‘Women should think ahead, save’ Felicia Henderson
is the Founder of Theway Foundation. She is an African American who has adopted Nigeria as her home. The widowed mother of five who is also a business woman and member of boards in some organisations in the country, in this interview spoke on her humanitarian activities for women and youths, issues that give her concern about Nigeria, and what empowerment really entails, among others.
How long have you been in Nigeria?
I have been coming to Nigeria for about nine years now and have lived in the country for five years.
Tell us about your foundation?
It is all about bringing hope to our women and young people. I believe that Nigeria is God’s own country and greatest place on earth. It is just that Nigerians have been under much pressure for so long that they don’t see the potential in what is good around them. Many of them have lost hope that things can get better.
But when I look round at this country. I see nothing but hope, opportunity and potentials. It is just that we have to look at things from a different perspective.
Nigeria is going through pains because she is just a baby. Yes, we have had democracy for over 15 years now and we have been a nation for 100 years but truly we are just starting to understand what democracy is.
We are being hypocritical by comparing ourselves to countries we feel are better without realizing that only Nigeria knows what is best for Nigeria. Nobody else can. Because the fact is that America will always be America.
The United Kingdom will always be United Kingdom. I am not saying we shouldn’t take the best of those places and try to bring them into Nigeria and assimilate them into our environment. That is growth, development and change. That is what I call hybridity.
Like the Malaysia palm kernel for example, it originated in Nigeria but the output wasn’t so great, they took it to Malaysia and the output and quality changed exponentially.
I am looking for people who can volunteer to talk to girls who have been molested or persons with disability. People who can help me develop others. If I get proper support I wish to give about 100 Nigerian children scholarship on my birthday in September because every child deserves to go to school.
In which specific areas do you empower women and youth?
My areas of focus are education, health and diplomacy in the sense that I want to teach and breed our future leaders. I want them and even the elderly ones to understand who a true leaders is.
I want to teach our children to love to read, write and speak. So that our future politicians can have debates or sit and talk about issues from their brains and hearts and not from a piece of paper.
Unfortunately I have had situations where I gave proposals to people who are very educated and instead of reading what I wrote say “tell me about it’ and I said “but everything is there” and they replied ‘on ho-no just say it, you know we Nigerians don’t like to read.’
When we don’t have people who write, read, then this nation will not move forword. We have a lot of footballers in Nigeria but there is nothing that said footballers can’t be leaders or professors. We need to re-orientate our young people about what they see as success. I also talk to young people about making healthy life choices, and choosing careers based on capacity and not what makes most money.
I have done a lot of programmes in Delta State, Lagos, Kaduna and Abuja. I have gone to rural areas and villages. I am working towards empowering women and children particularly in the northern states and Niger –Delta part of the country. A lot of lives and perspectives are changed by the knowledge we impact.
Widows are often viewed as people in need of help and they often come out massively for empowerment or donations, what do you advise widows on being self reliant being a widow yourself?
First of all, I believe that being a widow and mother is not a handicap. I have been a widow for twelve years and I have five children. If I can make it. I believe anyone else can. I believe there is a varse difference between empowerment and enablement. A lot of people think they are empowering someone when in reality they are enabling the person.
When you empower rather than enable someone it is detrimental to their development. If you are hungry and I give you a bowl of rice and you eat tomorrow you will still be hungry and may not be able to come to me for another. Instead of giving you that bag of rice, I should have given you money for that bag of rice and help you figure out how to use it.
So that even if you buy a derica of rice, you will still have money to buy something else or do something to be productive and continue, even if you are making 50 or 100 naira per day. I have now empowered you.
It is not the widows I want to educate but those who think they are helping them. To make them understand where they are being helpful or not.
What are your tips for women on being self reliant and to also forestall problems when they lose their husbands?
Firstly, when a woman is married, she shouldn’t get comfortable that she has a home and a husband. While your husband is your head you are supposed to be his body.
That means you are supposed to have something that you are contributing to your home. For instance you can make money from cooking. You can talk to a school. ‘Can I be providing this or that?’ you can also volunteer time in the church or school and get experience. Learn how to be industrious with whatever talent God has given you.
I lost my husband very young. I was only 28. If for some unseen reason you happen to end up like I was, what are you going to fall back on? I was lucky my husband pushed me into doing what I thought I couldn’t do. He said anything you think you can’t do, try it’ this prevents you from selling yourself or your integrity especially if you are a young and beautiful widow and need to cater for your children’s needs.
Also if your husband is giving you an allowance, that is your salary. You should save from it. There may come a time when your husband doesn’t have and you assist the home with the savings. Women should think ahead.
I believe women should also engage in cooperatives. This is one thing I probably think is missing here because we don’t have strong small and medium enterprise sector coupled with so much unemployment. I believe we should be creating more cooperatives to fill in some of the gaps.
There should be no excuse that a child cannot go to school because parents cannot afford fees. As a mother volunteering to clean a school so that your child can go to school is a cooperative. This is where I come in sometime to partner with people on the kind of cooperative to create.
Having been here for five years what issues in Nigeria give you concern and how do you think they can be tackled?
The major issue is the lack of unity. The fact that Nigerians are so focused on being tribalistic. Here we are so concerned about tribe, where our fathers came from, religion or state forgetting that we are people that are supposed to stand united for the development of this country.
Another issue is allowing ourselves to be easily distracted. We have allowed this boko haram issue to make us lose sight of others that need our attention thereby giving them power and strength.
We have created so much fear within ourselves that we don’t trust anyone .What touched me when I first came to this country was that Nigerians were the most loving and accommodating people but I am not seeing that nowadays because everybody is suspicious of everyone.
There are bad people everywhere in the world and instead of blaming a particular section of the country or entity or religion, we need to understand these are bad people, period and stop sensationalizing them and scaring off foreigners from investing here.
What inspired your conversion to Islam?
As a child I read my koran even though I went to church with my parents. I didn’t pray five times a day because I had no one to guide me. But my life style was Islamic in the sense that I did the right things. I treated people properly and gave what I now know as Zakkat. My mother taught me to take care of people. So it wasn’t hard for me as you would say to convert but I call it revert. So my revertion is about two years now and I am still learning. Most people know me as Felicia Henderson but I am actually Khadija.
I try to educate Nigerians too that Islam is not a religion of chaos but a lifestyle of peace.
On a lighter note , how well are you getting accustomed to Nigeria?
I don’t think there is anything in Nigeria that I don’t eat. In fact I don’t really eat intercontinental food anymore. I wear native attires a lot. I think I have absolutely become a part of Nigeria and pray one day that I will marry a Nigerian and have a Nigerian child.