The Mbong Foundation intends to go into the communities in these six states to resolve the differences in the communities and make them live in peace with each other so that there can be meaningful developments in their communities. This involves tours, conferences, seminars, rallies and peace meetings with local chiefs, elders and kings. Trying to discover what the differences are and resolving them. This is no easy task, because there is much acrimony within the communities, so much hatred, which arises from killings of family members, destruction of whole villages and means of livelihood, ably funded by oil money.
After resolving conflicts within the communities, we will then seek to resolve the area of differences within the communities, the government and oil corporations. We believe that if there is a tripartite agreement, there can be meaningful developments in the communities sponsored by the government and the oil businesses. If there is no peace in the communities, any developmental program is going to be destroyed by wars or by sabotage.
The Foundation also organizes seminars and workshops on the rights of the individuals and communities in the society. Awareness as to rights of the citizens, environmental, voting, economic and human rights is low in the Delta Area. Because over the years, the people have not been involved in the affairs of the land because the government since the Nigeria was ruled by the military for almost 40 years. We intend to take the opportunity offered by the return of democracy to enlighten the masses about their fundamental and communal rights.
We also talk to women on empowering them to take action and be politically active, because we believe that women bear the brunt of any bad government the most and especially in third world countries, women are always on the sidelines. They are left out on any political calculations. In most work places women are discriminated against in the sense that there are types of jobs a woman should do. We will talk about work place issues like sexual harassment and how to deal with it. We offer counseling services to women and youths in the communities we will be working with.
The Foundation has a strong commitment to harnessing entrepreneurial spirit to help build communities and promote sustainable economic and individual development in the communities. We believe that it is not everybody that can and will work for the government or oil firms. So we seek out youths and trained them so they can have their own small scale businesses, like soap making, welding, shoe and dressmaking and other crafts. We will also run a training outfit to train youths on computer and secretarial duties and in any way they can and will be useful to the community. We will offer career counseling to students in secondary schools and other tertiary institutions.
The Mbong Foundation believes that without proper care for the environment in which we live, we cannot fulfilled all our goals. Therefore, we work with established environmental groups in the Niger Delta Area, to push for better environment and cleanups.
We recognizes that there are other groups in the Niger Delta that are doing the same thing we are doing, though the focus is not altogether the same. We are not be confined only to the Niger Delta Area; we will take our seminars, workshops and campaigns to all other areas of Nigeria, though as at now, because of logistics, funds and volunteers our development programs are only focused in the Niger Delta. Our Conflict resolution and preventive diplomacy, post conflict reconciliation, election monitoring and other democratic activities are in the process of registration in other countries of the world. Especially in Latin America and the West African sub-continent.