Category: Blog

AWDF will be joining researchers, feminists, activists, practitioners and policy makers in the upcoming Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) Forum 2024, taking place from 21-25 October in Cape Town, South Africa. As part of our participation, we have supported 17 partners from across Africa to attend this crucial event, amplifying African feminist voices in the global conversation on ending sexual violence. 

In 2022, AWDF made an impactful appearance at the Sexual Violence Research Initiative which was held in Mexico in September. Among the activities facilitated by AWDF were a partner-led knowledge circle, donor engagement on decolonized and ethical funding, and dialogue for power and control in research and Southern–feminist led forum to showcase the LFS Model. 

This year’s SVRI Forum presents an excellent opportunity for AWDF to showcase our crucial work on sexual violence, particularly our KASA! Initiative. We will be advocating for increased funding and deepening partnerships within the feminist funds and sexual violence funding ecosystem. Additionally, we aim to expand our knowledge and experience regarding evidence-based sexual violence interventions.

Key AWDF and Partner-led Activities at SVRI Forum 2024: 

AWDF and COFEM Poster Presentation

The SVRI poster presentation session is designed to showcase innovative research and programmes, facilitate in-depth discussions, and promote greater interaction between presenters and participants.

• Date: Wednesday, 23 October 2024
• Time: 1:00 – 2:00 PM
• Venue: Cape Town International Convention Center 2

African Feminist Knowledge Circle

Led by the Knowledge and Voice team,  the African Feminist Knowledge Circles are an  evolving space where African feminists convene to share identities, stories, tools, politics and approaches from their many journeys of challenging the patriarchy. This activity is only open to identified partners and participants. 

Rest & Resistance Workshop

The Solidarity and Care team has over the years learnt the importance of creating an environment and space that is a cocoon for activists to retreat into. For this workshop, the cocoon will be a softly lit room, a curated playlist of black healing music to set the tone for a peaceful and restorative experience. Spaces for this activity are limited. You are urged to attend early for a spot.

• Date: Thursday, 24th October 2024
• Time: 12pm – 1:50pm
• Venue: Cape Town International Convention Center 2

Flourish Retreat

The Retreat will involve three interconnected processes led by the facilitators and the chef. Activists will engage in rituals rooted in indigenous African practices that focus on anchoring, honouring, and connecting to the self, each other, and nature for spiritual, emotional, and physical healing. This activity is only open to identified partners and individuals. 

We invite all attendees to connect with us during these sessions and throughout the forum. It is an invaluable opportunity to share experiences, learn from one another, and strengthen our collective efforts in combating violence agains women and gender diverse people and promoting gender equality.

Here is the full programme of the SVRI forum where you will find details of these and other very insightful activities at the forum.

Connect with AWDF online X, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Follow our live updates from the forum using #AWDFatSVRI. 

Recently, AWDF held a Voice, Power and Soul festival in Accra, Ghana, which showcased the power and diversity of African feminist voices. This event brought together artists, thinkers, and changemakers to challenge the erasure of African feminist narratives. 

At its core, the festival celebrated indigenous ways of knowing, being, and creating as integral parts of liberatory praxis. It boldly challenged the erasure of African feminist narratives, placing storytelling, indigenous knowledge, memory, and lived experiences at the forefront of feminist discourse.

This transformative journey served as a powerful reminder of the strength and resilience of African feminist voices. It highlighted their crucial role in shaping our collective future and driving positive change across the continent. This event speaks to our strategic priorities geared to shape and amplify positive narratives of African women and African feminism.

Read the magazine here and watch the video highlight of the festival below.

Written By Afua Gyapomaa,

Accra, 28 August 2024: I had the privilege of attending the 5th African Philanthropy Conference (APC), held from July 29 to August 2, 2024, at the Elephant Hills Resort in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. The conference, themed ‘The Next Frontiers of African Philanthropy’, was a transformative experience that offered profound insights into the evolving landscape of African philanthropy.

The theme captured APC’s essence, focusing on innovative strategies and emerging trends reshaping traditional philanthropic models. This year’s APC was not just a gathering of professionals; it was a movement—a convergence of like-minded individuals and organisations committed to redefining the boundaries of philanthropy in Africa.

The week-long conference featured diverse discussions on topics ranging from the role of digital technologies to the importance of climate science and innovative financing models. An impactful discussion centred around how philanthropy can address colonial injustices and promote cultural preservation through restitution and reparations. These conversations emphasised the need to understand historical contexts to create meaningful and lasting impact. This is particularly relevant as African philanthropy increasingly grapples with colonialism’s legacy and its continuing effects on the continent. The conference highlighted the critical integration of technologies like AI and robotics in philanthropy, stressing the need for responsible use to benefit the greater good. It also underscored the vital role of young leaders in shaping inclusive strategies and enhancing the sector, particularly in fostering practices that empower marginalised communities.

Personal reflections: a time of growth

Participating in the APC was an enriching experience, professionally and personally. The exchange of ideas and the collective wisdom of the participants broadened my perspective on the power of philanthropy to drive social change. The conference reaffirmed my belief that African philanthropy is at a pivotal point, where tradition meets innovation and where collective efforts can truly make a difference. The sessions on feminist philanthropy and governance were particularly impactful. These discussions highlighted the importance of centring the perspectives of historically marginalised groups and ensuring transparency and accountability in all philanthropic endeavours. The feminist lens, in particular, challenged participants to think critically about how philanthropy can be more inclusive and equitable. It aligns closely with the values emphasised in my work, where the focus is on creating fair and just systems for all.

Read more

Afua Gyapomaa is the Partnerships and Philantrophy Officer at AWDF. This article was originally published in  the Alliance Magazine, official media partner for the 5th African Philantrophy Conference 2024.

Are you ready to work in close collaboration with colleagues in the “Nurturing” cluster, to unlock the agency of African women’s rights and feminist activists, leaders, organisations, collectives and movements so they flourish and are impactful?

Do you have experience in conceptualising and leading technical capacity strengthening  for movement partners using a transformative and de-colonial  approaches? Are you passionate about co-creating tools and processes that afford   feminist and women’s rights activists, organisations and collectives in Africa the ownership, confidence, self-determination and space to make transformative choices and impact their communities across the continent?

AWDF is hiring to fill a vacancy for the position of Programme Specialist – Agency and Resilience. To fill this position, we are looking for a highly motivated Programme Management Specialist who is passionate about reimagining the future of feminist capacity strengthening.  We are keen to work with an individual who is passionate about women’s rights and feminist movements in Africa, is excited about African feminisms, embraces African women’s diversity and is innovative..

Please follow this link to apply for the position of Programme Specialist – Agency and Resilience

On the 5th to 9th February 2024, 14 participants representing 13 organizations from 11 countries  from Francophone Africa participated in an Advocacy and Communications Learning Platform. AWDF organised   an intensive and enriching week in Accra, bringing together its Francophone partners for a workshop focused on communication, and advocacy. This innovative event provided a strategic platform to strengthen collaboration among organizations working for the development of women in Francophone Africa. The training session was led by Maïmouna Jallow, a multidisciplinary African feminist artist and communication consultant.

A Timely Training

At the heart of the gathering, intense communication sessions were conducted to enhance participants’ skills in delivering impactful messages and managing issues related to the promotion of women’s rights. Modules on feminist communications, media relations, and the writing of press releases provided a fertile ground for discussions and learning.

Advocacy, the central pivot of the discussions, shed light on the specific challenges faced by women in Francophone countries, while exploring innovative strategies to influence policies in favor of gender equality. The training emphasized the crucial importance for women’s rights advocacy organizations to be visible, creative, and consistent in their communication to impact change.

For LaDouce Irakoze, from the Young Women’s Knowledge and Leadership Institute in Burundi:

“The workshop was very beneficial, and I want to thank the facilitator for her excellent communication skills. Our organization, engaged in advocacy in Burundi for clear policies on women’s rights, especially for domestic workers, gained essential skills. Communication training for feminist associations is crucial to be creative, effective, consistent, well-coordinated, and to communicate impactfully to our audience. The section on press releases was particularly enriching for me, and I am confident that it will significantly enhance our work.”

Tools Against Online Violence: Reflections on Feminism 2.0

An essential part of the workshop was dedicated to the challenges of the digital world, where women journalists and communicators face a growing threat: cyber harassment. Participants discussed the concepts of feminism 2.0 in Francophone Africa, image appropriation, cybersexism, and online security. Experienced speakers shared strategies to address these challenges, emphasizing the importance of cybersecurity for feminist activists.

“As a communicator, journalist, and feminist, I actively manage several feminist pages and communicate daily on social media. I consider this to be an important step, but as a feminist activist, the need to communicate, inform, and especially advocate for our causes is crucial. I particularly appreciated the module on communication strategy and cybersecurity for feminist activists. I am convinced that all feminists should acquire these skills. AWDF should continue to further support training in communication and advocacy, both for organizations and their communication officers.” Aminata Pilimini Diallo, Guinean feminist web journalist

Francophone Connection and Future Perspectives

The training took a well-being break with a rejuvenating yoga session. Beyond the physical movements, this experience created a special connection among the participants, strengthening the bonds within the group. Shared smiles, compassionate glances, and emerging camaraderie contributed to forging a strong Francophone connection within the community.

At the end of the training, participants expressed the need to develop additional skills and emphasized the importance of post-workshop follow-up. This request underscores the ongoing commitment of organizations and AWDF to support the professional development of participants and enhance the impact of collective actions for gender equality.”

Bintou Mariam Traoré, Communications officer

We are thrilled to extend an invitation to an upcoming webinar hosted by the AWDF team! As we transition into a new phase of our journey, from movement building to solidarity and care we are eager to connect with you all to explore, reflect, and envision together the future of feminist movements.

**Event Details:**

📅 Date: 25 April 2024

⏰ Time: 1 PM GMT / (3PM SAST)

🌍 Language: French Portuguese and English

In this webinar, we aim to create a dynamic space for reflective conversations led by esteemed panellists including :

Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, Ghanaian feminist, author of”The Sex Lives of African Women”

Nathalie Fanja Haaby, Senegalese holistic feminist therapist and Kundalini Yoga teacher

Buky Olabukunola Williams , Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Lead at Akina Mama wa Afrika

Aaliyah O. Ibrahim , Nigerian multidisciplinary artist, and international development practitioner

Ruth Nyambura, Kenyan feminist and renowned political educator

This conversation will be moderated by Crystal Simeoni. 

The speakers’ diverse experiences, stories, knowledge, and narratives will enrich our discussions about feminist aspirations, collectives, and women’s rights organisations.

The Webinar seeks to:

Popularise the Solidarity and Care strategy within women’s rights and feminist movements;

Cultivate connections and solidarity among movement, women’s rights, and feminists; 

Facilitate collaboration and innovation in producing and sharing indigenous knowledge and technologies;

Inspire and promote practices of rest, recuperation, and celebration within women and feminist movements, nurturing their well-being;

The webinar will be conducted in a conversational style, allowing ample opportunities for participants to engage, ask questions, share experiences, and connect with fellow activists.So, come and join us as we delve into what has been accomplished, explore the present landscape, and collectively envision the future of feminist solidarity and care.

Registration

To secure your spot and receive further details about the webinar, please register on the following link https://bit.ly/3xCT59H 

Let’s come together to ignite conversations, inspire action, and nurture the bonds of solidarity that fuel our movements!

By: Pudu Blamoh, Communications Intern, AWDF

Having read Shel Silverstein’s much-acclaimed children’s book The Giving Tree years ago, I reflect now and can’t help but compare the characters in that book; the tree and the boy, to women and the world respectively. The Giving tree tells the story of a boy who grows to become a man, and a tree; personified “she”, who lean on each other (or more accurately who have a parasitic relationship). This story is largely acclaimed and also largely criticised for its teachings of selfishness, selflessness, and greed. The tree gives too much, and the boy takes it all until the tree is nothing but a stump in place of a strong trunk and flowery branches that once shaded and harnessed the wind.

Whenever I read this book, I am tempted to open a window and toss it out, thinking to myself ‘What utter nonsense!’. To add to my ire, it ends with the words “…and the tree was happy”. I ask myself, who can be happy after giving all of themselves until they are literally a stump to be sat on? Who is expected to give to this extent? Why do these expectations even exist? Why didn’t the tree just say no?

The answer to these questions follows swiftly since the tree is personified as a “She”.

Women and girls are expected and taught to give this way. We are taught to give our time, energy, care, and emotional strength in abundance, to the detriment of our physical and mental health. It begins when caregiving is built into play during our formative years. For many African women, it heightens when domestic labour is gendered and falls to them in their youth, simply because it is socially seen as a girl skill, necessary for securing a husband and therefore a successful future.

Going through the story of the Giving Tree, it was chilling to learn that what is naturally occurring in the tree becomes commodified for the development of a world ‘she’ did not get to partake in and represent herself. It is a reminder of how despite the rise in status and authority of women globally, we are still often left on the side-lines when decisions are being made that affect our well-being and ability to grow as individuals.

The one thing I will give to the Giving Tree is that ‘she’ gave of her free will. ‘She’ gave because ‘she’ chose to give, that is not always the case for women globally.

Oftentimes, these ‘commodities’ including the bodies of women and girls are stolen; like land illegally mined, trees illegally logged, and forest uncaringly burned. The humanity and rights of women and girls are too easily disregarded and commodified for the benefits of their communities, countries, families, or enemies.

Until much recently this has been the disposition of our world towards women and girls; you are inherently valued for your ability to reproduce and grow our species, and for your ability to care, empathise, nurture, while balancing the burdens and well-being of homes and societies.

The global perception of women being the weaker sex certainly hasn’t helped. That ‘weakness’’, real or imagined, has translated into more hesitant ‘yes’, coerced acquisitions, and outright abuse of women and girls to situations and people who only wish to take advantage. A lower position on the social economic ladder, and poor/no education takes more agency from women and girls, rendering their ability to negotiate for self-care, mental health and resources virtually non-existent.

Men are the number one perpetrators and enablers of sexual, emotional, and physical violence against women and girls, on both familial and societal levels. I will not qualify that statement with most/some because, this fact is too often glossed over when we discuss and list statistics of Gender based violence against women.

According to WHO, 1 in 3 women globally experience physical/sexual violence from their partners and non-partners. To contextualise this, let’s say that there’s 7.5 billion people on this planet, 49.5% of them are women, meaning women account for 3.88 billion humans. 1 in 3 women, approximately 1.4 billion humans, have been physically or sexually abused. China has the world’s largest population with 1.39 billion citizens. If all the humans in China were women, according to this statistic, every single one of them would have either been physically or sexually abused by their partners or non-partners.

A huge caveat for this data is that it was collected from surveying only 80 out of 195 countries in the world. Violence against women is a plague that has been largely under reported and its effect on individuals is even more understudied and under-contemplated in the development of policies nationally, regionally, and globally.

Multiple threats of violence confront women and girls when we move through the world, rape; sexual harassment in workplaces, church, mosques, schools etc; human trafficking; FGM; child marriage; verbal harassment; and extortion, the list goes on. These threats of violence are almost always inevitable, and further heightened by poverty, war, illiteracy, disability, sexual orientation, lack of familial support, and marital status.

Awareness of the threat of violence is a survival instinct, but women need to be equally aware of how to care for their physical as well as mental health in the face of these stressors.

As we embark on this year’s 16 Days of Activism campaign against all forms of gender-based violence, the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) seeks not only to create awareness about the effects of GBV, but also to create space for better mental health care and wellness for women and girls.

Here are my tips for wellbeing and mental health as we navigate the many threats and dangers that confront us, based on our gender alone.

If you are a woman/girl and are reading this, make space for your well-being and health in your life. Don’t be like the Giving Tree. Share your wealth of resources and abilities with your world, but please don’t exhaust yourself in a bid to nurture everyone else’s dreams, goals, activities, and proclivities. When given the chance, choose to nurture your mental health, when not given the chance, make space for your mental health.

If or when you find yourself in a situation where you are pressured to share your body, livelihood, and intellect, you have a right to say no.

Your life, your choice!

If or when you are exposed to sexual, emotional, physical violence, report your abuser until you are believed, and action is taken against them. Enlist allies where possible. Also know that just as physical scars can heal, mental ones can be healed as well. Use care when communicating with yourself and seek professional mental health care/resources.

You may have been traumatised, but you survived, and you can thrive!

If or when you feel burdened to give beyond the scope of your ability, health, or wellness, by a partner, job, child, friend, or situation; use your voice and advocate for yourself. Your silence causes their voices to drown out your concerns.

If you are a woman reading this, look within yourself, and look around you, notice the state of the women you see.

Are they thriving? Are you thriving? Do you and your sisters give or have more parts of yourself stolen than you can afford to part with.

Are you protecting, nurturing, educating, and advocating for yourselves towards a billowing oak tree, or a sorry stump with no fruits, leaves, branches, and flowers?

In avoidance of a barren landscape of womanhood and girlhood that is littered with stumps and logs, in imitation of the Giving Tree, let’s work towards cultivating ourselves into forests of trees. Let the path for women and girls be one that nurtures growth and development into maturity. It is better to give out of an abundance by choice rather than be cut down by the stressors and takers of the world.

Finally, to the sisters who find themselves in situations, relationships and environments that birth more pain, dependency and despondency, look outward: there are women young and old to guide your path to hope and healing. There are more road maps and signs being put up every day for your sake, to lead you beyond the traumas of violence and abuse.

(This piece is also published on Medium)

This is the last in a series of reflections by Jessica Horn, the outgoing Director of Programmes at AWDF, on programme strategy, organisational culture and feminist transformation

We were all perhaps a bit too smug at the start of 2020. The numerology suggested it was going to be an auspicious year. As I write we are still in the midst of COVID19 pandemic, a global health emergency that has been as much about political leadership, the military-industrial complex, macroeconomic policy and (gendered) inequality as it has been about a virus. Just as we were contending with the onset of this maelstrom another exploded into public view with the viral video of the murder of George Floyd by police in Minnesota, USA. Like Rodney King, Trayvon Martin, Sandra Bland and the far too many other black men, women and transpeople murdered by police in the USA- this sparked rage. However this time there was something palpably different in its scale- enough to inspire action and introspection about the state of abusive policing in Nairobi and Accra, as much as on the racially marked streets of US cities.

Still, despite a few victories for radical critique these past few months have definitely been unsettling. In this ‘upside down’ moment I have been revisiting African American science fiction writer Octavia Butler’s work, prophetic as it was about the burning worlds we find ourselves in. I have also been looking back at AWDF’s own piece of sci-fi The Sky Garden , a wild card scenario from the AWDF Futures scenario series, and thinking about what it could tell us about the ‘where next’.

For context, in 2016 AWDF embarked on a strategic planning process. I had proposed that rather than the usual past-facing approach, we engage the idea of futures. Working with Kenyan foresight practitioner Katindi Sivi Njonjo, I helped shape an organisation-wide process that dug into the data on African futures, surfacing the main drivers shaping our gendered realities. In addition to a strategic plan, the process yielded two pieces of knowledge - the publication Futures Africa: Trends for Women by 2030, which is the first futures trends analysis for the African continent done specifically with a feminist analysis of what the trends mean for women, and a set of four scenarios stories developed and narrated by AWDF staff. We chose to tell these stories about the future from the vantage point of a protagonist Mariam. Mariam is- as a majority of Africans will be by 2030- young and living in an urban environment still grappling with the realities of climate change and its impacts on food security. She is also a wheelchair user and a developer in a feminist tech collective. In the four scenarios Mariam faces different patterns of gendered social, economic, political and cultural power - some supportive of a social and ecological world worth living in, others not.

In The Sky Garden our protagonist Mariam is active in a new world, revived from the dry earth of a past framed by corruption, exploitation and environmental destruction. The way out of this dystopia has been shaped by young women self-organising, linked into a meta-consciousness but ultimately leaderless- or, as we prefer to say in the social justice world, leaderfull in their ability to collectively organise without a singular person making decisions and determining direction. The common good is central as people form farming cooperatives to transform the otherwise desolate urban environment around them into sources of localised organic food production. A society of shared care labour, with economies that support work in pursuit of meaning rather than daily millet or the accumulation of money in the hands of a few corrupt officials and well connected business people. In The Sky Garden, technology is the animating force of these radically new ways of being- although technology can equally be read as a metaphor for the potential for a liberated collective imagination, the force of combined creative feminist will.

As COVID19 gathered pace, many in social justice spaces started to ask whether we should see the pandemic as a launch pad for radical transformation, a “portal” to use Arundhati Roy’s framing. A chance as the more mainstream policy sector puts it to “pivot” and eventually “build back better”. What will become of this moment? Will we indeed take seriously what the pandemic has laid bare concerning the gendered crisis of care, the realities of domestic violence and the fact that few homes are as safe as we imagine they are for girls and for women, the precarity of our current choice of austerity framed neoliberal economy, and the dire state of public health services almost everywhere. As eye-opening as it has all been, will we actually just slide back into the way we were? The familiar is, after all, something we can achieve without a fight.

Now, it may not come as a surprise that I for one am ready for something new, guided by the insights that African feminist activists across the continent are sharing about where the points of friction are, and what some of the macro-policy catalysts of change could be. The Sky Garden suggests that nothing shifts without action, and that in order for the action to succeed it needs to be embedded in collective agency, inspired by brave imagination, and with deep attention to what younger African women in their diversities are saying and imagining for all of us.

Today ends almost five years in my role as Director of Programmes at AWDF. In that time the grantmaking budget has more than doubled. Our annual grant sizes have increased to $500,000 a year, although our smallest grant remains at $2,000, positioning AWDF to resource the full ecosystem of African women’s organising. From grantees like Boxgirls who give little girls living in extreme marginality in Nairobi boxing gloves and big dreams, to IDIWA in eastern Uganda turning a forward-thinking national policy on disability inclusion into actual economic opportunities for differently-abled women, to regional organisations like FEMNET and the Coalition of African Lesbians marshalling panAfrican policy in the direction of full equality. If COVID19 has shown us anything its exactly that- that anything is possible. And as we say in bold letters on the entryway to AWDF House- it is African women who make the impossible, possible. I leave AWDF even more committed to this work, and ready for it all. That wild card future? It’s time to make it real. Tugende!

By Lydia Maclean, Communications & Fundraising Specialist

As an organisation with a mission to mobilise financial, human and material resources to support African women’s organisations, the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) has provided over 50 million dollars in grants since its inception in 2001.

AWDF is both a grantmaking and fundraising organisation, and therefore straddles two sides of philanthropy. This provides a deeper appreciation of the various forms of philanthropy that exist, especially in Africa where philanthropy is deeply embedded in our culture and traditions, but generally goes under-acknowledged.

CEO Theo Sowa, in an interview with Alliance magazine, made this observation:

“There are lots of different agendas around philanthropy on the continent. Philanthropy has been strong in Africa for a very long time, but it’s not been properly documented or valued. On the one hand, you have the Ibrahims and the Motsepes, high net worth individuals who set up foundations and give large amounts of money. On the other, we have giving by millions of ordinary Africans that comes from solidarity, not necessarily from surplus, so people with very little will still give. Gerry Salole of the European Foundation Centre has this great line that ‘there is no successful African who has not benefited at some point from another African’s philanthropy’. Philanthropy is ingrained in Africa”.

AWDF staff firmly share this belief, and in 2006, initiated a workplace giving scheme which has raised substantial amounts and supported various causes across the continent. In an earlier article on workplace giving, Director of Operations Gertrude Annoh Quarshie refers to it as an “opportunity to take action”. In addition to showing solidarity and inspiring others to give, workplace giving contributes to team building as it creates collective impact.

Over the years, the AWDF Workplace giving fund has supported various organisations and women’s groups in projects including the re-opening of the Ark Shelter of the Ark foundation in Ghana, and donation of materials for a training workshop at the Nsawam female prisons, also in Ghana.

The most recent beneficiary of the AWDF Workplace giving programme is the Rape Crisis Cape Town Trust, based in South Africa. The Director of Rape Crisis, Kathleen Dey, affirms that “Thanks to this donation we will be able to provide communication support for our work with women during this time of COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa. The fact that this donation comes from your staff’s monthly payroll contribution and that they chose this project to support moves us all very deeply.”

For more information about the AWDF Workplace giving programme, please send an email to awdf@awdf.org

African feminist activism has been going through an increasingly introspective moment. A moment when we are considering not just the external politics of our thoughts and practices towards change, but also the impact that all of this is having on our physical and emotional bodies. I think its fair to say that there is a collective sense of exhaustion, compounded at times with the actual direct threat of harm in response to speaking up (the contemporary political moments in Egypt, Algeria and Zimbabwe, and the ongoing process of articulating a public queer African feminist politics come to mind). As a sector we have dubbed the extending reach of oppressive states as a phenomenon of ‘closing space’. However its toll is not just felt in the restriction of public space for civic action, it is also felt in the inner space of feminists activists and in the sense of emotional depletion that constant battles without replenishment can create. And while activists and donors increasingly recognise this, there are still very few practical resources to fully meet this need on the African continent.

I came to AWDF having spent some years developing AIR– an initiative supporting African practitioners to document practice and develop new tools around sustaining emotional wellbeing and mental health in contexts of deep structural and direct violence, from war zones in the Great Lakes to the deep poverty and xenophobia of South African cities. In AIR we ended up focusing our energies on reconceptualising trauma from a transformative feminist perspective (work that I have written about here). AWDF was a founding member of the AIR network, and on joining AWDF, the CEO Theo Sowa and I agreed that we would find ways to bring some of the creative visions of AIR’s work into AWDF’s programming, in particular the idea of creating a retreat for African feminist activists.

In July 2017 the Novo Foundation put out an unusual call for applications- inviting pitches for ideas for ways to nurture radical hope. This seemed a perfect place to plant the vision of resourcing the deep work of care in feminist activism. I started to draw out the concept, combining elements of practice that together would enable our activism to flourish: seeding inspiration for the growth of African feminist movements through documenting activism and inter-generational dialogues, grounding through piloting a model of an activist retreat for African feminists and women’s rights defenders; and connecting feminist activists to convene and grow their feminist organising at national and community levels linked to the African Feminist Forum.

Our concept note passed the first stage and we were invited to submit a full application. Novo recognised that with limited budget not all great proposals could be funded, and in an absolute golden egg of a policy in the philanthropic world, they explained that any organisation submitting a full application that did not end up funded would receive an amount of money to recognise the labour that had gone into developing it. They had made it so there was nothing to loose by allowing ourselves to imagine. A few months later we got the news. AWDF was selected as one of 19 successful organisations- drawn from a pool of over 1,000 applications. The Flourish Initiative was going to be fully funded.

I began designing the Flourish Retreat with the newly hired Catalytic Initiatives Officer Akosua Hanson - a Ghanaian feminist theatre practitioner and popular radio DJ. We assembled a facilitation team with the kind of magical energy that could pull something like this off: lead facilitator Hope Chigudu, a pioneering voice in integrating wellbeing into feminist organisational practice; Laurence Sessou, Beninoise aromatherapist, massage therapist and holder of sacred space, and Ghanaian psychotherapist Laurita de Diego Brako. We invited organisations doing frontline work around violence against women across Africa to recommend staff to attend, and we gathered them by the banks of the Volta River for our activist experiment- the Flourish Retreat. Thanks to Akosua’s spatial design vision and Laurence’s aromatherapy wisdom we ensured that the space looked, smelled, and felt like possibility. The days were intense but incredible, and every day in our debriefs the facilitation team became more and more clear that this work was indeed essential.

As I explained in an interview by my colleague Akosua Hanson after the Flourish Retreat:

“I see activism as a form of collective healing. We are looking to both prevent and find lasting cures for the individual and collective wounds caused by patriarchal injustice and violence. Some activists do this by providing direct services- so the practical side of people’s needs for legal, medical, emotional, educational, economic and other support. Some people do this by working on challenging the systems that cause these inequalities and harm in the first place. And many work on both. Activism is healing work. And the questions is- if that is the case then who heals the healers? Who provides the same kinds of support and solidarity for activists? I think it’s important to say a deep thank you to the people who help sustain and make our lives better. We focus these days so much on celebrity, on corporate leadership, on mainstream political leadership. Yet who makes our lives liveable? Who nurtures hope? Activists do. Practitioners do”.

Now, any gardener knows that in order to create a flourishing landscape you don’t only need someone to explain to you when to plant or how often to water. You need soil, seeds, and the desire to see your garden grow. We designed the Flourish retreat methodology so that participants left with seeds in their hands. In true activist spirit, many of them have decided to return to their own soil and continue to plant. A few days ago I received an email from Hope Chigudu describing the work that the retreat participants from Uganda have been doing. Continuing to both hold space for each other and for their communities, they have now produced five editions of Diaries of African Feminists reflecting on the emotional dimensions of COVID19 lockdowns and ongoing thoughts about navigating activism. One has opened her home as an informal wellbeing space for women needing safety from their abusive homes, with others in the group dropping in to offer support. This adds to the other stories of retreat participants who have gone on to use their renewed sense of inner vision, and new tools for resilience to reshape how they are engaging in their women’s rights advocacy and in their activist communities.

As a women’s fund, AWDF is first and foremost a donor- a provider of resources. Indeed a majority of AWDF’s financial resources go directly to support the work of African women’s organisations through its grantmaking. However we have also learned that if our resourcing is to sustain this work of change-making it has to be done with attention to the who and the how of transformation. We need to ‘take care’ as we so often say in English. To pay closer attention not just to the numbers of people reached, or whether the work is feeding into internationally agreed change goals, but also to the realities of the lives of women taking risks, facing threat and acting as anchors for community hope. To keep asking the question of whether our funding and programming models seed enough, water enough, clear enough ground to enable activists to thrive.

This article is also published on Medium, and is the second in a series of reflections by Jessica Horn, the outgoing Director of Programmes at AWDF, on programme strategy, organisational culture and feminist transformation.