SACA staff embarked on a sensitization campaign in its target communities in Bayelsa State, to distribute relief materials to them, including food items, hand sanitizers, face masks, etc. We also went with some health workers who delivered health talks to them, convincing them on the reality of the pandemic and educating them on the best ways to avoid contracting the virus. The health workers were invited from the Bayelsa State Ministry of Health.
SACA trained a total of 50 persons in Otuasega community in Kolo Creek this year. Last year, we trained 43 in Kalaba community in Okordia Zarama. The candidates for this year were trained on Fish Farming, Cosmetics, Soap, Detergent and Antiseptics Production, Snail Farming and Mobile Phones Repair. For the trainings, we engaged various experts from the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology's Bioresources Development Center (BIODEC) at Odi.
Fr. Kevin O'Hara of SACA fielding interviews with the media (TVC) during the anti-pipeline vandalism organised by SACA for secondary school students in Kolo Creek Cluster, which was held at Mater Dei Secondary School on June 27, 2019. The campaigns are part of SACA's efforts to help address the problem from its roots, in this case by disabusing the minds of the young ones while they are still innocent but allured everyday to the illicit trade. The anti-vandalism campaign is an annual event. That of last year was held in Zarama town hall.
SACA worked with the International Commission of Inquiry on environmental degradation in the Niger Delta led by renowned lawyer and Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu. The commission has been investigating the thousands of oil spills in the Delta, particularly in Bayelsa State, which have destroyed a lot of lives and livelihoods and damaged the ecosystem.
A new hand has joined SACA staff, in the person of Kingsley Ozegbe. Mr. Ozegbe replaces Abba Ayemi as the Director of the organisation. Prior to his appointment in SACA, Mr. Ozegbe has worked for a number of other civil society organisations as Finance Manager and Monitoring & Evaluation Consultant, in Port Harcourt and other parts of the country.
The Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC) has struck an agreement with SACA to fund parts of the organisation's community economic empowerment programmes. This is the results of years of engagement between SACA and the company. Agip's new GMD, Alessadro Tiani, has assured SACA of their commitment to restorative justice.
In the early 2000s, some of the multinationals operating in the Niger Delta, especially Shell, agreed with SACA that sustainable development was a more sensible way of securing their assets than Community Assistanc and militarization. However, there have been observable lapses in the implementation of these projects, as most communities complained of poor standards in the projects delivery and lack of transparency in their implementation. Since 2012, SACA therefore started conducting evaluations of the development projects, especially Shell’s GMoU projects, with all stakeholders and using the results to engage the top managements of the companies.
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Stakeholders Consultation is one great way to win the hearts and minds of the people, and this is very crucial for the corporation’s Community Relations/External Relations departments. This all-important need is very clearly spelt out inside Shell’s Global Memorandum of Understanding (GMoU) documents, which are their sustainable development agreements with their host communities. Unfortunately, many of the communities in Bayelsa State allege that those gatherings do not take place and that consequently, they have little or no inputs in projects assigned or being executed in their communities, leading to a lot of project rejections. SACA is bridging this gap by conducting annual All Oil/Gas Stakeholders gatherings in various parts of the State. We often do it in collaboration with the companies themselves. Click on the button to see one of them.
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Frequent spills are the cause of the deaths of over 16,000 infants in the Niger Delta annually, according to a report by 2 professors from St. Gallen University in Switzerland, who carried out a research in the area in 2012. SACA has been engaging the corporations, both in Nigeria and in their home countries, to apply international standards in handling oil spills in Nigeria. Working with their shareholders, especially those of Shell in the UK, we have made the companies to not only clean up the spills but also respond to spills timely enough to protect the environment and the healths/lives of their host communities and reduce tensions. We also carry out environmental campaigns, both among company staff and among community members.
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