Bakia Mary holds a MA in Gender and development studies and a P.G certificate in the Management of Small and Medium Enterprises obtained from the Interuniversity Institute of Training and Development (IITD) in Brussels, Belgium.
She joined CENDEP in 2018 as a Lobby & Advocacy coordinator to facilitate the implementation of Analog forestry workshops as well as Lobby & Advocacy (L&A) workshops in (5) African countries namely Uganda, Ghana, Benin, Togo, as well as Cameroon on local, national and global environmental problems. Mary contributes in strengthening and unifying the capabilities of women and grassroots groups to lobby and advocate with and for women to claim their rights to water, food security and a clean, healthy and safe environment.
Mary’s ultimate goal is to advocate for women’s voices and leadership to be heard thereby influencing the environmental community, including the environmental justice movement, and have women’s participation, experience, knowledge, priorities and ideas valued in policy and decision-making spaces related to the environment.