Category: Blog

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.

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.

On 22^nd 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.

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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]

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 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

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.

(Click here for a podcast of the conversation)

Submitted Piece by: Titilope F Ajayi

In commemoration of International Women’s Day 2017 under the theme #BeBoldForChange, I was privileged to partake in a conversation entitled ‘Faith, Feminisms, and Fundamentalisms’ under the auspices of the African Women’s Development Fund. I was there as a woman, a feminist, an African, and a scholar of gender and international affairs. The exchanges at this well-attended event were so rich and profound that it would be hard to do justice to them and my piece makes no such pretensions. What follows is a collage, for the sakes of feminists everywhere of what were, for me, the most poignant takeaways.

Feminism is not a dirty word. All that it means, at its element, to quote Professor Mercy Oduyoye, is a person—irrespective of sex—who sees women as human beings and responds to us accordingly.

There is no single superlative way to ‘do’ feminism. I say this in response to the sister who said she doesn’t call herself feminist because she’s unsure that she’s been faithful to its tenets. Because women have different standpoints, it stands to reason that there is a diversity of feminisms informed by race, age, social status, religion, location, and many more intersections of life. What unites all feminists everywhere is our shared quest for greater ‘humanism’ toward women.

Fundamentalism is not the preserve of any faith; feminism can be fundamentalist too when it won’t accommodate alternative feminist views. And there are many.

Feminism is not incompatible with faith. As one wise woman said, that we masculinise God does not make men gods. Women’s religious subordination, voluntary and imposed, is often the outcome of distorted interpretations of sacred texts, fed as much by our prevailing (in this case, African) cultural contexts as by complex gendered power plays, and a blindness to the historical and social contexts in which many holy books were written. The solution? Feminists of faith need to start and keep changing the narratives and reframing the frames that have occluded women’s equitable integration into faith spaces and invisibilised our contributions therein.

Agency is a many-sided thing. Within the strictures of what have long been and remain fundamentally male-dominated faith spaces, women of faith are exercising their agencies for change in different ways and at different levels, whether as women of faith or as social or professional personalities. What appears to be a tacit acceptance of male leadership in faith spaces by some women could also be viewed as pragmatism, as one woman said, that enables women to manoeuvre within tight spaces in ways that don’t dampen our activism. On another hand, some women, like Catholic women priests, are fighting religious patriarchy by creating parallel faith spaces that are more open to gender equality. Yet more needs to change. Is ‘realist’ feminism enough to make various faiths feminist? Whatever your views, there is a clear need, as one woman voiced, to engage directly and consistently with the gatekeepers of faith on this matter.

There is value in women talking to themselves. One of very few men besides the media who were present queried the utility of “women talking to women”, as he put it. I didn’t get the chance to engage with him, but I will use this opportunity to say that the solution to feminist struggles doesn’t lie with one space, or sex, or strategy. Conversations among women are safe, useful spaces to reflect, to connect, to share, to learn, and to coalesce around our diversities. The outcomes of such engagements can then more easily translate into the gendered spaces that we feminists seek to change in ways that are more likely to be conducive to our cause.

There was much more to say than time permitted at the event—an indication that the conversation was timely, the topic apt, and the environment conducive. It also shows that the correlations among faith, feminisms, and fundamentalism(s) have not been discussed enough. For this reason, I end with the MC’s admonition that the learnings and conversations need to continue. As members of the women’s movement, we must keep interrogating critically what we think we know and what we take for granted in order to consolidate the gains made thus far and maximise the prospect of lasting change.

by Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi

At the panel discussion, the first question we were asked was about our earliest recollections of acts of philanthropy. For me, it was my parents. I believe that most Africans get immersed in cultures of giving from an early age. I grew up observing my parents helping family and friends with contributions towards school fees, vocational training, medical expenses and personal milestones such as weddings and funerals. They gave financial support, material assistance and provided accommodation. I therefore understood, like many others who had a similar upbringing, that no matter how much or little I had, there was an obligation to assist others.

My mother was always giving something to someone. I watched her give away money, clothing, foodstuff and her exquisite collection of dishes. I saw her give advice and support to women in the neighborhood. She would take in women in distress and offer them a shoulder to cry on and give them sound counsel till they could get back to the rigours of life. From my mother, I learnt the value of solidarity with other women, and the importance of being your sister’s keeper.

My entry point into institutional philanthropy was through my involvement as the Executive Director of Akina Mama wa Afrika in London (AMwA) (1991-2001) as well as Comic Relief, UK. AMwA was a development organisation that supported African women in the UK and Europe, as well as women’s movements in Africa. In 1996, I started raising funding for an African Women’s Leadership Institute, an AMwA program which was to be a regional networking and training forum for young African women – I was still young then! I was very alarmed when I got a letter from a European funding agency (after eighteen months of waiting) declining to fund the leadership institute. What upset me was not the No but why they said No.

According to them, African women’s priorities were food, shelter, livelihoods, etc., and not leadership development. I could not understand how a group of people in Europe, no matter how well meaning they were, could decide what African women needed. I went on to raise significant funding for the leadership institute from other sources and today, the AWLI has trained over 6,000 women leaders across Africa. It is interesting to note that a version of the very project that was deemed unworthy of funding showed up as a project of one of the funding agencies who had received the proposal from us a year later! The lesson I learnt from this, after being awakened from my innocence, was that other people had a better idea of how African women’s leadership could be encouraged, anyone other than African women themselves.

This is the motivation that fueled the establishment of AWDF, as a space that would mobilise and disburse resources to women’s organisations across Africa. We wanted to provide African women’s movements an opportunity to engage in initiatives that would raise the status of women, with needs and priorities determined by them. We wanted to fund initiatives that would transform women’s lives and not simply uphold the status quo. The experience of co-founding AWDF and serving as its Executive Director for the first ten years has been one of the most fulfilling of my life. In the early days of AWDF, as I embarked on the journey to establish AWDF as a reputable philanthropic organisation, I discovered that it was not feasible to make the case for funding to one entity in Africa without taking into consideration the context within which people were making decisions and the politics of international donor funding. I found myself in spaces where, in the early days, I would be either the only African in the room or the only vocal one. I would hear things like ‘ We would like to fund in xyz country but we don’t know who to support’ or ‘We have a lot of money to give away for xyz thematic issue but we can’t find the right partners’. Of course I found a lot of these assertions patronizing and insincere, masking an ambivalence about African capacity to manage and deliver on programs, and to be trusted with resources, but I decided that the best way forward was dialogue, advocacy and setting an example.

Today, AWDF has grown from a handful of institutional donors in 2000 to a large network of institutional, corporate and individual donors, with over $25 million in grants made over the years to at least 1,200 women’s organisations in 42 African countries. AWDF also has an endowment fund invested in real estate, fixed deposits and the money market. From a staff of four in 2001 when we made our first grants, the organisation now has a staff of up to twenty-five. Our grants have been used to enhance women’s livelihoods and raise them from poverty, to empower girls, pass legislation, train and empower women in decision making to mention just a few. We have also played a key role in the strengthening of key women’s networks on the continent. The fact that AWDF is acknowledged as a credible organisation with a track record of integrity, success and achievement is an accomplishment to be deeply appreciated. AWDF’s story is a gift to African civil society. It is possible to have an Africa based and Africa led grant making institution that walks its talk, and aspires to the best foundation practices anywhere in the world. In the universe of Women’s Funds and southern-based philanthropic institutions globally, AWDF stands tall as a well-respected role model.

People have often asked me what is so special about philanthropy for women. It is not different from other kinds of philanthropy, because the key issue here is giving. However, what makes philanthropy for women special, is that it comes from a belief system that understands the critical importance in investing in women for sustainable growth and transformative change in our communities. We can do this in different ways, for example through initiatives to provide women with livelihoods, through making them safe from all forms of violence, giving them facilities to enjoy good health for themselves and their children, and giving them a voice in decision making at all levels. These are the ways in which AWDF has supported thousands of women over the past fifteen years. It is work that requires long-term support and involvement, but it also yields results that are unquantifiable in many cases. An empowered girl or woman will go on to have an empowered family, will be self-sufficient, will be able to support her husband better and the community will be better off for it.

It is a very welcome development to see wealthy African philanthropists, male and female, stepping up to add value to the field. What I would like to see more of, is a willingness of these wealthy philanthropists, some of whom have large foundations, to do more social change philanthropy. This way, we can have some impact on the political and socio- systems that keep hindering Africa’s development. Most African philanthropists also do not have a strategy for funding work to promote women’s empowerment and gender equality, beyond social welfare issues. I would like this to change.

During her remarks on the panel in Accra, Leymah Gbowe spoke about a trip she made to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with a delegation from the Nobel Women’s Initiative in 2014. DRC has acquired a reputation for being the ‘rape capital of the world’, due to the violent conflict that has raged in that country for many years now. At the forum in DRC, woman after woman told stories of what they had endured. Leymah said the narratives of the women would go something like this, ‘When I was attacked and raped by a gang of militia, I wanted to commit suicide. I thought my life had ended. And then the women came. They brought me food, cared for my children and encouraged me’. Or the narrative would be, ‘They killed my husband, took away my son, and raped me and my two daughters. I lost my mind and did not know where I was. Then the women came and they took care of me, prayed for me and gave me the little they had’. Testimony after testimony went on like this, and they all included, ‘Then the women came’. The delegation from the US was made up of donors, journalists, researchers and activists. When it was time to ask questions, they were all about, ‘ So how many times where you raped?’, or ‘Do you still think about the rape?’. Leymah was furious. When it was time for her to sum up the meeting as head of the delegation, she pointed out that they should not miss the true story they had just heard. The story was not about the rape of women in DRC. It was about the solidarity of women, stepping out, stepping up and being there. And then the women came. According to Leymah, this is what AWDF means to her and other African women. We are there to listen, encourage, support and strengthen women’s initiatives. We might not be able to respond to the avalanche of requests we receive, but we try our best within the limits of the resources we have.

The future of African women and philanthropy is very bright. We now need to encourage women to be at the forefront of philanthropic giving for social justice. We give already, to our families, friends, community associations and religious institutions. Women should now be more deliberate, bold and ambitious in their giving. I would like women to work together through professional associations, corporative, networks of women in leadership and so on, to pool resources for transformative change. It is important to raise money to assist with the building of schools, clinics, retirement homes and a wide array of social inclusion programs. We however need to start looking at some of the root causes of these social disparities especially where it concerns women’s well-being. Women should fund awareness and prevention of all forms of violence, women in political leadership, and changing attitudes and behaviours which underpin a culture of oppression.

Congratulations to AWDF. It has not been easy, the journey has been a long, hard, often lonely one, and it still continues. A big thank you to my successor as CEO, the formidable Theo Sowa. Thank you for running with the baton. As we celebrate 15 years of hard work and dreams, we are encouraged by our success and eager for the next chapter. If you love Africa, and you love African women, put your money where your heart is.

Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi is one of the founders of the African Women’s Development Fund, 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

This Piece was originally posted on her website, Abovewhispers.com.

Reflections from the Bodily Integrity Session: AWID.

By Maame Akua Kyerewaa Marfo

“The body is not soiled— it is not filth to be forgiven. The body is not an apology.”

As Sonya Renee’s poetic words washed over a room of women at the 13th International AWID Forum, I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding. The impact of her declaration was plain on the faces of everyone seated and the energy in the room moved from excitement to a strange, palpable relief. It felt good to hear someone say the things that perhaps we often told others but may have never completely internalised ourselves, to offer the same body positive assurances many feminists are quick to spout, but may not completely believe about themselves. It felt good to be told that we were beautiful as we were. That every aspect of our bodies we struggled with was valuable in itself.

It felt good to feel united in a resistance against the things long embedded in our consciousness. Women spend their whole lives apologising for their existence.Patriarchy gives us classes on how to turn our bodies into things that are desirable, soft, and compliant and does little to equip us with what we need to live within the realities of our own skin. The session on bodily integrity at AWID was both a reminder and a challenge to that notion. It was a reminder of the ways other people’s conversations have shaped the images of our own bodies within our minds and robbed us of ownership. It was a reminder of the little girl within ourselves, who loved her body without judgment, who threw herself fully into life and took her body along for the ride. But mostly it was a reminder of how to get back to her — and how to guide others on that journey of love, acceptance and necessary rebellion.

During the session, the conversation around bodily autonomy ranged from the ways in which female bodies have become places for persistent and oftentimes unwanted conversation to how we resist the many ways that bodies can be understood and accepted. Bodies are spaces for deep meaning, and therefore, are central to how we approach our work. The body has become property and dictator, a laboratory for the experiments of ourselves and others, expanded or constrained by ideologies that exist outside of the physical being. The body has been turned into a stage show, and our ownership of it can often seem theoretical. After all, how is a body “yours” when society rips it apart until there is nothing left for you? Where are the resolutions?

The best way to start an external revolution is by beginning an internal one. Though bodies and people exist as both internal and external beings, the session’s panelists reminded us all that it was important to radically love our bodies and make peace with them, as they are in the moment, instead of trying to make them into what someone else would say they should be. When it comes to bodily autonomy, the beginning of activist work is the realisation that we may not always understand the bodies of others or the choices they make about them. Feminist work requires that we continue to interrogate our movement and ask if we are being inclusive of new ways of understanding and self defining bodies, whether or not they fall within traditional understandings of gender. The feminist movement must be able to understand and advocate for the rights of all people—and as feminists we must find a way to break our own traditional definitions and understandings of womanhood, gender, morality and inclusivity.

With this understanding of ourselves we could then tackle the conversations around bodies, particularly how bodies are policed and, rarely, left to just be. As a plus-sized woman, I am overly aware of my body and how it affects everyone around me. From the time I was very young, I was convinced of the need to shrink myself in order to make others feel more comfortable with my existence. The need to squeeze into jeans several sizes too small and make myself fit into things even if they, clearly, were not made for me. I, like so many other young women, grew up with clear ideals, in regards to beauty, already prescribed for me – how to be presentable, desirable, and acceptable.

Essentially, all of my best efforts would be rendered useless because I was fat. Big. Overweight. I was undeserving of desirability or love because of my size. Unlearning these things is a process that I go through every day. For the women who desire it, there is life outside of the ideals of western beauty standards but it requires peeling back layers of contradictory thoughts about your worth and challenging self-hatred. It is not easy work.

It is difficult to come to the conclusion that your body, as it is, deserves love and that the bodies of others should not be judged. Finding a way to articulate this concept of suspended judgment outside of our individual minds adds to the task — but it is a necessary one. Suspended judgement, is both an idea and a campaign launched by CREA and throughout the forum it was at the forefront of our minds and our interrogation of ideas and concepts.

”CREA imagined Suspend Judgment as a mini-movement within itself engaging feminists to think and act intersectionally and to reflect critically on deeply rooted assumptions that hinder inclusivity.”

The panelists at the session all do important work on articulating these ideals – of suspended judgment, appreciation and acceptance regardless of understanding. It’s clear that we must tackle the ways that society and law understand bodies and find a way to create a legal framework that it is more reflective of the ways that our bodies exist. It’s clear that we need to continue to share ideas and grow as a movement. We cannot and should not have our bodies interrogated by states, communities, religious bodies and other store houses of patriarchal power that attempt to dissect and correct the things that do not fit into their prescribed ideals. We must find a way to foster acceptance of the decisions we make with our bodies and how we present them to the world.

After listening to the voices, opinions and actions of the remarkable people in the Bodily Integrity session, it is clear that the revolution around women’s bodies and the control of their narrative, is gaining new and exciting ground.