Parresia Foundation Launches

This event has been postponed by the organisers. More information will be shared when available

This is to invite you to the launch of the Parrésia Foundation for Arts and Literature which will hold at Freedom Park, Onikan, Lagos Island, on the 11th of May, 2013 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.

The Parrésia Foundation for Arts and Literature is a nongovernmental, not-for-profit organization registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission of Nigeria to actively participate in arts and literary development in the country while adding to the value of indigenous arts and literature in the global marketplace of ideas. Our core aim is to see the recognition of arts and literature, in terms of government policy, administrative practice and corporate social responsibility, as an active component of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

In order to achieve this, the Foundation, founded by Mrs. Azafi Omoluabi and Barr. Richard Ali who own Parrésia Publishers Ltd which is Nigeria’s most innovative publishing company, have set up a fourteen-person Board of Advisers headed by Otunba Ayodeji Osibogun, Chairman of WTS Nigeria. Other members are the leading academic Prof. Hope Eghagha, Honourable Commissioner for Higher Education Delta State, international awards winning author Helon Habila and Dr. Aito Ofure of the Lagos State University. An independent administration, headed by an Executive Secretary to be appointed, who will report to this Board quarterly.

The Foundation will source funds from donors and from its endowment to undertake six major programmes.

1. Parrésia Residency Programme

Four Parrésia Residency programs, three for Literature and one for Visual Arts, will be hosted by four universities in Nigeria for a period of no longer than twelve weeks each. 

2. Annual Parrésia Lecture

A distinguished international personality and thinker would be required to present a structured paper on a topic of great moment as regards Nigerian arts and literature specifically and the social sciences generally. 

3. National Reading Campaigns

These campaigns will be targeted at government secondary schools, both at the Federal and State levels. 

4. Book Festival and Publisher’s Parley

This will be a yearly event to be hosted with all stakeholders in the book industry, to both raise the profile of books in the public consciousness and to afford a platform for publishers from across West Africa and Africa to parley on the way forward.

5. Advocacy and Workshops

These will be designed and targeted at government ministries and departments related to the books in Nigeria; principally, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of the Interior, Customs, universal Basic Education Boards and similar parastatals/MDA’s. 

6. Nigeria Translations Committee

This Committee will be set up to carry out the following objectives—

i. Scout for, prepare for publication and publish creation myths and national epics of indigenous Nigerian ethnicities in both indigenous language [in the appropriate script] and in English. 

ii. Make the national epics of other countries available in cheap English editions for the local Nigerian audience.

iii. Create an inter-textual basis for the unity of various Nigerian ethnicities.

Parrésia Publishers Ltd, as a part of its corporate social responsibility, will endow the Foundation with 5% of its profits every year and will encourage like-minded corporate organizations to pledge to the Foundation with a mind to it becoming a grant-giving institution within five years. 

The general public is cordially invited to this event and copies of the invitation cards can be viewed and downloaded here

RSVP via email to azafi@parresia.com.ng and via telephone to +234 806 239 2145 and +234 806 239 2145.

Azafi Omoluabi 

Managing Editor

Parrésia Publishers Ltd

No. 9 Oluwole Close, Okota, Lagos.

Richard Ali

Chief Operating Officer

Parrésia Publishers Ltd

No. 9 Oluwole Close, Okota, Lagos.

+234 806 239 2145