THE POWER OF EDUCATION

 "Quiero compartir con ustedes  una historia  ponderosa que logrado obtener  en mi experiencia en  UC Berkeley, conocer a esta gran mujer que logro vencer miles de obstáculos para  consagrarse  y llegar lejos gracias al poder de la educación."

(By Binta Iliyasu)

Binta Iliyasu is a Principal Research Officer with the Nigerian Institute for Trypanosomiasis Research (NITR). She is also, a 2014 Fellow of the African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD). She has conducted laboratory and field research focussing on medicinal plants as potential source of anti-trypanosomal agents for the treatment of African Trypanososmiasis. This is a disease commonly known as ‘sleeping sickness’ in humans and Nagana/Sammore in animals remains a serious constraint to the development of agriculture in the region. The tsetse fly vector of the disease inhabits fertile areas, causing farmers to migrate, abandoning their land. Global warming and the political crisis in the African region only worsen the situation. Chemotherapy is the main control option but it is weak and unsatisfactory. At present, my research focuses on the biochemical difference between the Trypanosoma parasite and the mammalian host, targeting proteins which are essential to their survival as potential target for Nucleic acid (DNA) vaccine as a powerful and novel alternative to conventional vaccine. In the event of disease outbreak, She has ben involved in surveillance along with Parasitologists, Entomologists, Veterinarians and other colleagues. I conduct Focus Group Discussions with women groups especially and other relevant gender groups recording my observation and findings towards control, advocacy and policy recommendation. As an AWARD Fellow, she is committed to improve the livelihood of the rural sub-Saharan Africa Small-holder farming communities by addressing the greatest challenges of livestock farmers. She wants to prove that women can make a big difference in improving the life of our people. In doing so, I hope to become a role model to the women in my community.

(Binta es la primera a la izquierda)

Her history began in Northern Nigeria, where I was born and grew up. This is a part of the world where women are denied the opportunity for education. She was lucky. Her parents were enlightened about the importance of education by the missionaries. Therefore, they risked sending me and other girls to school. At the age of nine, I was selected to write an entrance examination to a boarding primary school when some women from my community who knew that she might succeed tried to discourage her. They advised her to write the wrong answers in order to fail and be denied education. She ignored them and did the right thing. She secured admission into the university immediately after her secondary school but social pressures emerged again. Her parents were persuaded to get her married. Among all her suitors, the man who would become her husband was the only one willing to allow her to further her education after marriage even though he was advised against it.  Her academic experience after marriage was challenging but rewarding. She had her second child mid way in the graduate school with an un- cooperating nanny! . A male colleague once said to her 

’’Look, I do not pity you women. You are greedy! You want to keep a home, marriage, job and at the same time studies’’. Despite all these, she persevered at all points .The heads of the institutions she attended encouraged her, giving her the push in the right direction she emerged as the best overall student at her graduation and the first female University graduate from her community of hundreds of households!  The journey was very rough, characterized with great sacrifices on the part of all the family, coping with meagre resources without scholarship. Thus, embarking on postgraduate studies particularly a PhD was almost impossible. Today, she holds a Bachelors and Masters degree in Biochemistry from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, soon completing her Doctorate degree.

Vision for Environmental change and education in Africa and the world

It is obvious, and there is no controversy; education is the gateway to alleviating poverty and other environmental problems. Education is also the doorway to sustainable livelihood. Therefore, the ability to take the right decision that life hinges on that will lead to empowerment through education. She therefore envisioned that Africa rising up to the current challenges of food insecurity, poverty, maternal and child ill health, gender inequality, and socio-economic under development through the provision of quality education to all-men and women alike. Education therefore should be embraced and integrated well into the culture. Her vision for Africa and the world is the phasing out of restrictions on education by ensuring gender equality.

To the world, I am saying: There is therefore a need that everyone should carry out activities with a Gender Lens!

No to gender discrimination!

Yes to quality education!