Year: 2020
AWDF welcomes incoming CEO, Françoise Moudouthe
AWDF welcomes incoming CEO, Françoise Moudouthe
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The Board of Directors at the African Women’s Development Fund is pleased to announce Françoise Moudouthe as the newly appointed, incoming CEO of AWDF.
In 2018 the current CEO of AWDF, Theo Sowa encouraged the Board to initiate a thoughtful executive leadership transition at the organisation. The transition plan that followed led to an international search by an independent Executive Search company, culminating recently in the appointment of Françoise Moudouthe.
A pan-African feminist with roots in Cameroon, Françoise Moudouthe is passionate about advocating for women’s rights and fostering sisterhood within African feminist movements. She is the founder of Eyala, a bilingual platform that amplifies the voices and lived experiences of African feminists. Having played an instrumental role in incubating Girls Not Brides, the global civil society partnership to end child marriage, and in spearheading its growth in Africa, Françoise has most recently worked as an international consultant, focusing on strategy, advocacy and movement-building for gender justice in Africa. She is a Board member of the Malala Fund and Womankind Worldwide.
“I am honoured to join AWDF, an organisation with an extraordinary legacy of redefining feminist movement-building and philanthropy in Africa and globally. I look forward to working with the AWDF team, grantee partners, and the wider African feminist movement, to nurture and support dynamic feminist activism in Africa in the years to come,” says Françoise.
Ndeye Sow, AWDF Board Chair added that “while it is always sad to say goodbye to the type of visionary leadership shown by Theo as she grew and consolidated the work of our organisation, the Board of AWDF are delighted with the choice of Françoise to take over the leadership of AWDF. We know that her vision and passion will take AWDF even further on the amazing leadership journey started by Bisi Adeleye Fayemi, carried on through Theo Sowa and now in the hands of Françoise Moudouthe. We look forward to her leadership journey at AWDF.”
Françoise will join AWDF in the second week of November 2020. After a transitional period where she and Theo will work together as incoming and outgoing CEO, Theo will step out of AWDF in mid-December.
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Les membres du Conseil d’Administration de l’AWDF » ont le plaisir d’annoncer la nomination de Françoise Moudouthe au poste de Directrice Générale de l’AWDF.
En 2018, l’actuel Directrice Générale de l’AWDF, Theo Sowa, a sollicité les membres du Conseil d’Administration à initier une transition de leadership au sein de l’organisation. Le plan de transition élaboré après cette demande a conduit au lancement d’une recherche sur le plan international, d’une nouvelle Directrice Générale. Ainsi, les membres du conseil ont contracté une société indépendante de recrutement des cadres qui s’est chargée du processus de recrutement et donc aboutissant récemment à la nomination de Françoise Moudouthe.
Françoise Moudouthe est une féministe africaine d’origine camerounaise qui se passionne pour la défense des droits des femmes et la promotion de la sororité au sein des mouvements féministes africains. Elle est la fondatrice d’Eyala, une plateforme bilingue dont l’ambition est de libérer la parole féministe en Afrique. Françoise a joué un rôle déterminant dans la création de Girls Not Brides, le partenariat mondial de la société civile visant à mettre fin au mariage des enfants, dont elle a dirigé l’action en Afrique pendant près de six ans. Plus récemment, Françoise a travaillé comme consultante internationale sur divers projets de plaidoyer pour les droits des femmes et de renforcement des mouvements féministes en Afrique. Elle siège aux Conseils d’Administration du Malala Fund et de Womankind Worldwide.
« Je suis honorée de rejoindre l’AWDF. Depuis sa création il y a vingt ans, l’AWDF a joué un rôle déterminant dans le renforcement du mouvement féministe et de la philanthropie en Afrique et dans le reste du monde. Je suis ravie de pouvoir travailler avec l’équipe de l’AWDF, ses partenaires bénéficiaires, et l’ensemble du mouvement féministe africain, afin de soutenir et de redynamiser l’activisme féministe sur notre continent. »
Ndeye Sow, Présidente du Conseil d’Administration de l’AWDF a ajouté que «s’il est toujours triste de dire au revoir au type de leadership visionnaire montré par Theo alors qu’elle développait et consolidait le travail de notre organisation, les membres du Conseil d’Administration de l’AWDF sont ravis du choix de Françoise pour prendre la gestion de la direction de l’AWDF. Nous savons que sa vision et sa passion emmèneront l’AWDF encore plus loin dans cet incroyable parcours de leadership commencé par Bisi Adeleye Fayemi, poursuivi par Theo Sowa et maintenant entre les mains de Françoise Moudouthe. Nous attendons avec impatience son parcours de leadership à l’AWDF. »
Françoise va rejoindre l’AWDF dans la deuxième semaine de novembre 2020. Theo quittera l’AWDF en mi-décembre après une période de transition au cours de laquelle elle et Françoise travailleront ensemble en tant que PDG entrant et sortant.
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Vibrant Canvas: AWDF Annual Report 2019
Vibrant Canvas: AWDF Annual Report 2019
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Vibrant Canvas is the world told by African women, created and founded in their experiences.
In 2019, AWDF granted more money to women’s organisations than in any previous years, and we supported the largest number of grantees in our herstory, strengthening their organisations’ systems, skills and cultures. We convened, produced and shared knowledge, hosted artists and claimed power in a chorus of feminist voices. We stretched across Africa – North, South, East and West, and further into the Middle East. We grew, in scale and scope. We saw and created change in process and outcome.
For AWDF, 2019 meant expansion with connection, it meant a deepening of the work for equality and justice and an engagement in the interconnected realities of womanhood. AWDF and its partners gathered the pieces, collected colour, stretched the canvas and painted for the telling of a story. We revealed a world, and created new designs in glimpses into the world of the future.
Vibrant canvas is a look into the world made by African feminists over the course of 365 days in 2019.
Please click here to read the Summarised version of the Report
For the Full version of the Report, please click here
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La Toile Dynamique : Réalité des femmes africaines créée et fondée sur leurs expériences.
En 2019, l’AWDF a accordé plus de subventions aux organisations de femmes qu’au cours des années précédentes. Nous avons soutenu le plus grand nombre d’organisations bénéficiaires de subventions de notre histoire, et avons aussi renforcé leurs systèmes, leurs compétences et leurs cultures.
Nous avons organisé des rencontres, produit et partagé des connaissances. Nous avons accueilli des artistes et ensemble, (dans un seul accord tout en unissant nos voix en tant que féministes) avons réclamé le pouvoir. Nous sommes répandues partout en Afrique – Nord, Sud, Est, Ouest, et au Moyen-Orient. Nous avons grandi avec une ampleur considérable. Nous avons vu et créé des changements dans le processus d’obtention des résultats.
Pour l’AWDF, 2019 a signifié une croissance avec connexion, un approfondissement du travail pour l’égalité et la justice et un engagement dans les réalités interconnectées de la féminité. L’AWDF et ses partenaires ont rassemblé des informations, choisi la couleur, tendu la toile et l’ont peinte pour raconter une histoire. Nous avons révélé un monde, et créé de nouveaux dessins pour pouvoir découvrir le monde du futur.
La Toile dynamique, réalisée par les féministes africaines, est un regard sur le monde couvrant 365 jours en 2019.
Pour lire la version simplifiée du rapport annuel 2019, cliquez ici
Pour la version complète du rapport annuel 2019, cliquez ici
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2020 Grantee Recognition Survey
2020 Grantee Recognition Survey
As a feminist organisation, AWDF continuously strives to support the growth and long-term sustainability of women-led organisations. Since 2013, we have been conducting grantees Recognition surveys annually to identify achievements and recognition of grantees we have supported two years prior to the survey. This is part of our monitoring, evaluation and learning activities.
The 2020 grantee recognition survey covers grantees who received US$ 5000 and over in grants in 2018. Online survey questionnaires were sent via Google forms to 54 organisations in 18 countries in Africa and the Middle East (41 organisations in 11 Anglophone countries, 13 organisations in 6 Francophone Countries and 1 bilingual country).
Click here to read the RECOGNITION SURVEY REPORT
Call for Consultancy: Translation of Research Products
Call for Consultancy: Translation of Research Products
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AWDF is seeking to engage a consultant to translate and proofread the following research products from our 2019 research titled, “Women and Noncommunicable Diseases in Africa: Mapping the scale, actors and extent of rights-based work to address the impact of NCDs on African women” covering the following specific products;
1. Research report:
2. Executive Summary:
3. NCDs research key messages:
The translation will be from the documents’ source language (English) into French to reach our Francophone audiences. Under the supervision of the Knowledge Management Specialist, the consultant will translate and proofread covers, text, tables, boxes, captions, charts, graphs, financial information and statistical data in the documents.
HOW TO APPLY
Please send a CV, cover email, translation sample and indication of your rate for English- French translation to consultants@africlub.net/awdf with the email subject header: Application for consultancy-Translator, NCDs Research products. Emails should be addressed to “The Human Resources Manager.”
Submissions must be received no later than September 10, 2020
Please click here to download the TERMS OF REFERENCE
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L’AWDF cherche à engager un consultant pour traduire et relire les produits de recherche suivants de notre étude de 2019 intitulée “Les femmes et les maladies non transmissibles en Afrique: Cartographier l’ampleur, les acteurs et l’étendue du travail basé sur les droits pour aborder l’impact des MNT sur les femmes africaines”, qui comprend les produits spécifiques suivants;
1. Rapport de recherche:
2. Sommaire exécutif:
3. Messages clés de la recherche sur les MNT:
La traduction se fera de la langue source des documents (anglais) vers le français pour atteindre nos publics francophones. Sous la direction de la Spécialiste en gestion des connaissances, le consultant traduira et corrigera les couvertures, le texte, les tableaux, les encadrés, les légendes, les graphiques, les informations financières et les données statistiques des documents.
COMMENT POSTULER
Veuillez envoyer un CV, un courriel de présentation, un échantillon de traduction et une indication de votre tarif pour la traduction anglais-français à consultants@africlub.net/awdf avec l’objet du courriel: Candidature pour le poste de traducteur-conseil, produits de recherche NCDs. Les courriels doivent être adressés au ” responsable des ressources humaines “.
Les candidatures doivent être reçues au plus tard le 10 septembre 2020
Veuillez cliquer ici pour télécharger les TERMES DE RÉFÉRENCE (en anglais)
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“The future is a wild card”. Last in the series of Jessica Horn’s reflections on her tenure at AWDF
“The future is a wild card”. Last in the series of Jessica Horn’s reflections on her tenure at AWDF
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!
Workplace Giving: Put your Money where your Heart is.
Workplace Giving: Put your Money where your Heart is.
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
With Seeds, Soil and Rain we will Flourish: Second in Jessica Horn’s Reflection series
With Seeds, Soil and Rain we will Flourish: Second in Jessica Horn’s Reflection series
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.
Why Paint your Office Walls? Jessica Horn shares her reflections on her time at AWDF
Why Paint your Office Walls? Jessica Horn shares her reflections on her time at AWDF
When I entered AWDF House in Accra in my new role as Director of Programmes the first thing I noticed were the walls. Large swathes of blank white space, stretching high above my head, framed on the approach by enormous white columns. I kept thinking about these walls. Their blankness, their apparent indifference, and the contrasting vibrance of the African feminist thought and action being resourced from within them.
A month into the job I initiated planning for the fourth African Feminist Forum, a gathering that had ushered me head first into the world of African feminist organising in 2003 when I first attended a now historic gathering of African feminists in Zanzibar. We began to consider themes for the forum and decided on the affirming ‘Voice, Power and Soul’, convening 170 feminists in Harare in April 2016 to learn and strategise. As busy as I was, the blank walls of AWDF House kept pressing on my mind. The walls needed to speak.
Finally one afternoon I started up a conversation with Dr. Sionne Neely, AWDF’s Knowledge Management Specialist at the time, about the potential canvases all around us. Art had brought Sionne to Ghana where she had conducted her PhD research on Ghana’s music scene, and had gone on to co-found the public arts initiative Accra Dot Alt, producers of the Chale Wote Street Art Festival. She was thrilled by the idea of bringing life to this blank concrete. As we talked we started to imagine what the walls might say if they were asked to echo the activism supported by AWDF and to invoke the legacy of the work that women in the African Feminist Forum had shaped.
Sionne and I drafted what is still one of the most inspiring terms of reference that I have worked on at AWDF: a brief to give visual voice to the movements that have transformed our worlds as African women. We chose to contract Maku Azu, a Ghanaian woman painter who sat with Sionne and myself, and with different staff teams to discuss who and what would be documented in the murals.
Maku worked into the night- late at night. 2am. Leaving heart-stopping surprises for us in the morning. The entry-way was first. She had spent the weekend perched on scaffolding, coating the towering walls in deep purples and blues, bringing out the faces of women representing all regions of Africa, framed around the text “African women- making the impossible, possible”. Staff were invited to join in, painting symbols drawn from African cosmologies and writing systems that spoke to feminine consciousness, strength, resourcefulness and the energy of transformation.
The murals kept going.
The external walls of the Resource Centre spoke about women’s movements for disability rights, sex worker rights, LBT rights and peace that AWDF has funded across its history. The entry to the Finance office was framed by images of women engaged in transformative economics- movements for food sovereignty and financial autonomy. The meeting room invoked the work that African feminists put into creating the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) and its groundbreaking provisions, and the slogans of popular movements of women in urban areas to push back against the social policing of women’s bodies and declare ‘my dress my choice’. Maku inscribed passages from the Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists along the walls in the Grants and Fundraising and Communications offices. The passageway to the kitchen spoke the words ‘Voice, Power and Soul’ in Hausa, Kiswahili, Shona, Twi and several other African languages echoing the theme of the 4th African Feminist Forum.
Visitors to AWDF House often comment on the walls, and a mural tour has become a standard part of our welcome for the many grantees, collaborators and groups of students that pass through. The walls inspire discussion, raising conversations about the sheer diversity of African women’s organising, the presence of a political guiding document like the African Feminist Charter, and the dynamics around sexual politics and the discomfort many still feel with a public embrace of LBT rights and gender non-conformity. However the reaction that will remain in my heart is that of AWDF’s long standing driver Felix- a man of few words- who stood in the reception the morning after Maku had worked on her magnificent first wall and gasped “this is beautiful!”.
From the red, white and black designs that women paint on their houses in Sirigu, Northern Ghana speaking of myth, community ethics and the environment, to the feminist graffiti of the Egyptian revolution- women have always used walls to tell our side of the story. To protest, to remember, to inspire. The walls of AWDF House are now fully alive and talking.
This blog is first in a series of reflections by Jessica Horn, the outgoing Director of Programmes at AWDF. It was previously published on Medium.
Transitions at AWDF: A goodbye to Jessica and a welcome to Pontso
Transitions at AWDF: A goodbye to Jessica and a welcome to Pontso
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A fond farewell to Jessica Horn, Director of Programmes
After nearly five years as Director of Programmes, Jessica Horn will be leaving the African Women’s Development Fund. Her last day is Friday 14 August 2020. Jessica has brought unparalleled passion, creativity and diligence as well as her extensive knowledge of feminist theory and practice to bear in her work and that of AWDF. We are sorry to see her go, but happy that she is moving on to a new and exciting phase in her career. We honour and celebrate her contribution to AWDF’s vision and action during the past five years.
Over the next few weeks we will be publishing a series of Jessica’s reflections on her experiences leading on programme strategy, and contributing to organisational culture and feminist transformation while at AWDF. Read the first one here
And a warm welcome to Pontso Mafethe
Meanwhile, AWDF has appointed an Interim Director of Programmes, Pontso Mafethe, who joins AWDF in September 2020. Pontso comes to AWDF with more than 15 years experience in grantmaking and programme direction, having previously led the Women and Girls and Africa portfolios at the grantmaking organisation, Comic Relief and other civil society organisations in the UK and different parts of Africa.
Please join us in welcoming Pontso to the AWDF team, as we wish Jessica a fond farewell.
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Un adieu chaleureux à Jessica Horn, directrice des programmes
Après près de cinq ans en tant que directrice des programmes, Jessica Horn quittera l’AWDF. Son dernier jour est le vendredi 14 août 2020. Jessica a apporté une passion, une créativité et une diligence inégalées ainsi que sa connaissance approfondie de la théorie et de la pratique féministes à son travail et à celui de l’AWDF. Nous sommes désolés de la voir partir, mais heureux qu’elle passe à une nouvelle phase passionnante de sa carrière. Nous honorons et célébrons sa contribution à la vision et à l’action de l’AWDF au cours des cinq dernières années.
Au cours des prochaines semaines, nous publierons une série de réflexions de Jessica sur ses expériences en tant que responsable de la stratégie des programmes et sa contribution à la culture organisationnelle et à la transformation féministe pendant son séjour à l’AWDF. Lisez la première ici (En anglais)
Et un accueil chaleureux à Pontso Mafethe
Entre-temps, l’AWDF a nommé un directeur intérimaire des programmes, Pontso Mafethe, qui rejoindra l’AWDF en septembre 2020. Pontso arrive à l’AWDF avec plus de 15 ans d’expérience dans l’octroi de subventions et la direction de programmes, ayant précédemment dirigé les portefeuilles ” Women and Girls and Africa ” de l’organisme d’octroi de subventions, Comic Relief et d’autres organisations de la société civile au Royaume-Uni et dans différentes régions d’Afrique.
Veuillez nous rejoindre pour accueillir Pontso dans l’équipe de l’AWDF, pendant que nous souhaitons à Jessica un chaleureux adieu.
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