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.

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.

Image ©LaylaBird via Getty

Written by: Jennifer Donkoh, Communications Associate, AWDF

25 years after the Beijing Platform for Action, women still live in constant fear across the African continent. Despite the signing of the peace agreement in 2018, South Sudan has one of the highest rates of sexual violence against women in the world. Female protestors in Egypt often face violent sexual assault; their attackers suffer no punishment. Every three hours a woman is murdered in South Africa. These are the more glaring examples of patriarchy. It is still however very much present in so-called more advanced countries. Female political candidates are berated and discriminated against in most countries by the media and public opinion. Many women are paid much less than their male counterparts. In some parts of the world, feminism is at best tolerated, while in many others, it is faced with stiff opposition.

A glaring reminder that men’s lives are still viewed as more valuable than those of women is the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in the United States of America.

On March 13 2020, Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), was murdered in her home by police officers who barged in while she was asleep, in a case of alleged mistaken identity. In fact, the person the police meant to accost was allegedly already in custody. It has already been 3 months. Her killers still roam free and her death has not sparked policy-changing outrage like that of Ahmaud Aubrey or George Floyd. The media has decidedly dubbed the BLM movement a fight against police brutality perpetuated towards black men. This has excluded women victims like Sandra Bland and Atatiana Jefferson from the conversations around police brutality.

The fight for women’s rights is obviously still an uncomfortable subject for many. This is because patriarchy is the most potent political power in the world. Whether it manifests in subtle ways like the stifling of female executives’ voices at a board meeting or more stomach-turning ways like murder and sexual assault, men have a death-grip on patriarchy because it favours them both economically and socially. Tired of relying on failed to non-existent policies on gender equality, many women have been frustrated into conforming to and even defending patriarchy. Many anti-feminist people have also capitalised on the disunity of the feminist movement to cheapen its credibility.

Yet, we simply cannot give up the fight because even a small act towards the advancement of women goes a long way. Let’s take the case of Yaa Asantewaa, a former queen mother of Ghana who famously suited up to lead the charge against the British colonisers. Though she died in 1921, her sheer heroism remains a shining moment in Ghanaian history. Ghana is still very much a patriarchal country, but her example has been used by many to encourage young women and girls to take a stand against what is not right. Also, after civil war broke out once again in Liberia in 1999, Liberian women put aside the unspeakable horrors they had endured at the hands of rebel and state forces alike to advocate for a peaceful end to the war. Recognising the role of women, the country elected its first female president: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. These women are among a tall list of incredible women who are leading the charge against patriarchy, empowering young women and girls in their communities to the best of their abilities and encouraging others to do same.

Though the road to gender equality may be a rough one, we should take pride even in the individual lives we are able to change. Individual empowered women have started revolutions, empowered women are changing the world. It may take only one woman to reverse the status quo. As the COVID-19 pandemic lays bare injustices and systemic failures, it is time for feminist movements to target specific causes that are bound to bring lasting and revolutionary results. For instance, Ghanaian feminists can push for the passage of the marital rape bill, siting the fact that COVID-19 lockdown measures may exacerbate the incidences of marital rape in the country. Majority of frontline workers during this pandemic are women. Governments can be pressured to improve required work conditions of women-dominated groups like domestic workers. CSOs such as Abantu For Development have made great strides, currently calling on the Government of Ghana to speed up the processes to get the Affirmative Action Bill into Parliament, but a lot more momentum is needed.

Contrary to what some people believe, the pandemic has not diminished the relevance of feminism, rather, it has shown that the fight for women’s rights is relevant now more than ever. This is no time to be weary, on the contrary, it is time to amplify our voices. Let us continue dismantle patriarchy, one girl at a time.

By: Sabine Afodanyi, Knowledge Management Intern

I began my internship with the African Women’s Development Fund with eagerness and desire to soak in as much knowledge as I can concerning African feminism. I had the opportunity of interning with the Knowledge Management department, which is responsible for archiving and analyzing feminist knowledge produced by the African Women’s Development Fund and its grantee organisations. As someone who is interested in development and advocacy work, I
believe this internship gave me the opportunity to learn what it entails to accomplish such type of work. My six-week internship, supervised by Knowledge Management Specialist Rita Nketiah was a thought-provoking, fulfilling and memorable experience. During this process, I was amazed by the critical work and impact that AWDF has and will continue to accomplish in the venture to support its grantee organisations in radically transforming the state of women’s rights
in the African continent.

The work of AWDF is quite fundamental in advancing the state of women’s rights in the African continent, as it is in a unique position of providing funds to various women’s organisations in order for them to actualise the principles of African feminism in their local communities. For example, NETRIGHT is involved in aiding rural women to reclaim knowledge concerning land rights in the northern region of Ghana. This is done through a knowledge
building initiative which allows for these rural women to adequately fight for their rights so they can be able to be in control of their own economic futures without having to rely on male figures within their households. Having the opportunity to craft stories around organisations such as NETRIGHT opened my eyes to what African feminism really entails. In my opinion, I believe a key mechanism through which African women can be empowered is for the actualisation of their true economic autonomy in addition to their social and political rights. Organisations such as NETRIGHT allow for African women’s empowerment in a system which has long allowed for their oppression from and dehumanized them as a result of colonialism and patriarchy. Seeing how the AWDF is working to further advance this goal allows me to further understand how these systems have held African women back from truly actualising their personhood in political,
economic and social spheres.

Beyond obtaining the opportunity to gain knowledge about how a pan-African organisation such as the AWDF supports its grantees, I was also able to strengthen my writing abilities. A key aspect of my internship was being able to adequately and efficiently produce stories concerning important work grantees have been doing with support from the AWDF. Initially, I felt intimidated to write for a much larger audience beyond that of a classroom audience. This was my first opportunity in writing from the perspective of a women’s rights organisation with a large audience. With the support and guidance of my supervisor, I quickly overcame this uncertainty, allowing for me to confidently produce two key short profiles on AWDF grantees. For me, this is a testament to one of AWDF’s goals of supporting young African women in growing their voice and leadership capabilities. I also was able to build my ediorial skills by contributing to AWDF’s knowledge generation series Bread and Butter series, which offers radical feminist macroeconomic analysis to shape and transform policy. Having the opportunity to collaborate with my supervisor on this task was also another manner in which I was able to further enhance my knowledge of how African women are leading the way in transformational approaches to macroeconomic policies. Apart from enhancing my writing and editorial skills, I subsequently had the opportunity to support with the weekly operations of the Resource Centre. The Centre houses hundreds of materials on African feminist knowledge including books, films and institutional reports. As a support staff, I had the opportunity to meet with members of the public who visited the Centre to access materials or needed a quiet study space away from the noisiness of Accra. As a KM intern, I also contributed to researching and
uploading content to AWDF’s online repository called AfriREP. This process allowed me to engage with key African feminist knowledge producers, through open source platforms.

In summary, my internship experience with the AWDF is one which I believe will positively impact my educational career and beyond. There were many thought provoking questions, such as the role of social class in African feminism, and how this impacts the lives of everyday African women. While I was not able to visit some of the local organisations supported by AWDF, I am amazed by the important work the AWDF is doing with its revolutionary take on confronting injustices committed against African women through systems rooted in patriarchy and colonialism.

Gender activists from across Southern Africa launch the#VoiceandChoice 2019 Barometer alongside the State of Women in SADC 2019 report.

The Barometer has been produced for the last eleven years by the Southern African Gender Protocol Alliance, a network of Women’s Rights Organisations that campaigned for the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development in 2008, its updating and alignment to the Sustainable Development Goals in 2016.

In keeping with global and regional trends, reflected in the #MeToo, #TimesUp, #TotalShutdown and related campaigns, the 2019 Barometer departs with past tradition in focusing specifically on Sexual Reproductive Health and Right (SRHR).

The 2019 #VoiceandChoice Barometer is the first civil society shadow report on the recently adopted SADC SRHR strategy. It measures 100 indicators in seven thematic areas including Sexual and Reproductive Health; adolescent SRHR; safe abortion; GBV; HIV and AIDS; harmful practices and sexual diversity. The State of Women report details progress made against the provisions of the SADC Gender Protocol using two important yardsticks, the empirical SADC Gender and Development Index (SGDI) and Citizen Score Card (CSC) to measure progress made towards Gender Equality in the region.

For the findings of the Barometer and to gain context on the state of Women’s rights in the SADC Region, click here.

By: Rita Nketiah, Knowledge Management Specialist, AWDF

“We claim the right to theorise for ourselves, write for ourselves, strategise for ourselves and speak for ourselves as African feminists.” –The African Feminist Charter

Each morning, as I sit down at my desk at the AWDF House, this quote from the African Feminist Charter greets me. It is a constant reminder of the power of feminist knowledge work, as a transformative tool for justice, expansion and the wellbeing of African women. At AWDF, we believe that women’s capacity to tell our own narratives is how movements are built and sustained. Indeed, while knowledge production has historically been viewed as the domain of white Western men in academic institutions, part of our work as an organization is to create the conditions that may garner African feminists to engage in the deep, rigorous and political work of intellectualism as a way to own our narratives, and forge our own liberatory futures. Knowledge production is the practice of creating, researching, analyzing and documenting critical ideas, which can provide some observation about worldly phenomenon. And yet, the work of knowledge production, much like most other areas of human life, is laden with power relations. Historically, the university space has been heralded as the bastion of knowledge production, often dominated by white men. Intellectual work was understood as the work of those in positions of power. While there is an old adage that “knowledge is power”, insofar as knowledge arms you with the capacity to make better, more informed choices in the world, power also determines who and what can be known and who is allowed to be a “knower”; in this way, power is knowledge. Much of the work of feminist intellectuals, then, has been to disrupt all the ways in which institutionalized patriarchy has denied, invisibilized and exploited the very necessary and longstanding intellectual work of women and minoritized communities.

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Why African Feminist Knowledge Production Matters

Ever since I can remember, I have loved reading and learning. I can remember being 16 years old, and discovering some of my favourite poets, including Nikki Giovanni and Maya Angelou. I was struck by the simplicity with which they seemed to express deep and complex truths about being Black women. Around the same time, I was fortunate enough to discover African feminist poet and former AWDF USA Board Chair Abena P. Busia’s collection of poems, Testimonies of Exile, and it fundamentally shifted how I understood my experience as the child of Ghanaian immigrants, living in Toronto. In Busia’s work, I found a longing for a home she had left, a desire to tell a story that had yet been told and a freedom to imagine life after the trauma of migration. And it meant something to me as a young African child to read the work of someone from my ancestral homeland, articulating the experience of being Black, African and female in the murky waters of North American life.

Later, when I began undergraduate studies, I searched desperately for all the African feminist writers I could find. Alas, I developed a deep friendship with the theoretical work of a cadre of African feminists including, Ama Ata Aidoo, Amina Mama, Yaba Blay, Njoki Wane, Notisha Massaquoi, Tsitsi Dangarembga, and Obioma Nnaemeka, to name a few. The literature ranged from fierce radical poetry to deep political/activist theory. And I was thankful for all of it. I understood all of these writers as storytellers and knowledge workers, who excavated their life experiences to teach us something about the human condition, about African women’s human condition(s). Their narratives became a mirror, a blueprint and a guide for what was possible both in my writing and activist world. Their words transformed me.

But as I entered graduate school, and began to pursue my feminist academic career, I realized that very few of my colleagues (and professors) had heard of these remarkable writers. I understood that if I were to produce “rigorous” knowledge in the academy, I would be forced to cite (mostly) white feminists who were more well-known and lauded by the academy. And I understood this as part of the deep and longstanding tradition of epistemic violence that is hurled at Black African women who dared to produce knowledge in the university system. While Black feminism has historically been preoccupied with the ways in which white supremacist constructions of gender, race and class come to structure Black female life in the Americas, African feminists have been instrumental in shaping nationalist independence movements across the continent, the struggle against patriarchal violence and global economic imperialism that threatens the lives of women and girls in their communities. And yet, despite these long intellectual traditions across Africa and its diasporas, there is still a perception that African women do not have the time or are disinterested/disengaged from intellectual labour. African feminists who have historically engaged in intellectual labour have been accused of being Westernized elitists. Certainly, this accusation sits as a betrayal for any well-intentioned African female intellectual engaged in this labour in pursuit of social justice for her people.

The history of African feminist organizing was understandably assumed to be anti-intellectual. That is to say, our feminist foremothers did not have the luxury or access to pursuing seemingly bourgeois endeavours like “research” or “theory”. African women were said to be more concerned with “pressing issues” such as poverty, disease and nation-building and development. And the indigenous knowledge we may have accessed on a daily basis was not considered “intellectual work” –it was simply the way we did things based on our spiritual inner life. Beyond this, the identity of the intellectual was often masculinized, creating a perception that African women did not have the mental acumen to be engaged in the male-dominated world of knowledge production. In a panel discussion a few years ago, BYP National Coordinator Charlene Carruthers observed that “Black people are deep thinkers, even if we don’t always have the time to do it”. Thinking about Black African women, I would extend this to say that we are also deep thinkers, but that patriarchal structures often demand that we mute this intelligence in the face of our men; that we do not (selfishly) pursue the intellect, because this takes us away from caring for communities and families. Gendered expectations of Black African women have meant that the work of “thinking” has historically been the domain of men. The access to education has historically privileged boy-children and missionaries were complicit in this patriarchal education structure. In Ghana, young people who ask critical questions are often charged with and chastised for being “too-known”, which means to go beyond the expectations of adults. One who seeks to question or explore critical thought and analysis is often accused of thinking too highly of themselves, of wanting to know (or actually knowing) too much. This colonial residue is a reminder of how European masters did not want us to access the knowledge that could precipitate our freedom. But what if intellectual work could actually save our lives as African women? What if intellectual work is the very stuff that our liberation is made out of?

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Building an African Feminist Knowledge Hub

At AWDF, we currently organize a Feminist Knowledge Hub, which consists of managing, disseminating and co-creating feminist knowledge, as well as strengthening feminist knowledge production institutions. More tangibly, this Knowledge Hub consists of a physical Resource Centre, which houses hundreds of books, DvDs and archives of African feminist knowledge production. The Centre is open to the public three times a week, free of charge. We also manage a complimentary Resource Centre Catalogue, which allows the general public to virtually access a database of our materials. The African Women’s Development Fund Repository (AfriREP) is host to hundreds of articles, reports and research papers on feminist and gender issues in an African context. The materials are sourced through searching through various open access academic journals, and functions as a clearinghouse for innovative African feminist content. We also engage in strengthening the feminist knowledge production movement, through collaborations with research collectives such as Feminist Africa and our Know Your African Feminist series. We recognize all of this work as deep political work that helps to sharpen our analysis as African feminists.

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Conclusion:

Feminist intellectual Patricia McFadden once wrote that “intellectual engagement is the most sensual and most satisfying experience of living. It is akin to nurturing the very essence of [her] being”. As we forge ahead as feminist knowledge producers, I feel strongly that the work of the intellectual is to observe, analyze and document our life narratives, and that this work can be deeply rewarding. I encourage us all to support the work of African feminist knowledge producers, through an engagement with our work. In fact, this was the impetus for the twitter hashtag #citeAfricanfeminists, which culminated in the publication of an African Feminist reading list by feminist scholar Awino Okech late last year. At AWDF, we will continue to support and amplify African women’s knowledge production, as we understand that a movement that consistently reflects, analyzes and observes is one that thrives.

Bio:

Rita Nketiah is currently the Knowledge Management Specialist at the African Women’s Development Fund. She is also completing her PhD at York University in Human Geography. In her spare time, she enjoys an active Netflix life and playing with her cats ☺

By Nana Akosua Hanson

Imagine this: You are walking through a busy street and everybody keeps grabbing at your body parts. You speak up, but you are shut down. You have no right to open your mouth, they say. They grab you some more. Your body is in pain, so you are in pain. It is such an awkward mind space; feeling the pain of a body that hurts because you carry that body, you own it. It belongs to you, and yet all these people who do not share in the pain of this body claim ownership of it. And they would kill you to make that point. Welcome to Patriarchy.

In Ghana, during the second half of the 90s, the first of the serial killings was traced to Kumasi. Akua Serwaa was found dead near the Kumasi Sports Stadium. The killings spread to Accra. Thirty-three more women were found dead in various states of mutilation and undress. The Accra Strangler became famous. In 2000, four men were standing trial for killing their partners. Seven women at least had been killed in the span of two weeks by their partners over alleged infidelities. These occurrences were not new. The style was familiar. The late 90s and early 2000s was Ghana’s Jack-the-Ripper moment. It played out to a chorus of fury and fear, the ruling government’s insensitivity in politicising Ghanaian women’s murders, and the lack of interest and urgency by the Ghana Police.

In Uganda, it was twenty women in four months. In South Africa, it is three women a day. Same script.

These women were sex workers, loving partners, traders, human beings with hopes and dreams, who had children, and people who loved them, but before everything else, they were Women.

I often think about the nature of patriarchy. Oppressive systems are made up of human beings. Human beings project beyond themselves, unify those projected ideas and from hence, come the establishment of a system. Patriarchy is a unified projection of our hate. In my life, this hate moves from irritating to downright scary. It is frightening to contemplate how grossly hateful a system can be that a by-product of its hate is an outburst of women-killings by a single-minded, hateful man or several groups of hateful men. It is downright scary when you are hit with the horror of the reality of a system that from birth hammers in a language of gender inequality, empowers this inequality by creating “divine” justification and systematises it such that its continuous existence is assured. This is downright scary.

But I have learnt to keep reminding myself to appreciate the many examples of hope that constantly surround us. These are reminders that there is a strong force of goodness in all of this hate and the unification of that projected strong force of love would also soon birth a loving world where people are not targeted because of their gender, sexuality class, ethnicity, race or any category used to create violent rifts because of differences.

Today marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. As we commemorate this very first day in our 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence, let us be reminded about the hope of this day, of this time. My many cards of hope today are the thousands of women who marched through the streets of Accra on April 6^th 2002, spoke truth to power and demanded the serial killings stopped and they did.

My special card of hope is that our activism against patriarchy and its consequent violence has come to live and thrive beyond just 16 days, and because of this, every new day brings us closer to a world free from patriarchy and free from Gender Based Violence. Just Imagine.

by Gertrude Bibi Annoh Quarshie

“Giving”- in its purest form includes using our hearts, our minds, our talents and other resources in ways that enrich the lives of all people whether poor or rich. It is simply being conscious about the problems around us and taking purposeful action to solve those problems. “Giving” is a dignified selfless act of passion and compassion!

As a staff the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), I am very passionate about what we are doing to transform the lives of African women. More often than not, people are interested in how they can also support activities or initiatives that promote or uphold women’s rights. The workplace-giving programme is one of the channels that any group of people can use to raise funds internally. In fundraising, individual efforts are important but the synergy from a group is usually worth the investment and that is why I love the principle of workplace giving.

Workplace giving is an initiative in which employees raise money internally by donating a certain amount from their monthly salaries, deductible at source. The contributors then decide on which project(s) to support with the fund.

The AWDF workplace giving programme was inspired by a donation received from the Hewlett Foundation’s staff workplace giving programme 12 years ago. Since then, the fund has grown in size and in reach, supporting various initiatives that have put smiles on many faces. The Fund is managed solely by staff, with a three-member executive committee. Interested staff members complete a form instructing that a certain amount of money be deducted from their salary each month. All the contributions go into a fund administered by the committee.

Some of the initiatives the fund has supported include the provision of a water tank at the maternal and child centre at the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital Ghana, provision of various sewing equipment to the Nsawam Female prisons and a donation to Operation SMILE. We recently supported the establishment of an innovation lab for students of the Africa Science Academy as well as the provision of equipment for PAYPD Kayayie centre for porter girls.

Having been associated with the workplace-giving programme over the past decade, I have become a stronger advocate of the phrase “don’t just complain about the state of affairs, take action”. GIVING is one way of taking action.

We are all capable of giving. If we can create a movement of individuals committed to donating a percentage of their resources to champion women’s social, economic and health rights, we will be helping to solve many problems. For more information on starting your own giving circles contact awdf@africlub.net/awdf.