women issues communication services agency(WICSA)

 Women Issues Communication Services Agency (WICSA), is a  501 (c) (3)  organization committed to managing the communication gap between advocates of women's issues and their target audience; women and their families. It is run by a group of volunteers.

WICSA launched it's first global campaign in 1998 using a travel museum of paintings, sculptures and etchings to campaign against Female genital Mutilation (FGM) with positive results.

We are now poised to expand our services to empower other aspects of women's lives.

Our Mission Statement

WICSA is a Christian organization set up to provide financial, technical and advisory services to female small business owners, and low income women aspiring to own their businesses, irrespective of race or creed, in order to transform lives.

 Vision

To assist low income women gain more economic empowerment to transform their lives

 Misery and the spirit of conquest (Oil
on canvas) by Ben Osaghae

OUR ART PROJECT....

In 1998, WICSA, under the auspices of Joy Keshi Walker, the founder, the organization created an educational Art exhibition museum and lecture series that have traveled worldwide.

The mission of the exhibits is to use Arts as a means of campaigning against harmful traditional practices especially female Genital mutilation with outstanding results.

The travel museum has shown in Africa, British, European and German (Bundestag) Parliaments with positive results. These exhibits have now returned to the United States since 2006 and have shown in Ivy league universities like Harvard University, Brandeis University, and a lot more... .

WICSA worked in conjunction with FORWARD GERMANY, a not-for -profit organization that promotes women's health to bring the exhibits to Europe and to the United States.

The Silence by Nze Juliet Ezenwa

Who We Are

WICSA is run by a crop of volunteers below:

Joy Keshi is an advocate and international communication consultant to governments and non-governmental organizations globally that promote women’s issues. In 1998, she founded a non profit organization, “Women Issues Communication Services Agency (WICSA)” an interventionist group dedicated to bridging the
communication gap between advocates of women issues and their target audience using the Arts.

 WICSA developed educational Art exhibits and lecture series that have traveled worldwide. The exhibits have shown in Africa, British, European and German (Bundestag) Parliaments with positive results. Joy worked in conjunction with FORWARD GERMANY, to take the exhibits all over the world.

 Since coming to the United States from Nigeria, Joy has worked as a teacher and a vacation guide and recently earned an Masters in Business Administration (MBA) with distinction.

She enjoys spending time with her children and volunteering in her church.

What I learnt from the Exhibition

The critical path to freeing women, especially from developing nations, is through financial independence attained by job training and self-sufficiency programs.

 Mable Olufolake Somorin (Mrs)  - Copy Director/ Lowe Lintas

A graduate of Communications Studies from Aberdeen College, Scotland, Mrs. Somorin also holds aPost Graduate Diploma in Advertising Administration from Watford College Herts, England.

A seasoned creative thinker with cutting edge copywriting skills, Mrs. Somorin parades an
impressive portfolio with wide ranging creative experience on diverse multi-national and local brands.Having previously worked in two top Nigerian Advertising Agencies, she joined Lowe Lintas in May 1994and has attended creative management and leadership courses in Nigeria and has been exposed tointernational TV shoots in London, UK and Cape Town South Africa.

Presently Mrs. Somorin is a Copy Director in Lowe Lintas and a full member of the Advertising
Practitioner Council of Nigeria (APCON).

A founding member of W.I.C.S.A – Women Issues Communications Services Agency , Mrs Somorin continues to organize programs that focus on stopping unhealthy widowhood practices as well as end prostitution.

Career Highpoints:

• Led the Lowe Lintas creative team to win the Nigerian Breweries Pitch and sustain the account in Feb. 1999.
  The lead copywriter on the Lowe Lintas team that won a Bronze medal for Maltina “Sip It” campaign at the maiden edition of the LAIF Awards (Lagos Advertising and Ideas festival)  in June 2006Mrs. Somorin is a full member of the Advertising Practitioner Council of Nigeria (APCON). Mabel is married with children.

• Made a presentation during the WICSA forum at the conference of Women in Africa and the African Diaspora (WAAD) at IUPUI Indianapolis, Indiana, USA.

 Chi- Chi Anwuli Keshi

Bio Under Construction

Ifeanyi Ada Maha

Born 42 years ago, Ifeanyi Ada Maha an attorney, holds a first and masters degree in Law from
the Universities of Benin and Lagos respectively (both in Nigeria) and was called to the Nigerian
Bar in 1987. She has a post qualification experience of well over nineteen years spanning
commercial legal practice (with a bias for secured credit transactions) and human rights advisory
services.  She has attended various training programs on Corporate Finance, Investment
Banking, Personal Financial Planning and Management locally and internationally.

Ada has actively participated in a number of the self regulatory organizations in  Nigeria. She sits
on the Council of the Association of Pension Funds of Nigeria and has served on various
Committees of the Association of Corporate Trustees and the Nigerian Securities & Exchange
Commission’s Capital Market Committee’s Sub Committee on the Reactivation of the Nigerian
Bond Market. Presently, she is a serving member of the Education and Training Committee of the
Association of Issuing Houses (underwriters) of Nigeria.  Ada is an acknowledged Trustee expert
and has had hands-on experience in the trusteeship to some of the largest trust and pension
funds in Nigeria.

Presently, Ada is the Executive Vice President/Chief Operating Officer of a leading Nigerian
investment banking firm – Greenwich Trust Limited, a dealing member of the Nigerian Stock
Exchange and an operator duly licensed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Greenwich
Trust Limited is the holding company for its subsidiaries – Greenwich Asset Management Limited,
Greenwich Securities Limited, Greenwich Nominees Limited and Greenwich Properties Limited. In
the course of her career, she was the Managing Director/CEO, Cornerstone Trustees Limited and
the Executive Director of its subsidiary company – Cornerstone Leasing & Investments Limited.
Both companies being subsidiaries of Cornerstone Insurance Plc, a top Nigerian publicly quoted
insurance company.

 Ada also at sundry times headed the Human Capital Administration and Pensions departments  of Habib Nigeria Bank Trustees Limited  (now PHP Capital and Trusts Limited, pursuant to the 2005 consolidations in the Nigerian banking sector that culminated in the merger of Habib Nigeria Bank Plc and Platinum Bank Plc). for well over six years alongside being the Company Secretary and the Head, Trust and Legal Services Departments. She has also worked in the telecommunications sector, having worked as the Company Secretary/Legal Adviser to Satcom Nigeria Limited (Telecommunications Engineers), an affiliate of GAI & MECA Inc, Houston, Texas.

 Ada was the Managing Partner of Ada Maha & Associates (Legal Practitioners),
before her reentry into the financial services  sector in 1999.

She is a member of the Nigerian Chartered Institute of Management and awaits the June 2007
induction into the National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria. In 2001, for her commitment to the
cause of refugees, she was honored with the conferment of ambassadorship by the African
Refugee Foundation (AFEF).  

 In November 2000, under WICSA auspices, Ada was a guest speaker at the British Parliament forum set up to review British law on Female genital Mutilation

An avid collector of art, Ada loves gardening, sewing and baking.