Steem Cameroon contest - “August meeting”

In today’s awareness day, I will be talking about “august meeting”. The most popular program that’s held in the south east part of Nigeria by the women. The meeting is mostly held on august but there is no specific date for the meeting because it varies from time to time.

I will be discussing, how the meeting came about, the impacts this women have made through this meetings in the Igbo communities and a whole lot of other topics but before going ahead, let me invite some friends @caramella111, @chiomi and @ogechukwu-martha

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August meeting is a massive homecoming congress held once in a year in the month of August, Where all the Igbo women both home and abroad come to attend in there various matrimonial communities to discuss the future development of the community. The meeting is a three days ritual that is divided into three different categories. The first day is at the village, the next is at their different communities and the third day is at the church for thanksgiving services for a successful meeting.

Before the British took over Nigeria, the Igbos practiced decentralized system of government with autonomous villages controlled by council of elders. However, when the British took over Nigeria, they disrupted the Igbo political structure and introduced indirect rule. Since power was now centralized and in the hands of the colonial masters, the relevance of traditional rulers, soon faded off including council of elders.

It is within this context that the “August Meeting” is believed to have emerged. It was influenced by church missionary societies that aimed to empower women's voices and to revive those old cultures and traditions that were abolished by the colonial masters. There is no specific day for the meeting in august but it’s mostly done during the end of farming season, when everyone are on holidays, for people to have chance to attend.

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The goal of this “August meeting” include; strengthening social bond between community members, settlement of disputes among the different communities, making collective decisions about community affairs and maintaining traditional customs.

But as time passes by, the goals of the meeting has evolved as well, to tackle some of the current challenges of the community and it include;

• setting up a platform were women can talk about their rights, challenges and aspirations.

• Involving youth in community activities.

• Speaking on challenges that bothers on education, health care and poverty alleviation.

• Women participation in politics and advocating for good leadership.

• Encouraging investment and entrepreneurship.

One thing we should note is that, this goals varies among the five south east states in Nigeria.

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Before now, people who only participated where women but in recent times men and youth are now part of it. It’s mostly hosted in the community were people are divided according to their age group.

The structure of leadership is different among the different Igbo communities but the common factors are;

• Executive committees: they are the ones in charge of organizing and planning the meetings.

• Religious affiliation: the Christian among them usually form their own groups within the meeting.

• Traditional rulers: This rulers help in supporting the meeting by providing them with cash or giving guidance in some communities

• Age group: this women are divided by age groups and each of them have their own leadership and also structure.

August meeting has been one of the major source that has been able to bring development in most of this abandoned communities that the government hardly develop. Through the collaboration of the women, projects they have implemented include;

• Help in building and renovating essential infrastructure like health centers, schools etc.

• They give soft loans to empower the community youths.

• They empower the women with various skills acquisition and support the aged, widows and orphans.

• The august meeting provides a platform for conflict resolution through dialogue and mediation.

• The meeting has help cultivate leadership qualities among the women in the south east of Nigeria.

• Encouraged women to take part in politics and decision making process.

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One of the major challenges the “August meeting” faced in the early years and almost made the meeting loosed its value was when the influential and rich women of the meeting were using their expensive jewelries and clothes to intimidate other women in the meeting.

This brought unnecessary competition in the meetings because some women will go as far as mounting pressure on their husbands to give them money or use money meant for something serious to buy expensive clothes for the august meeting, so they can show off. It destroyed many marriages that period.

To solve all this problems, the decision was taken that all the women should wear a pre chosen uniform for the meeting to stop all this unnecessary competition and pressure among themselves.