ELVIRA’S PEN

As the world observes the International Day of Zero Waste 2025, GAIA Africa is calling for immediate action to address the growing crisis of fashion and textile waste, which is severely impacting African communities.    The fashion industry generates  92 million tonnes of textile waste annually , much of which ends up in the Global South. In Ghana, for example,  Kantamanto Market has become a hub for secondhand clothing, where approximately 15 million items are imported each year , commonly referred to as obroni wawu or “dead white man’s clothes.” Unfortunately, most of these garments are of such poor quality that they are discarded immediately. This waste fills landfills, clogs waterways, and pollutes the environment, all while undermining local textile industries and sustainable economies.    This year’s theme, “Towards Zero Waste in Fashion and Textiles,” highlights the hidden reality of the global fashion industry, which produces excessive waste—waste t...

FIND YOUR CIRCLE AND NOURISH IT - Elvira Jordan Hello Beloved 😊 How has your vibe been of late?  When you turn on the TV or scroll on social media, what do you see? How does the media and internet make you feel? How has the situation of the country and the world affected you? There are a lot of things that are wrong in the world and in the society around us that keeps us trapped in a vicious circle of fear, anger and frustration. A lot of things are wrong and no matter how much we try, we just can’t ignore something that is staring at us face-to-face. These days, I have to guard myself before going on social media, before talking to people or interacting with the world in anyway.  If its not a negative occurrence on the news, there will be an evil message on social media that corrupts the mind. If not that, you will just be on your own jejely enjoying a good day, and out of nowhere, someone will call you to tell you about a tragedy that happened to your third cousin’s mother ...

Regular capacity strengthening for Civil Society Organizations is the key to ensuring growth and optimum performance in the civil society space, equipping the relevant bodies with the tools required to facilitate development in the society. This was established at the Organizational Capacity Strengthening Project for Partners in Rivers State, organized by Ofure Center for Peace and Development and Ududu Development and Peace Initiative, with support from OXFAM Nigeria and CISLAC. The program took on a coaching and peer learning training system which was anchored by experienced development partners in the civil society space, touching critical areas such as organizational strategic planning, Monitoring, Evaluation & learning, and Resource Mobilization. In her presentation on Project Sustainability and Collaboration, Dr. Goodness Ene-Bongilli spoke on project sustainability to maintain outcomes and measure impacts beyond initial funding phases of projects, by focusing on evalua...

PROBLEMS WILL ALWAYS SOLVE THEMSELVES- Elvira Jordan Good Morning Beloved!  I always admit that because I write all these clever stuff doesn’t mean that I have all my own personal things figured out. Most times these messages are from my spirit guides to myself, which I choose to share. In the spirit of “not having all my things figured out”, the past week has been the toughest for me in a long while. I was hit with a personal issue on the first day of the week and it completely broke me down, one piece at a time.  The worst part about this issue is that it’s not something I can share even with the closest of people (not that I am such a big sharer of my problems) but at this point, I wished I could talk to someone who could give me some good advice, yet I couldn’t share. So my week was filled with a lot of overthinking. Asking myself a lot of questions nobody asked, comparing my life with a lot of irrelevant things and people, trying to draw a line between what I want versus ...

CSOs Expose Nigeria’s Role in Waste Colonialism as EU Turns Africa into a Dumping Ground Civil society organizations (CSOs) in Nigeria have strongly condemned the federal government’s bid to import non-hazardous waste from the European Union (EU), warning that such a move could exacerbate the country’s waste management crisis. The protest comes after  Nigeria and 23 other non-OECD countries  applied to the European Commission (EC) for inclusion on the list of nations eligible to import waste from the EU ahead of the 21 February deadline for applications. In a joint statement, Nigerian environmental groups—including members of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) Nigeria, Community Development Advocacy Foundation (CODAF), Environmental Defenders Network (EDEN), Zero Waste Ambassadors (ZeWA), and Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI)—denounced the government’s involvement in what they termed “waste colonialism.” A Waste Management Crisis The CSOs highlighted N...

APPRECIATE THE GIFTS OF THE PRESENT - Elvira Jordan  Good Morning Beloved!!! I have interacted with people who on the outside are doing well and even better than their peers, but seem to only see the areas of their lives that are not going well. And me I’m just like “bro, can we switch places?”… because some of us wouldn’t mind being where they are and to have those things they see as “problems”. One of the reasons why people are so unhappy with their lives is because they are only interested in the things that are not working out around them, all the while, ignoring their little wins and blessings.  Some people are good at viewing their lives from all angles and only selecting what’s not working out of everything. It’s like ordering for a nice burger pack and a bottle of coke, and when the delivery arrives, they got you a double burger pack with a bottle of Fanta. And then you get so angry about the fact that they didn’t get you the exact brand of soft drink you ordered for, ...