Erelu Bisi Fayemi Is The Rising Magazine’s ‘Most Admired Woman’ of 2018
Erelu Bisi Fayemi, is capping home an incredibly successful year with a new title: “The Rising Magazine’s Most Admired Woman.”
The Ekiti First Lady snagged the top spot in an opinion Facebook comments monitored by the ADL Brand and Events Marketing Communication on Monday. The marketing communications outfit had asked its numerous followers to mention their preferred woman for the ‘Most Admired Woman’ award of the magazine for 2018. Well over 90% mentioned the Ekiti first lady Erelu Bisi Fayemi as their preferred candidate.
Erelu Fayemi
has been back in the public eye early this year when she came out strongly to lead the campaign for the second coming of her husband Dr. Kayode Fayemi as the Governor of Ekiti State. In a rear feet, Erelu Fayemi led a democratic revolution that captured the entire nation’s imagination. She was described by many political players as a woman in a man’s franchise. Her small moments of courage and resilience in the Ekiti political struggle against tyranny and operessive rule of Ayodele Fayose yielded a great result.
Erelu has no doubt shown that women from the world go have brave fighting spirit to accomplish big political roles in a men dominated political economy such as Nigeria.
To threfore have such a brave woman as Ekiti first lady is like having double from the price of one. “Erelu is several gifts in one to Ekiti State and Nigeria as a whole,” the magazine wrote in her editorial.
A feminist activist, writer and policy advocate and social entrepreneur, Erelu Bisi Fayemi is hereby declared as the Rising Magazine Most Admired Woman of the year 2018.
Erelu Bisi co-founded the African Women’s Development Fund, (AWDF), the first pan-African grant-making organisation.
She has many years of experience as a gender specialist, social entrepreneur, policy advocate, and social change philanthropy practitioner. She co-founded the African Women’s Development Fund, (AWDF) – the first Africa-wide grant-making fund, and served as the first Executive Director from 2001-2010. AWDF has played a key role in the promotion of feminist movement building in Africa.
She is currently Principal Partner, Amandla Consulting, specializing in leadership development for women, and she runs an online community calledAbovewhispers.com.
She is a UN Women Nigeria Senior Advisor, and a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at King’s College, University of London.
When her husband Dr Kayode Fayemi took office as Governor of Ekiti State, Nigeria, October 16th 2010-2014, Erelu Bisi became actively involved in a range of policy advocacy, grassroots empowerment and social inclusion programs in Ekiti State. She led the campaign to enact a Gender Based Violence Prohibition Law (2011) an Equal Opportunities Bill (2013) and a HIV Anti-Stigma Bill (2014).
She serves on the Executive Boards of the African Women’s Development Fund, and the Global Fund for Women USA. She is Chair of the Advisory Council of the Nigerian Women’s Trust Fund and also serves on the Governing Council of Elizade University, Nigeria.
Erelu Bisi Fayemi is the author of ‘Speaking for Myself’: Perspectives on Social, Political and Feminist Activism in Africa (2013), ‘Speaking above a Whisper’, (2013) an autobiography and ‘Loud Whispers’ (2017). She also co-edited ‘Voice, Power and Soul’, with Jessica Horn (2008) a compilation of images and stories of African Feminists.
Future.
Some of the issues that she would probably be addressing among women in Ekiti state during her second tenure as first lady would include Gender Based Violence Prohibition Bill, Ekiti State Equal Opportunities Bill as well as HIV & AIDS, Anti-Stigmatization among others.
Congratulations ma