Edwina Cooper interview on Liberian Women's Initiative, her upbringing, and women's peacebuilding and activism (video, English)
Topics
Country
Tags
Summary
Edwina Cooper, Liberian Women's Initiative, tells the story of how she became involved in women's peacebuilding activism in response to a 23-year civil war, and her personal story of growing up in Liberia. Cooper talks about a successful campaign to pass a bill asserting the supremacy of statutory law over "hinterland law" or traditional law, where women have almost no rights and are essentially treated as property. She also discusses the difficulties her organization faced because of an internal conflict between different economic constituencies, and how those difficulties were overcome through dialogue and negotiation.
This interview was conducted shortly after the Africa Regional Learning Institute for Women's Leadership and Training of Trainers (TOT), which was convened by Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) and WLP Nigeria/BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights in Calabar, Nigeria on February 21-25, 2005.
Runtime: [00:18:11]