Oil in our Blood

Rooted Rising Initiative partnered with LINCgreen to screen a powerful documentary “Oil in Our Blood" at a side event that brought together more than 60 participants, including students, academics, activists, community leaders, and environmental advocates at the Niger Delta Climate Change Conference.

The documentary which took place on the 30th of June, 2026 was more than a film screening, it was an encounter with the lived realities of frontline women whose bodies, livelihoods, and futures have been shaped by decades of oil extraction. It revealed how pollution is not only destroying ecosystems but also quietly infiltrating human bodies, threatening health, reproductive well-being, economic survival, and dignity.

As the stories unfolded, the room shifted between silence, disbelief, grief, and determination. It became clear that these were not isolated experiences; they reflected a much larger injustice that has persisted for generations.

The extractive industry has spent decades documenting barrels of oil, production volumes, and profit margins. We must become just as intentional about documenting the human cost. Every testimony recorded, every polluted stream mapped, every health survey conducted, every oral history preserved, and every community archive created becomes evidence that cannot easily be erased or denied.

Justice is not won by outrage alone; it is strengthened by memory, documentation, and collective persistence.

If we want a different future for the Niger Delta, we must not only resist extraction-we must preserve the truth of what extraction has done, knowing fully well that when communities own their stories, they also strengthen their power to demand repair.