Year: 2020
A FLOURISH State of Mind: Healing the Healer
A FLOURISH State of Mind: Healing the Healer
I remember Hope Chigudu warmly embracing me, whispering to me these words, “It is time to let go of everything even if it’s going to hurt others…so you can heal, be free and start thinking of yourself as a person.” These words are still my guiding principles today.
~ Florence Awuor, Flourish Retreat participant.
AWDF’s inaugural Flourish Retreat was launched in February this year in what will turn out to be an incredibly empowering start to what was going to be a very difficult year.
Taking place at the beautiful Sogakope beach resort located in the Volta region of Ghana, the Flourish retreat is one strand of the AWDF Flourish Project aimed at strengthening feminist organising across Africa, a partner project of the NOVO Foundation’s Radical Hope Fund. Built deliberately around African healing philosophy and practices, the Flourish facilitators used a plethora of tools – art, chakras for emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing, breathing exercises, affirmations, dancing, aromatherapy, meditation, moon rituals, yoga, poetry and creative writing, individual and group reflection sessions, journaling, theatre and counselling sessions.
The NoVo Foundation launched the Radical Hope Fund in July 2017 with a global call for projects grounded in new partnerships, bold experimentation, and a deep commitment to social justice. The vision of Radical Hope is to create spaces for dreaming new possibilities, experimenting with new collaborations and developing new, creative strategies to overcome structural failures. AWDF’s Flourish Project was one of 19 initiatives selected to support this vision on the continent.
Using a transformational, feminist approach, the Flourish retreat created a dynamic healing space for 20 African feminists. These were women working on the frontlines of VAW prevention in the fields of sex work, women living with HIV, running rape crisis centres, healing and feminist movement building.
In an interview, Jessica Horn, Director of Programmes at AWDF, speaks about healing, the AWDF Flourish retreat and her vision for what the retreat could do within the African feminist movement. Jessica is a writer and political commentator, co-founder of AIR. She curates open mics where people explore the concept of Revolutionary Love and also acted as a Flourish Facilitator at the inaugural Flourish Retreat.
Written by Nana Akosua Hanson, Programme Officer, Catalytic Initiatives, AWDF
Click here to read the full interview and also the reflections of the participants – A Flourish State of Mind blog
To see more pictures from the retreat, visit our Instagram page @theawdf
Women’s Labour Rights: Confronting the Barriers
Women’s Labour Rights: Confronting the Barriers
For women in the formal labour force, there is the reality of the glass ceiling and the discriminatory requirements for moving past a certain point on the career ladder which is exacerbated by a lack of access to a broad range of job opportunities. In addition, there is the normalisation of sexual harassment in the workplace due to patriarchal work cultures. Finally, there is greater precarity with contracts when it comes to women (including those tied to immigration e.g. Kafala in Lebanon; and the use of short term contracting to evade worker protections as employees are then not eligible for full time worker benefits e.g. Kenya tea farmers).
Organisations fighting for women’s labour rights face the perpetual challenge of accessing adequate funding which is needed to build and sustain advocacy, community level groups and the national and transnational momentum for change. The presence of supportive, flexible and multi-year funding in particular makes a tremendous difference in the ability to maintain labour right activism.
In November 2019, AWDF held a convening in Accra with six grantee organisations of Leading from the South, to discuss the different aspects of women’s labour rights advocacy in Africa and the Middle East and also to explore commonalities in strategies and approaches, challenges and areas for growth.
To read the Report from the Convening, click here: Labour Rights Convening Report
Women and Non-communicable Diseases in Africa
Women and Non-communicable Diseases in Africa
Non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—which include cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, and mental health conditions—are already leading causes of death and disability for women in many countries across Africa with worrying forecasts for the future. National, regional and global attention with regards to women’s health on the continent however remains largely fixated on infectious diseases and maternal and child health
In an effort to address these gaps and explore the opportunities to better support African women’s organisations around engagement with NCD prevention and control, the African Women’s Development Fund, commissioned a research project to look at:
(1) the scale and key gendered concerns around NCDs and women in Africa;
(2) the key actors responding to the rise in NCDs in Africa;
(3) how these actors are responding and whether gender, equity and rights being considered in these responses; and
(4) the opportunities and challenges for African women’s organisations around engagement with NCD prevention and control and ways to support greater engagement on links between NCDs and women’s rights.
To read the Executive Summary of the Report, click here
For the full report on Women and Non-communicable Diseases in Africa, click here