Year: 2018
#FacesofLeadership: Tanzanian Women’s Cross Party
#FacesofLeadership: Tanzanian Women’s Cross Party
TWCP is a trailblazer in building women’s political and leadership capacities and creating spaces for women in politics. They are often consulted during high level political conversations and engage the media on policies that are gender blind. Through their efforts, TWCP has created a safe space for women politicians to interact and work with CSOs, having advocated for more women to be elected to various political positions.
They operate in 13 districts and focus on empowering women leaders of political parties, building women politicians and women leaders capacity and community mobilization for civic engagement.
TWCP was awarded a grant in 2017 to engage political stakeholders to change policies in order to facilitate the adoption of gender equality and quota systems in political processes. These included the National election commission, Zanzibar election Commission, officials from the office of registrar of political parties, Tanzania female Police Network, Women’s Rights Organization and Officials from the ministry of health, gender, children, community development and elderly.
#FacesoftheFuture : Grantee Stories and Moments to highlight the Women changing the Future of the African Continent.
#FacesoftheFuture : Grantee Stories and Moments to highlight the Women changing the Future of the African Continent.
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This year we’re placing our grantees at the forefront of our work. The #Facesofthefuture campaign highlights the various women and organisations behind our thematic areas and each individual subsection corresponds with a different aspect of our work. All of our grantees continue to define and shape the future– and it’s important to highlight the myriad ways in which they do this, as they do this.
This campaign centres both our grantees and the work that we’re doing and allows us to highlight some of the more interesting parts of our work.
Track #Facesofthefuture on twitter to keep up with all of the new stories and highlights each week.
Track #FacesofTransformation for stories on women transforming their communities through various interventions.
Track #FacesofLeadership for stories on our capacity building grantees and our innovative Manda Coaching Program that helps shape feminist leaders within women’s rights organisations.
Track #FacesofEmpowerment for stories that focus on the various ways we support economic security and justice.
Track #FacesofAdvocacy for stories on grantees that work in work in advocacy!
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Cette année, nos bénéficiaires occupent la première place dans notre travail. Notre campagne #Facesofthefuture met l’accent sur les différentes femmes et organisations qui contribuent à notre travail lié à nos domaines thématiques et chaque sous-section correspond à un aspect de notre travail. Toutes nos bénéficiaires continuent à définir et à façonner l’avenir. Il est donc important de souligner les diverses manières dont elles le font, pendant qu’elles le font.
Cette campagne tourne autour de nos bénéficiaires ainsi que notre travail et nous permet de décrire certaines des parties les plus intéressantes de notre travail.
Suivez #Facesofthefuture sur Twitter pour avoir accès à toutes les nouvelles histoires et les faits marquants de chaque semaine.
Suivez #FacesofTransformation pour accéder à des histoires sur les femmes qui transforment leurs communautés à travers diverses interventions.
Suivez #FacesofLeadership pour accéder aux histoires sur nos bénéficiaires qui sont dans le domaine de renforcement des capacités et notre programme innovant Manda Coaching qui forme les leaders féministes au sein des organisations de défense des droits des femmes.
Suivez #FacesofEmpowerment pour lire des histoires qui mettent l’accent sur nos diverses manières de soutenir l’autonomisation économique et le plaidoyer.
Suivez #FacesofAdvocacy pour accéder à des histoires sur les bénéficiaires qui ne font que du plaidoyer.
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Reflections on Generations of Sisterhood: International Women’s Day 2018
Reflections on Generations of Sisterhood: International Women’s Day 2018
“Women are not homogenous. We can be different but still find common ground to work together strategically. We cannot, must not, allow age, generation, class, ethnicity, education and professional lives, marital and motherhood statuses, diverse abilities and disabilities to divide us”. Prof Akosua Adomako Ampofo
Feminism is sisterhood and sisterhood requires conversation and interrogation to grow. It is not always the beautiful, flowing moments of synergy, but sometimes the recognition of our differences that require an examination of the cracks in order to find healing.
To mark International Women’s Day this year, The African Women’s Development Fund partnered with Pepper Dem Ministries, a vibrant online activist movement to engage in a conversation about Intergenerational feminism in Ghana. We examined mind sets, structures and the lack of conversation between various generations that could eventually lead to an erasure of our collective gains and histories. We looked at the good, the bad and the complex and emerged better for it.
The conversation was divided into three separate panels. The first panel, labelled the Pacesetters, comprised some of the women whose activism had paved the way for women’s rights in Ghana today. The panel, moderated by Gifty Anti included Nana Oye Lithur, Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo, Professor Takyiwah Manuh and Professor Akua Opokua Britwum. These women recounted all the times they had challenged power in their long careers, and reminded the audience of the importance of building on foundations. They also spoke to worrying new trends, a resurgence of “traditional” values, that Professor Ampofo aptly referred to as the cult of domesticity.
The Second panel, captioned the NewGen, included feminists that had come into the fold through the development of their individual belief systems that were doing interesting work and sparking new conversations in their various fields. This panel, moderated by Afia Kwakyewaa Owusu-Nyantakyi was made up of Francisca Kakra Forson, Shamima Muslim, Felicity Nelson, Efe Plange and Maame Adwoa Amoa Marfo. This panel discussed the new conversations that Ghanaian feminists were having to tackle, as well as the necessity in fighting for and understanding differences within the movement. From their discussion, it was clear that a self-serving movement was unsustainable and would ultimately fizzle out.
The Third Panel, was an intergenerational panel that focused on the learnings that the feminist movement would need to address and grow from. They spoke to the changing dynamics within the feminist movements, the importance of harnessing social media space and momentum as well as the need for better communication of our feminist histories within the movement. This panel comprised Kinna Likimani, Louise Carol Donkor, Dinah Adiko, Rita Nketiah, Sheila Minka-Premo and was moderated by Akosua Hanson.
The conversation was lively, raising issues that are often glossed over and charting a history that isn’t always spoken of. Participants left the event with renewed vigour and a thirst to learn more about our shared movement and discover better ways to work together. This will enable us to truly consolidate our gains.