women issues communication services agency(WICSA)

Women Issues Communication Services Agency (WICSA), is a 501 (c) (3) not-for profit organization committed to managing the communication gap between advocates of women's issues and their target audience – women and their families. We use our christian faith to advance the cause of women and the people in their lives.

WICSA was founded by Joy Walker in 1998 and it is run today by Joy and 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.

Today, WICSA is poised to widen its services to include micro financial services to low income women. We hope to use our micro credit scheme to improve and transform
women's lives worldwide.

   Our Goals

• To use the Arts as a formidable tool for positive changes in the world
• Use micro credit schemes to empower women financially so they can make informed decision for their lives.

What We Do

We use the visual Arts as a tool for combating harmful traditional practices such as Female Circumcision or Female Genial Mutilation (FGM). Our Art exhibitions provide platforms for discussing the problem with a view to stopping the practice. We believe that Art is a universal language that transcends language and cultural barriers. The campaign to stop Female circumcision by WICSA started in Nigeria in 1998, a country with over 250 indigenous languages, with English as the official language.

The issue of FGM is very sensitive in nature and has to be handled with care. In creating a communication strategy, we had to use a communication medium that would not be judgmental nor offend anyone’s sensibilities. Art is non judgmental with a powerful message to move people to radical action. It has the capacity to overcome cultural sensibilities as pictures speak for themselves.

It is important to approach controversial issues such as FGM, which is rooted in tradition and religion, with tact to avoid damaging confrontations from custodians of tradition and religion.

Art has aesthetic values that attract people even the most cynics, to the exhibitions. Africans not only enjoy art for its aesthetic values, but also for its spiritual connotations

Art as a lasting legacy.

Long after we are gone and the practice has stopped, our art pieces would remain as a legacy of our struggles  to end FGM for the generations yet to be born.

Passing thought.....

Finally, like Katherine Tyler Scott of

ThoughtBridge company said recently,

"Women are the carriers of our cultural DNA".

I believe that we need to uphold the diginity of women so that we can can continue to perpetuate the human race with dignity.

TO SEE THE EXHIBITION CATALOG, PLEASE CLICK HERE

http://polaris.umuc.edu/~acavanau/july2007/presenters/Levin_NigerianArtists.pdf

The infibilation stone

Stop FGM today!

Please contact us anytime! We look forward to hearing from you.

Please contact with suggestions on how to stop the practice in Contact US

“A mutilated woman mirrors a mutilated world. A wounded woman is a wounded family and a wounded nation. It is time to end this heinous practice”.

- Joy Walker, 1998