WYART FOUNDATON!

BACKGROUND

Nigeria’s size and influence in the West African sub region makes its efforts at social and economic development deserving of every support, yet genuine development is difficult to sustain in an environment of mass poverty. With half of the 249 million population of the sub region living in the country, and with her accounting for 55 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the ECOWAS corridor, the tasks and challenges of supporting its development policy options and reinforcing the consolidation of its economy is among the most important civic work in Africa today. Besides a truly functioning state structure, experts in development studies posit that of all the vital variables for democratic consolidation, two other indices are crucial: The state of the economy, and a virile media system. Through its social intervention, the Women and Youth Art Foundation is convinced that a buoyant economy can be bolstered through the active incorporation of women and youths who have appropriate skills in a fast evolving and globalizing economy. Therefore, our focus is to use the Visual Arts as a means of empowering women, youths and children.

Why art? Because Art is life and Art is beauty. So we try to put in beauty into the lives of people by empowering them through skill acquisition. Art is one aspect through which Nigeria has contributed meaningfully to world civilization. We have had a rich traditional past and our heritage is of great renown....

The main mission of this Foundation is to empower women and youths, without any discrimination based on class, religion or age. We have trained so many women and youths in local and urban communities and also through religious groups that identify

The WYART initiative was borne out of her early life experience. Her mother, Princess Elizabeth Olowu is an artist and as a child she grew up learning a lot from her. She was always engaged in one activity or the other. She was also involved in art training and as a teacher, she not only taught her students while in school but was involved in several

WYART realizes that if you train a woman, you train a whole nation. When a woman acquires a skill, she is very likely to pass it on to her children. So, in this way the whole family is empowered. As an art for empowerment programme, we intend to transform the lives of women because a good number of them are unemployed and are idle.