Preparations in Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Prof. Stella Williams is teaching agricultural economics at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile Ife and has spent many years researching artisanal fisheries in Nigeria's Delta Region and elsewhere.
Now close to retirement, she is also an activist against environmental degradation and social exclusion which spawns much of the violence in the Delta.
Some of her former students live in the Delta region and experience the hardship of a depressed economic situation, violence and lack of perspective which are particularly hard to take for young people.
Nduwhite Ndubuisi Ahanonu, from Oguta in Imo State, is a graduate of Fine and Applied Arts (University of Nigeria Nsukka 2000).
He has participated already in several exhibitions and is at present a studio artist, an Art Consultant and a Cultural activist.
He is the National Coordinator for the "Magnificent 10 Fingers Artist Society' (MAFAS10). He was the only African selected for Midbar International Artists Residency Israel 2006.
The meeting of our two minds brought together our different perspectives on how to use the sciences and the arts to look for alternatives together with young people from the Delta Region in Port Harcourt.
When we heard about the plans for the exhibition in Amsterdam and the possibility to work with scientists, artists, school teachers and young people from elsewhere, we saw this as an opening on the stony road to improvements on the ground.
Here are some impressions on the initial steps of the group work with students of peace clubs of three schools, the Stella Maris College in Port Harcourt, the Community Secondary School Ochokiri, Okrika and the Community Secondary School Abuloma, all in Rivers State, Nigeria.
Peace Club Coordinator, Mr. Atu Baridapdoo and Vice Principal Academics, Mr. Ibims Samuel, of Stella Maris College were also actively involved, as was the Peace Club Coordinator of Community Secondary School Okochiri, Okrika, Mr. Basil Paul A.
