Category: Blog
Voice And Choice & State of Women in SADC Barometers Launched
Voice And Choice & State of Women in SADC Barometers Launched
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.
What We Know: The Role of Knowledge Production in Owning our Narratives as African Feminists
What We Know: The Role of Knowledge Production in Owning our Narratives as African Feminists
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 ☺
16 Days of Hope
16 Days of Hope
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 6th 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.
Workplace Giving – an opportunity to take action
Workplace Giving – an opportunity to take action
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.
Decolonise The Internet: Solidarity Is More than Just A Buzzword.
Decolonise The Internet: Solidarity Is More than Just A Buzzword.
By: Maame Akua Kyerewaa-Marfo
The fast pace of technology has often made it synonymous with the concept of progress. New Technological developments often came with the presumption of neutrality. They were widely thought of not to have the the weaknesses of human prejudice, just simple–clean–algorithms. Technology could be–at least conceptually–blissfully neutral. However in its implementation it became clear that technological developments often mirrored the people doing the developing and left out, inadvertently or not, those who lacked the privilege often needed to gain the skills necessary to claim digital real estate. The Decolonising the Internet conference, held in Cape Town, wanted to re-imagine an internet where the real estate was owned by all. An internet where everyone had a voice, an opinion and a story.
Decolonising the Internet was a conference organised by Whose Knowledge? as a precursor to WIKIMANIA 2018, the Wikimedia Foundation’s annual conference. Each WIKIMANIA brings together volunteers and free knowledge leaders to celebrate all the various free knowledge projects hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. This year’s theme– “Bridging knowledge gaps: the Ubuntu way forward,” focused on the spaces and moments that Wikipedia and all of the other free knowledge products of the Wikimedia foundation, had missed. As an organisation that already does the work of reconstructing the internet so that more of it’s users are included within it’s landscape, Whose Knowledge?’s two day, Decolonizing the Internet pre-conference provided a lens by which to interpret and untangle the WIKIMANIA conference. They created a space where participants could participate in this reconstruction and re-imagining of an internet which would truly belong to everyone.
The first day focused on imagining. What would it truly mean to rethink the internet–and how could all of the different voices in the room find a space in this collective re-imagining? What did it mean to be in a room full of people doing interesting and often times revolutionary work in spaces that the western world normally wouldn’t consider in its construction of the digital landscape? What would this reclaiming of space look like? The answers to these questions had a wide range, from new ways of archiving information and new knowledge systems to rethinking the concepts of labeling that are prevalent within library systems and how even those categorisations can be limiting and exclusionary. The first day served as a way of getting participants to both conceptualise the internet and free knowledge spaces they want to see, and start the difficult work of imagining themselves within those landscapes.
The second day focused on the doing– now that we had re-imagined wild– important futures. How could we transform the spaces we occupy now to usher them in? For some the answer was to look at the landscape of Wikimania–and Wikipedia itself. How could we get rid of common limitations that we had experienced trying to populate the space with information from marginalised communities? What were the first steps to our glorious, liberated, decolonised digital future in a space that prides itself on being accessible to all? How could we, in our own ways, ensure that it is? Several different answers sprang up in response to this question and the day was spent working out our places and our starting points. The focus on small, manageable starting points meant that the follow up actions were simple–doable things that linked clearly to our overall goal. We would be doing something small–but tangible and foundational like exploring the possibility of a feminist commons, to becoming more involved in editing and updating Wikipedia.
Over the next few days of WIKIMANIA itself, it became clear how important the space offered by Decolonising the Internet was. It allowed people working in different ways to link hands in a space where knowledge was de-centralised. This meant that for those who had been in the bean bag filled break away rooms there was a lens, an action plan and a reason to engage, beyond a passion for free knowledge. It allowed inputs to be important and poignant, and though the overall achievements of that space are hard to map now– the connections between people doing incredible work, who were pushing for more space for marginalised knowledge were powerful, tangible things.
Whose Knowledge called into question the rethinking of the cannon. An internet for all would mean rethinking concepts, categories, what is considered a source and who is considered an authority. Although Wikipedia questions these tenets by its simple existence– it was clear from both the conversations and the theme for this years WIKIMANIA that this question, this probing, this revolution is incomplete. Whose Knowledge took that theme and that questioning further, and provided a space of liberation. One were we could deconstruct and reconstruct.
Whose Knowledge provided not only space to question and imagine– but also incredible people to do this important imagining with.
For more information on Whose Knowledge please follow this LINK.
Ending plastic pollution: a step towards mitigating climate change effects
Ending plastic pollution: a step towards mitigating climate change effects
On 22nd April 2018, as the whole world celebrates Earth Day and contributes to eradicating climate change under the theme, “End Plastic Pollution”, our message is that women who experience the consequences of climate change are often leaders in developing effective coping strategies and building resilience. They have important insights to contribute to designing and implementing effective climate responses and should be fully included in decision-making on climate change at all levels. Plastic pollution not only affects the environment but it also affects women’s health by transferring toxins into our food. Therefore, we advocate for less production and use of plastic bags and more use of paper bags, which are health and environment friendly.
In sub-Saharan Africa, where populations depend largely on natural resources for their means of livelihood, the situation seems even worse. For women in particular, the threat of climate change to their socio-economic and environmental development is evident, especially among those in rural areas who are reliant on agriculture for their livelihoods and natural resources such as traditional biomass for cooking and heating. Furthermore, women often lack the capacity and resources to adequately respond to natural hazards and thereby mitigate their negative effects on their activities. For example, restrictions on women’s land ownership mean that many women do not have access to productive land to farm, while a lack of financial capital and access to technologies means they cannot easily diversify their livelihoods. The implication is that climate change worsens the pre-existing socio-economic pressures women are faced with. Existing social inequalities resulting from climate change are further exacerbated by women’s limited adaptive capacities as well as ascribed social and economic roles that eventually lead to unequal access to resources, decision-making processes and reduced access to information.
Attempts to deal with climate change have faced a number of challenges. These include rural women’s overdependence on natural resources due to insufficient access to alternative livelihood opportunities; a lack of reliable methodologies and approaches to measure climate change impact by gender at all levels; and the lack of access to financial and technology-based solutions for climate change adaptation and mitigation.
With the current climate change challenges confronting women, AWDF supports them to respond to these challenges by adapting and mitigating the impact of climate change through its grant making and technical support activities. AWDF also supports women’s rights organisations to intensify their advocacy work for policies that support the mitigation of climate change effects for most affected communities of women. Some of the organisations are specifically engaged in activities aimed at reducing plastic pollution. Examples include Women’s Leadership and Training Program (WLTP) in South Africa and SOS in Ethiopia, who have introduced very unique models of reducing plastic waste and at the same time create employment for women.
As part of AWDF’s mandate of achieving social justice for women as well as supporting them towards economic security, and the intent to deepen its support to women’s rights organisations working on environmental and climate change issues, AWDF recently embarked on a journey to access the Green Climate Fund (GCF). GCF is a new global fund created to support efforts made by developing countries to respond to climate change effects. Specifically, GCF provides grants to projects aimed at helping developing countries limit or reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adapt to climate change. It seeks to promote a paradigm shift to low-emission and climate-resilient development, taking into account the needs of nations that are particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change.
For AWDF, this initiative is timely because the integration of gender considerations into key multilateral climate finance mechanisms like GCF are steps in the right direction, since gender considerations have yet to be effectively mainstreamed in some climate change programmes and activities, and national planning. Funding mechanisms like GCF are needed across scales to maximize the impact of climate financing and also to tackle deeply rooted structural inequities at a time when climate change affects women in ways that may not always be evident and this includes their health.
Highlights from the 2016 campaign on 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based violence
Highlights from the 2016 campaign on 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based violence
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Highlights from the 2016 campaign on 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based violence
By Rose Buabeng and Belinda Amankwah
We live in a world increasingly shaped by mobile and online communication technologies. African uptake and participation in social media and mobile technology platforms continues to grow as advancements in technology and accessibility of the Internet perpetuate cyber harassment mostly among the youth. What does this mean for African women and girls? As the 2017 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence is approaching, as a feminist organization who supports women’s rights organisations to undertake innovative initiatives to prevent Gender Based Violence (GBV), AWDF would like to throw more light on the focus of our support for the 16 Days of Activism with grants and how it impacted girls, women and communities in Africa.
For the 16 Days campaign in 2016, AWDF supported 17 young women’s rights organizations in 12 countries across Africa with grants of $1,000 per organisation to embark on a campaign using ICT to educate communities on the causes and prevention of GBV, and also explore channels for redress for survivors.
The selected organisations engaged in different activities employing various ICT tools such as radio, mobile phone, internet, television among others to educate their communities on the causes and prevention of GBV. Some of the activities undertaken included development of mobile sms code, Facebook and WhatsApp interactive platforms and radio talk shows. They also carried out online and offline sensitisation of women through educative talks on GBV within local communities, organised group coaching on use of mobile phones to report cases of VAW and Edutainment crusade using cultural animation. STEMbees Organization in Ghana organised a workshop on cyber bullying, sexting and digital safety, where participants were taught how to change privacy settings on WhatsApp such as blocking contacts and changing from public to “only me” privacy settings to ensure the safety of their information.
Female Students Network Trust (FSN) in Zimbabwe; another grantee, commemorated the 16 Days of Activism against GBV campaign (# stopcyberharassment) with a march in Harare by gathering 100 students and stakeholders from various institutions within the city, who play a pivotal role in the dissemination of information on cyber harassment to the student community and the society as a whole.
The organisations that we supported adopted different strategies to reach their targets with the message on the causes and prevention of GBV. In addition to the ICT tools, some organizations also used community fora, drama, counseling, outreaches and peer to peer outreach to engage wider audience.
The campaign greatly stimulated and brought to the limelight issues of cyber-harassment and online abuse of women especially young women and girls. This was extensively deliberated on by key stakeholders and local authorities within targeted project areas. Female Municipal Councillors of target municipality like Ndu of Cameroon were motivated by the project to deliberate for the first time on GBV within the December 2016 council session and how to address such issues.
The Uganda Media Women’s Association also asserted that the campaign was an eye-opener to the organisation on the need to raise awareness about online abuse which is a new kind violence and abuse happening especially to young people in Uganda but not being given priority yet and is gradually gaining ground.
The campaign also saw the increase in women participation in debates on GBV. Over 6 cases were reported in the WhatsApp group formed during the campaign by YWCAA, Kenya.
Again, Women Empowerment Group (WEG) in Kenya developed a GBV situation analysis in Uasin-Gishu County which outlined GBV prevalence situation in the region for future advocacy to address the situation.
Through AWDF’s support, the organisations were able to reach out to about 4500 direct beneficiaries resulting in massive awareness on the causes and prevention of GBV. Most of the projects also targeted young women who were trained through various channels to understand the different forms of online gender based violence, how it occurs and the measures to take to protect oneself from any form of online gender based violence.[/tp]
CEO FORUM: Setting the Foundation for an Exciting two years!
CEO FORUM: Setting the Foundation for an Exciting two years!
The Manda coaching program is an opportunity for young women in second level leadership to come together and learn from and with each other. On 11th October, the 4th CEO Forum was held in Accra, Ghana and brought together young leaders from across the continent whose organisations are making positive changes within their communities. The leaders themselves proved to be dedicated and innovative and they brought all of this energy with them to the meeting.
The 4 day event was spent discussing various areas of organisational and personal development within women’s rights spaces. The focus was on transformational feminist leadership within their organisations and each of the participants had a rich history and knowledge to share. The CEO forum allows for AWDF to invest in the sort of leadership which will help move our continent forward by investing in leaders whose work we believe in, by helping to strengthen their organisations and communities. This is an innovative way to look at women’s leadership and helps foster both individual and organisational leadership.
The women who were present at the 4 day event brought their zeal, their questions and their curiosity and this in turn helped make the forum lively and responsive to their direct needs. Participants spoke to the importance of coaching and mentoring, and how each individual mentor exhibited great skills at this. Deborah Ahenkorah, Founder of Golden Baobab remarked that “Hope Chigudu( One of the Mentors) is someone who is committed to nurturing the potential she sees in other women.”
Another key aspect of the discussions was how to truly embody feminist egalitarian leadership within their organisations and how to communicate about the work that their organisations did. There was an extensive day’s training in communications, led by Paula Fray of Fray Intermedia, and also on linking coaching to feminism, led by Yene Assegid. Hope Chigudu moderated and led the open discussions with her trademark energy and passion, while AWDF CEO Theo Sowa gave a very insightful and reflective presentation on governance.
The 4 day event helped encourage, reaffirm and strengthen the mentees, and the two-year coaching programme will continue to build on the foundation that was set during the CEO forum.
A GREAT SHERO DANCES AWAY: Prudence Nobantu Mabele (1971-2017)
A GREAT SHERO DANCES AWAY: Prudence Nobantu Mabele (1971-2017)
A tribute by Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi
‘Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now’– Audre Lourde
It was March 2006. I was in Johannesburg, South Africa with Vera Doku, a colleague of mine from the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), as part of a tour of countries in Southern Africa to visit our grantee partners. We were waiting for the Executive Director of the first organisation we had scheduled to visit that morning. She was almost an hour late. Vera started to complain about the tardiness of our partner. I smiled and said to Vera, ‘She will show up, she always has a thousand things to do’. When Prudence Mabele eventually arrived, she was full of apologies for keeping us waiting and told us that she had been busy making preparations for our visit.
With time, the staff at AWDF got to understand the way Prudence functioned. She was not the most organized of people when it came to sending her reports in on time. It would often take several requests for her to send in her paperwork and even when she did it would still require more information to be provided. And yet, Prudence was one of our most reliable partners in the women’s movement. She was not running her network as a ‘career’. We have many actors in civil society across the continent who set up initiatives that appear to be clinically functional, with all their reports on time and their accounts in order, but their impact on the communities they claim to serve is negligible. What I learnt from Prudence Mabele as a feminist donor was that we needed to listen more to those who are working from the heart and serving their communities with everything they have. I also learnt the importance of being patient with them and understanding their context. When people like Prudence have to make a choice between spending a day writing a donor report and attending to the needs of their communities, the latter wins every time. I am not saying donor accountability is not important, I am making a distinction between people who genuinely work to support their communities and those who are mostly in the ‘donor hustle’ business.
Prudence was diagnosed with HIV when she was 18. In 1992, she was one of the first black women in South Africa to publicly disclose her HIV status. In 1996, together with a number of other women, she founded Positive Women’s Network, which grew from a handful of women to at least two thousand members across South Africa. A force of nature, Prudence was tireless and was one of those people who worked round the clock. She came of age at a time when South Africa was in transition from generations of apartheid to majority black rule. It was a time when most black South Africans were cautiously optimistic about their future, particularly under the leadership of their beloved President Nelson Mandela. It was however also a period when the historically marginalized black population knew that their deliverance from poverty and its attendant evils would not happen at any rapid pace. One trend that constituted a major crisis for South Africa as a country and for black South Africans in particular, was the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Prudence decided that her own fate was closely connected to the fates of thousands of in her community. Her HIV status was not something she was going to keep to herself, in order to avoid stigma, reproach and judgement. Prudence found and used her voice to become one of the most powerful and effective HIV/AIDS campaigners in South Africa. She was one of the founding members of the Treatment Action Campaign of South Africa which helped secure South Africa’s Universal Access HIV treatment Program, co-founder of the National Association of People Living with HIV/AIDS, Deputy Chair of the South African AIDS Council and President of the Society of Women and AIDS in Africa. When AWDF in collaboration with the International Planned Parenthood Federation set up a regional advocacy forum, the African Women Leaders Network for Reproductive Health and Family Planning (AWLN) in 2010, Prudence was one of the first women leaders we reached out to.
Unlike many HIV/AIDS activists who can only engage at one end of the spectrum, Prudence ran the gamut from grassroots mobilization and provision of frontline services to local and international policy advocacy. I have been with Prudence in poor communities in several parts of Johannesburg. We also spent time together at international policy meetings at the United Nations or the biennial international AIDS conferences. In June 2006 at the International HIV/AIDS conference that took place in Toronto, Canada, AWDF launched a 13 Campaign as part of our commitment to funding African women’s organisations working on HIV/AIDS. It had been a great evening with speeches from Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and Stephen Lewis, who was the UN Special Envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa.
After the formalities were over, there was music, and one of the first on the dance floor was Prudence. We all danced enthusiastically, community leaders, policy makers and donors alike. I have never forgotten that night. The dancing was an expression of the solidarity, agency and sisterhood of African women. Prudence was the embodiment of that spirit, and as she led the dancing, she was also teaching us never to forget why we were all doing this work of social justice organizing in the first place. We do this work to inspire ourselves and others. We do this to affirm our humanity and the personhood of women in particular. We also do this work to celebrate our achievements, and when we experience loss, to conserve our energies to fight another day. Later, one of my colleagues observed that it is only African women who can turn a ‘very respectable event’ into a dance party. I pointed out that people need to understand that celebration is a way of life for African people. We celebrate even when we are sad, because that is the way we find the courage to go on. In October 2007, as part of another AWDF visit to South Africa, Prudence organized a meeting in Soweto. One of the agenda items of the forum was to mourn the passing of one of the young women in the group who had been murdered by local thugs. Again, Prudence led the singing and dancing. Prudence was absolutely fearless. If she ever had any doubts or fears, it was very hard to tell. She was one of the leaders of the ‘Khwezi’ movement, which provided solidarity for the young South African woman who was allegedly raped by then Vice-President Jacob Zuma. The rape survivor was known as ‘Khwezi’ and the quest for justice to be done was a rallying point for thousands of South African women of all races who were determined to shine a light on the link between the very high levels of rape in South Africa and the spread of HIV/AIDS.
As I reflect on the life of this great daughter of Africa, I am also saddened by the fact that in many African countries, HIV/AIDS is still not taken seriously enough. Billions of dollars have been pumped into awareness raising, treatment, and sustaining coordination machineries from national to local level. Allegations of ineptitude and corruption still trail the management of the vast HIV/AIDS architecture that is supposed to bring succor to the thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS, their carers (mostly women) and those who are most vulnerable to infection, again mostly women and girls. Patriarchal norms and practices, poverty, ignorance, indifference and a lack of political will continue to work together to keep HIV infection rates high. Prudence spent her life working on all these issues, and has now gone to rest. HIV/AIDS is not resting, it is still on the move. Our leaders need to take note and lead by example. HIV/AIDS awareness is not something that should concern only healthcare professionals and the scores of NGOs who slug away doing whatever they can. It is not something we only think about every December 1st on World AIDS Day. Everyone needs to know their HIV status, seek counselling and treatment where applicable, and reduce their risk factors. There also needs to be zero tolerance for violence against women and the sexual exploitation of girls. Prudence joined her ancestors on July 10th. She fought a good fight and in death, she reminds us of the enormity of the task that lies ahead. You have earned your rest dear sister. You will forever remain in the hearts of those of us who knew you and danced with you. Please keep on dancing wherever you are.
Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is a Gender Specialist, Social Entrepreneur and Writer. She is the Founder of Abovewhispers.com, an online community for women. She can be reached at BAF@abovewhispers.com
Faith, Feminisms and Fundamentalisms: A Search for Balance.
Faith, Feminisms and Fundamentalisms: A Search for Balance.
International Women’s Day at AWDF has often been a day to reflect on the larger themes of the feminist movement, and promote conversations and engagement around topics that feminists around the continent are grappling with. This year, our conversation focused on Faith, Feminisms and Fundamentalisms, and examined their various points of convergence and divergence. The panelists and audience members discussed what it means to be a woman of faith, a feminist and how to deal with the growing wave of fundamentalism on the continent.
The panelists were a varied group of women, with differing faith backgrounds and varying fields of endeavour. Professor Mercy Oduyoye is Africa’s first female theologian, Angela Dwamena-Aboage is the founder of the Ark Foundation, Roslyn Mould is a Humanist and President of the Humanist Society of Ghana and Ms Kauthar Khamis is an Assistant Lecturer at the Islamic University College.
One of the most interesting topics for discussion was the growing wave of Fundamentalism which Professor Mercy Oduyoye defined as “Being unable to have a conversation with other people who think differently simply because they do not follow your own interpretation” According to Prof. Oduyoye, religious fundamentalists believe and insist that their practices remain unchanged.
The conversation generated a considerable amount of interest, both from the venue and live on Twitter and Facebook, and it was clear that it was a discussion that desperately needs to be continued throughout feminist spaces on the continent.