Knowledge and Voice
We achieve these through mobilising non-conventional and conventional knowledge actors including sculptors, researchers, storytellers, designers, illustrators, cartoonists, fine artists, musicians, poets, photo and videographers, graffiti artists, dancers, drummers, archivists, feminist collectives and women’s rights organisations to access resources, co-create tools and penetrate new and already existing platforms to connect the world to African feminist identities and narratives.
As part of countering institutionalised erasure, AWDF manages two hybrid (virtual and physical) knowledge exchange platforms that archive knowledge resources produced by feminists and women’s rights organisations. These preserve the existence of these often-scattered knowledge resources and promote interactive feminist learning, sharing and engagement.
Check out this Tutorial Video to access and self-navigate the two knowledge exchange sites.
The SAUTI Centre
The Sauti Centre is a semi-virtual space with a physical space in Accra and an online catalogue accessible to users globally. It is a collaborative space for accessing knowledge resources and experiential learning open to all knowledge users interested in African feminisms. The Centre hosts over 3,000 materials in varied forms and formats and topics ranging from feminism, philanthropy and the African women’s movement. Interested knowledge communities can contact knowledge@awdf.org to book the space and host their own in-person or virtual sessions.
AfriRep
AfriRep is an open-source African feminist knowledge hub. The site has materials that range from research articles, Women Rights Organisations (WROs) reports and unpublished dissertations to toolkits for capacity strengthening, lessons from feminist convenings and AWDF publications. Our aim is to make the tremendous knowledge that African women yield accessible and to strengthen the women’s movement through exchange and learning.
Are you an archivist or do you manage a feminist knowledge exchange site interested in connecting with African feminists doing similar work or want to share open-source materials with us? Email knowledge@awdf.org to connect with us.
Philanthropic and development sectors continue to thrive on the undocumented lived experiences and knowledge generated by African women, girls and gender diverse people. To bridge this gap, AWDF creates platforms to convene and profile the innovations and impact created by feminist and women’s rights organisations, individual activists and informal collectives to showcase their contributions in dismantling patriarchy and advancing gender equality in Africa and globally.
We are keen on linking the narratives from these documentation initiatives to critical audiences including funders, policymakers, activist communities and the wider public with the aim of informing and influencing policy, practice and research.
The African Women’s Knowledge Circles
The African Women’s knowledge circles are an evolving space where African feminists convene identities, change stories, intervention models and tools from their many journeys of challenging the patriarchy to connect, share, learn and explore the scaling up of lessons and best practices. The circles take an iterative process of continuous reflection and co-leadership geared towards enabling activists and frontline organisations to effectively host various agendas.
Ongea Mama! Series
Ongea Mama! [translated as “Speak Mama” in Swahili] is an annual online series dedicated to curating discourses that uplift the unique perspectives, experiences, and activism of African feminists rooted in continental and diasporic approaches. It strives to forge past historical and contemporary differences and tensions that impact our understandings of each other in efforts to create solidarity, sisterhood, and siblinghood across borders and boundaries. The series combines the use of creative content, art, panel discussions and performances aimed at:
- Providing a safe and interactive platform for deepening dialogue and discourse among and between Africa, Black, and Afro-descendant feminists.
- Providing political education about historical and contemporary African feminist leaders and their leadership.
- Interrogating the work, activism, and productions of African feminists on the African continent and in the Diaspora.
- Creating and building solidarity with and among Black women and gender expansive activists from around the world.
Read more about the series here
Missed the 2022 virtual launch of the series? Check out the webinar recording here to learn about the 2022 virtual launch of the series.
Access the Ongea Mama! Series resources list here
***Check out this page for further updates on the series this year.
Voice, Power & Soul: An African Feminist Narratives Festival
African Feminists have and continue to challenge entrenched systems of power and oppression that have systematically invisibilised African feminist knowledge. This zine captures the narratives that we are hearing and learning from African Feminist Movements on the role of African indigenous knowledge systems and ways of knowing as well as the role of the arts and creative expression as powerful tools for challenging erasure and silencing.
Specific to knowledge and voice, AWDF extends creative funding opportunities that use non-traditional grantmaking approaches to cut through existing limiting criteria to reach high-impact and often excluded knowledge actors on the continent.
The K&V portfolio’s resourcing package ranges from archival, travel and research grants to the flagship Ongea grants. The aim is to see Afrifems and knowledge actors resourced to be seen, cited, heard and their creations accessed in convenings; to see them innovatively create new knowledge, strengthen archives and connect indigenous and their other knowledge resources to users globally.
Ongea Grants
These grants focus on initiatives that cut through colonial and professional hierarchies to nurture voice and uplift the centring of often excluded African feminist identities including gender diverse people, rural-based feminists, non-English speaking voices and women’s rights activists enriching debate on issues that are largely dominated by men and global North voices. Birthed out of the Ongea Mama! Series, the grants target non-traditional approaches to convening, expressing, interaction and promoting equitable representation thereby resourcing art, creativity and innovative shapes of voice and listening.
Create Grants
The knowledge creation grants place resources in the hands of African feminists who individually or collectively utilise new and innovative approaches to create new knowledge. The resource package is beneficial for researchers, poets, sculptors, audio-visual-graphers, storytellers and artists among others.
Archival grants
To enrich AWDF’s gains on the challenging institutionalised erasure front, AWDF resources archivists, knowledge exchange collectives, community libraries and experiential learning centres led by African women, feminists, girls and women’s rights organisations. We recognise the growing backlash against feminist knowledge and the Archival grants go a long way in resourcing the existence and preservation of Afrifem knowledge spaces, archivist community and voice and innovative learning and exchange.