Our Data = Our Rights — (left) #Cotonou waterfront communities number their houses to build a platform for discussion of eviction alternatives, (right) Otumara community in #Lagos carries out upgrading opinion survey to build bottom up planning process 💪💪💪

After a decade of grassroots paralegal services by and for residents of urban slums in #PortHarcourt, we’re launching a citywide urban poverty and justice survey to trace the justice challenges that hold people in the poverty trap — to co-create solutions for the decade ahead 💪

Over the last 2 weeks, our amazing community paralegal team in #PortHarcourt interviewed 900+ urban poor residents from all parts of the city — waterfront residents, street traders, & more, documenting their diverse justice challenges, to together build more effective solutions

Standing room only at #Migbeghoue community data return after first-ever citywide informal settlement house numbering in #Cotonou — to build a map and a community-led process to plan for in-situ upgrading alternatives #KnowYourCity -> #TransformYourCity

#Storytelling of how we organize to build community power 💪 — community paralegals and legal empowerment organizations from across West Africa and beyond convene in #Kano, Nigeria to share learnings/strategies/challenges/successes

An important ingredient in ‘building community power’ is identifying / strengthening / activating grassroots leaders — here are some of our common strategies:

#LegalEmpowerment takes many different shapes — yesterday, in Yar Gaya community in #Kano, young female street hawkers supported by Isa Wali Empowerment Initiative (IWEI) performed a skit raising awareness among their peers about SGBV and steps to take to hold perpetrators accountable 💪

“Difficulties [accessing healthcare] rise along with material disadvantage: Citizens experiencing “high lived poverty” are more than twice as likely to report problems as well-off respondents (58% vs 26%).” (study by Afrobarometer in this week’s ⁦The Continent⁩)

🎬 Cotonou #BergesRévélées Official Trailer Over 100k ppl live in the Cotonou waterfronts. Their homes, livelihoods, and culture are under threat of eviction. There is another way forward. Join us! youtu.be/PkM7D17TUIM?si…

Participatory film screenings across #Cotonou informal settlements of our film #IfWallsCouldTalk — about the challenges & resilience of urban poor PLWDs in #Lagos — as part of our campaign to help register PLWDs to benefit from #Benin’s new ‘equal chance’ benefit program 💪💪💪

Community-led data collection & use has transformational power to advance community priorities for upgrading, access to services, & protection of fundamental rights — challenging entrenched systems of inequality & disempowerment. We’re happy to be part of the IDEAMAPS Network 💪

"There seems to be a recent pattern with #Lagos State Urban Renewal Agency (LASURA Lagos State Urban Renewal Agency), engaging community leaders & other stakeholders involved in targeted slum communities and later rescinding only to carry out demolitions and evictions." #Otto saharareporters.com/2024/04/12/fat…

The community of #Abokicodji in #Cotonou is under immediate threat of eviction w/o compensation or resettlement. The authorities have given them until Monday. See the faces of PLWDs, children, women who will be left homeless if the action is not stopped. #ForcedEvictionNeverAgain

In the wake of FG destroying beachfront resorts in Lagos to construct a "coastal road", it's important that we realise that our sympathy should actually be for the indigenous people whom were forcibly evicted from their homes to build those resorts in the first place.

Please refer to OluTimehin's TED Talk. Now the thing about oppressive systems is it's never your friend and it's coming for you. Because these same resorts colluded with LSG in a land grabbing spree. People who have called those beaches home... youtu.be/acikxzM6GaY?si…

for decades were displaced. Many of them were injured and murdered. Today, is the turn of the people who evicted them. These business owners are more likely to have it easy because they can fight and get huge settlements in court (something that the actual victims did not get).

Happy #WorkersDay to Nigeria's informal workforce, the backbone of our economy! We celebrate your hustle. Now let's fight for equal rights & protections! #NSISF #InformalWorkersMatter #EqualRights @equalopportunity The Lagos State Govt JEI Slum Dwellers International @Data4HumanRights

JOIN US for the Nigerian premiere of our film, THE LEGEND OF THE VAGABOND QUEEN OF LAGOS at the African International Film Festival AFRIFF, after ~7yrs of radical co-production w/ & by urban poor communities to advance the struggle against forced evictions

Senator Onyekachi Nwebonyi's “solution” to #AbujaAirport ’s nearby informal settlements is the classic erasure tactic: displace vulnerable communities instead of addressing why millions live in informal settlements in the first place. No affordable housing plan. #Nwebonyi

“legal empowerment can address the root causes of authoritarianism…When we use law to tackle problems we face, we reduce the distance between our institutions and ourselves.” Vivek Maru of Namati latimes.com/opinion/story/…