it has to reach the connection have to go all the way to the ground we have to feel the impact and so but she has been able to mediate the feds of bringing you wonderful ladies on board because shes been a champion for it and to get women that are truly committed to it because its different for every women that just have positions with women that have heart in it and i have good news for now and eunice call told me in their whiny form. To promote women scientists were ours is her. Thing this will not our last meeting this is just this is. Very. Very. Dangerous on i think really having us. Society comes together in the governance system and then the science is one aspect of it you see the beautiful in Climate Change because you look at the Climate Change agreement or not and how countries agree to reduce emissions hopefully the science tells you that this is impacting our vironment and negative ways it is causing is exacerbated Climate Change hopefully that makes the political Decision Makers say therefore we will close these factories therefore we will do this differently but the trigger the initiated the propeller is the political will of the top so. The best science in the world most of it a lot of it is left on the shelf because theres not the political will and even in Something Like Climate Change as we have seen the last of political will could mean we lose this battle. I want to become a transformative scientist so that everything that i apply myself to brings about a transformational impact that is visible and in my lifetime. By bringing women in around particular landscapes and ecosystems together how do we improve that landscape and restoring a lot of the. Farms and land in rural africa left because young people want to buy life they dont want to farm they its no longer coo the profits are low they want to go to the city and theyve better lives so youre finding a lot of degraded land because nobodys tending to it we are looking at what kinds of farming opportunities are there for young people that are attractive that are the Profit Margins are high that can be done somewhat remotely in that you know this is not high intensive farming doesnt need machinery and is organics. So one of the crops that is doing very well this chair wow this is incredible yeah this is where it happened is that the magic happens you know what i think is 1st of all what im really excited about is that you have restored this landscape that was just going to seed and that this not only restored the landscape that it is productive nourishing the soil and starting a whole new incredible i think for centuries business its amazing so you just pull the whole. I dont know what the young people who left went to the city im a struggling because theyre not as many opportunities as they magically and now remembering that their fathers and mothers have land not far away in the rule areas so a number of them express increasingly women are beginning to hire local farmers to plant years seeds. All of the world and interestingly enough in kenya the Profit Margins are really high so just cut it. And yeah thats it i have a. Wow howling fun theyre actually. Having that actually are really good this time every time i have done i think we need to bring a group of women to harvest and make something of it so perhaps like a demonstration farm bring them they harvest we sit we talk about what we can do restoring landscapes and this is are now we can begin to grow with young and i was talking about the hair on a good story yeah. We are in the 1st generation that our children have to change his it has. To be here. And now even with Climate Change they say you came here he enjoyed yourselves you ruin the planet you left us nothing. Each generation has gotten its a gift and we have this generation. Passionate about the environment. So thats why im saying we are going to have like a forest island where you had the breed so you follow me and then you place dead trees living in the home for planting of them i mean what does it take to make a transformation we can mount measuring if we could work hard to make sure many of those goals and that empower women empower children come to be the picture that people have been they heads of africa will transform it can its an easy thing it cab other countries have done it ok. Within a generation you can transform outcomes to take certain things and i pray that i will be part of that and that my children who were born in the u. K. And come back will be able to say well you know i might just move to africa because its really great you know has many opportunities and its got great weather great people great opportunities to build a life. There and as mine is old and i went to london and i went to Primary School i remember i was playing in the playground i was being bullied because i look so different. And they would laugh at me and theyll be like the cape of africa live on treason. And i remember how shocked i was that they would they would speak about the place that i loved and that i missed so much they gave me all of my identity in such derogatory terms that they could not understand the beauty the power the opportunities that i got from those 9 years and that moment i said to myself in my head when will be the day that i wont have to make so many explanations because it will be obvious how rich are beautiful how glorious we are all of us on this planet not just africa. We are just one species on this planet just one. We happen to be the most destructive hold the species lets be clear this public will survive with or without us we can destroy ourselves and have an end to show the many planets out there that are uninhabited. So lets have a little humility as to a significance become extraordinary are a given in thinking that we not to be just one species but insects will still be here when its all going. Lets be humble or lets begin to. Be better stewards of the gifts that weve been given. To. Aljazeera who is beneath the waves with a team of women determined to save the told friends we all share the same response to believe we need it is something loony protecting them a thing using a variety of scientific techniques to study their behavior we can monitor them for their vocal cords and behavior were able to how theyre adapting to their new environment women make science dolphin sanctuary on aljazeera. March on aljazeera. Off to theyre also going on the nation witness brings a new film this time from africa for International Womens day a crucial day in the race to challenge donald trump when live across key u. S. States for a super tuesday studio b. Unscripted brings a fresh approach to discussing contentious issues and finding common solution as Benjamin Netanyahu prepares to go on trial for corruption israel heads into its 3rd election in less than a year the listening posts dissects the worlds media how they operate and the way they cover stories much on aljazeera. Chinese the floor see the putting those dice that had committed a crime a day but they show trials or genuine confessions. To win a stint with a guy. On aljazeera. One. Of the. Turkish backed rebels and syrian troops fight for control of a key town in the northwest of syria civilians have nowhere to hide it. We report from the front line this russian backed government says hitting the town with as trucks. Im compelled this is al jazeera live from doha also coming up coronavirus jesss the u. S. Stock market is on track to report its worst weekly loss since the Global Financial crisis
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