Category: News

This International Women’s Month, the African Women’s Development fund celebrates the power of Narrative, both on the collective and on the individual level. Throughout history African women have been rebellious change-makers, advocating for their independence and finding ways to gain power in societies that oftentimes restricted them from having full autonomy. It’s important for us at AWDF to celebrate the stories of these women and highlight the ways in which African women continue to own their own narratives. We know just how strong storytelling can be. It can transform nations, inspire and teach whilst reminding us of the art that our own lives have the possibility be, if we’re brave enough to take the first hesitant steps towards something different.

As part of our celebration of Narrative, this year we will be collaborating with the Global Arts and Development Centre in a performance of the Vagina Monologues. This is a collection of a varying number of monologues performed by a broad spectrum of women. Each monologue examines aspects of the feminine experience, touching on everything from HIV and FGM to birth and the female orgasm. The play was written by Eve Ensler and premiered in 1996. Since then it has been updated and performed hundreds of times around the world with various adaptation made by different casts.

We’re excited to partner with the Global Arts and Development Centre to bring this years performance to life, and invite people to come, watch and talk about what they see, and who they see represented in the work. This play forces us to think of the nature of womanhood and how we see and experience it in our daily lives. We invite the general public to come and witness with us the power of Narrative in action, on Friday March 23rd 2019, at the Law Faculty Auditorium, University of Ghana, Legon, at 6.00 pm.

#ThePowerOfNarrative

 

 

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is inviting applications from feminist oriented grantmaking systems consultants to undertake an audit of its grant making systems and processes.

For Terms of Reference, Kindly click here

Closing date for receiving applications is Friday 26^th April 2019 2019”

 

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 ☺

 

 

Deliver for Good is an incredible global campaign, initiated by Women Deliver and its partners. It is an evidence-based advocacy campaign that applies a gender lens to the sustainable Development Goals, pushing actors to enhance policy programing and investment in girls and women. As part of this campaign,Theo Sowa, CEO of AWDF, spoke with Deliver for good in a brief interview. She shares her thoughts about who she considers her Sheroes and how the African woman’s narrative and reality can be a game-changer.

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

WD: You have been listed as a leading African feminist helping to inspire the next generation of women leaders across Africa – and truly all around the world. Who are your sheros and how did they inspire you to become such a key voice for gender equality? Given this month’s editorial focus, if you have any education specific examples, please share!

TS: I have so many sheroes! Too many to list. For today though, I’d mention my mother and grandmother, who believed in the power of a good education, made sure that all the children in our family had that opportunity – but also made sure that we understood and appreciated the full potential, diversity and power of women – and the importance of listening, learning from and respecting all people. I’d mention Graca Machel, who pushed me to use my voice rather than staying in my comfort zone of helping other people to use their voices and show the world their own versions and visions of leadership. She taught me the importance of women recognizing and using our power constructively, and not colluding with those who would strip us of our power or tell us that to be visionary, powerful and amazing changemakers is somehow not feminine or not African. I would mention the fantastic women and girls that I met over the years in refugee and displaced persons camps in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda (amongst other places) who had been through such horror, but showed every day that they were not victims but survivors and pushed to change the injustices in our world so that other women and girls did not go through the horrors that they had experienced. I’d mention the girls, adolescents, women and grandmothers who have taught me about resilience and solidarity – and all my sheroes who have taught me that rights and justice without love does not make a feminist revolution.

For the full interview, please click this LINK.

 

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is seeking for an expression of interest from an experienced consultant to undertake end of project evaluation. We are looking for a consultant with demonstrable expertise on monitoring, evaluation and learning (ME&L) with special focus on women’s rights work in Africa. The consultant is expected to carry out an end of project evaluation in one of the projects implemented through support from Comic Relief.

The time frame expected for the execution of this study is 30 days during the second quarter of the year 2019.

Interested applicants are encouraged to send their expression of interest with:

• Copy of CV
• One recent example of similar task accomplished
• Financial proposal – consultancy fees (daily rates and number of days required)

This should be sent to the following address: jobs@africlub.net/awdf and meassistant@africlub.net/awdf

Please find the Terms of Reference (TOR) here TOR – CR W&G end of project evaluation

The deadline for submission of applications is Friday March 22, 2019. Only shortlisted consultants will be contacted.

Applications from women consultants based in Africa are especially welcome.

 

 

 

 

The African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is seeking for an expression of interest from an experienced consultant to undertake end of project evaluation. We are looking for a consultant with demonstrable expertise on monitoring, evaluation and learning (ME&L) with special focus on women’s rights work in Africa. The consultant is expected to carry out an end of project evaluation in one of the projects implemented through support from Comic Relief. The time frame expected for the execution of this study is 20 days during the second quarter of the year
2019.

Interested applicants are encouraged to send their expression of interest with:
 Copy of CV
 One recent example of similar task accomplished
 Financial proposal – consultancy fees (daily rates and number of days required)

This should be sent to the following address:
jobs@africlub.net/awdf and meassistant@africlub.net/awdf

Please find the full Terms of Reference (TOR) here: COMPLETE TOR – Leadership and Governance program.The deadline for submission of applications is Friday March 15, 2019. Only shortlisted consultants will be contacted. Applications from women consultants based in Africa are especially welcome.

 

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We are excited to share the star-studded #Sheroes Album, compiled with love and music from incredible artistes from across Africa. Sheroes represents the strength and diversity of African women, and features artistes who generously contributed to this album in support of our work.

Get your copy of Sheroes and join the campaign now! You will get your very own copy of this inspiring compilation of music as well as contribute to transforming the lives of African women.

Music has amazing transformational power and through revolutions and empires it has provided people with a world-view that often connects them and challenges them.

In recognition of this, AWDF is harnessing the power of music, through the SHEROES Album, to celebrate African women for their resilience and their capacity to transform their lives and their communities. Sheroes also serves to create awareness about the work of AWDF and mobilise additional financial resources to support the rights of African women.

Get to know the women who are a part of this wonderful work by tracking the tag #SongsforHer, #Sheroes, on twitter– where we’ll be posting profiles of the incredible women featured on Sheroes.

To read more about Sheroes, please click HERE

 

To get your copy of the Sheroes album please click HERE

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Nous sommes ravis de partager l’album surnommé #SHEROES. Il contient diverses musiques produites avec amour par des artistes extraordinaires venus de toute l’Afrique. L’album SHEROES représente la force et la diversité des femmes africaines. Les artistes présentées ont généreusement fait don de leurs chansons pour soutenir notre travail. Il représente la force et la diversité des femmes africaines et met en vedette des artistes qui ont généreusement contribué à cet album pour soutenir notre travail.

Commandez votre copie dès maintenant et faites partie de notre campagne!!! Vous obtiendrez votre propre copie de cette compilation de musique et contribuerez à transformer la vie des femmes africaines.

La musique a ce pouvoir de changer et de transformer pleines de choses de façon incroyable. De part le passé et à travers les révolutions et les empires, elle a aidé les gens à avoir une vision du monde qui souvent les relie et les met au défi.

Pour cette raison, AWDF, à travers l’album SHEROES nous rappelle non seulement de la puissance de la musique, mais rend aussi hommage aux femmes africaines pour leurs résistances et leurs capacités à transformer leurs vies et leurs communautés. SHEROES sert également à sensibiliser le public sur le travail de l’AWDF et à mobiliser des ressources financières pour défendre les droits des femmes africaines.

Nous publierons les profils des femmes artistes incroyables de notre album SHEROES. Pour les connaitre donc, suivez le hastag #SongsforHer et #Sheroes sur twitter.

Cliquez ICI pour en savoir plus sur SHEROES,

Cliquez ICI maintenant pour obtenir une copie de l’album SHEROES dès maintenant

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AWDF grantee partner, Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) blazed the trail when they won the “Outstanding CSO of the Year” award at the 2018 Sierra Leone NGO awards held in Freetown on December 13, 2018.

CGG is one of our grantees to benefit from the AWDF two-year coaching programme on leadership and governance targeted at CEOs, Executive Directors and second level management. AWDF believes that strong leaders and organisations provide the backbone for social change and development and therefore places a high premium on investing in both individual leaders and governance frameworks of African women’s rights organisations. Out of the Leadership and Governance Programme, CGG has been able to contribute immensely to the promotion of human rights, women’s political empowerment and good governance in Sierra Leone.

From mobilising women as active voters, training female candidates and first time voters, to recruiting a new executive director, CGG has taken the lead to reposition the Women’s Form and the All Political Party Women’s Association (APPWA) as effective social movements to champion women’s issues in the country.

Receiving the award, Executive Director Marcella Samba-Sesay acknowledged the work of the CGG team and thanked the organisers for recognising the work and contributions of the organisation in Sierra Leone. “This (award) is a stepping stone and motivation to do more and CGG will always work with the values for which it was established,” she added.

The Sierra Leone Business, CEO, Leadership and NGO Awards recognise leaders pioneering the reforms, rapid modernisation, consolidation, integration and expansion of Sierra Leonean enterprises, public institutions and promoting socio-economic growth across the country and beyond. This is the third annual ceremony presented at a gala dinner in the capital which is organised by a consortium of national and international organisations.

By Nana Akosua Hanson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Article By Nana Akosua Hanson

Earlier this year, a video went viral on Ghanaian Twitter of six teen boys raping a young girl. Despite her resistance, these boys held her down and took turns. What haunted me most was their laughter.

Being a feminist activist means confronting this kind of raw ugliness on a daily basis. And it takes a toll. It is physically, mentally, and spiritually exhausting. Without healing, the accumulated trauma can push people out of our movement.

But there are also the magic times, when the unity of our voices and the force of our movement can be uplifting. Like that glorious moment on the 30th of June 2018, when thousands of Ugandans marched together to demand justice for the murders of more than 40 women, a trend in the country since 2015. Amidst drumming, dancing, and waving slogans, their united voices were heard all over the world: No more rape, No more killings, Women’s Lives Matter.

History shows us that feminist activism creates social, political, and economic change that benefits people of all genders. For this reason, it is crucial that activists have the healing we need to keep going.

Right now, African feminist activists are working toward a world where all people can live free from violence, including sexual violence. Where all people have what they need to take care of themselves and their families with dignity. Where all people can be their full selves and determine their own destinies. Who wouldn’t want that?

Empowering African women and promoting the realisation of their rights are critical milestones on the path to this better, more just world. And that’s what the African Women’s Development Fund does, by supporting courageous and dedicated women’s organisations across the continent.

In Liberia, African Women’s Development Fund grantee Zorzor District Women Care (Zodwoca) promotes women’s land and property rights in a region where women’s labour but not ownership of land is encouraged. In Benin, the Association des Femmes dans l’Education (FAWE Benin) is popularising the law on sexual harassment in response to the high incidence of sexual harassment of young girls in schools. And in South Africa, the Social, Health and Empowerment Feminist Collective of Transgender Women of Africa (SHE) is serving as a bridge for the better integration of trans women in the wider women’s movement, and equipping them with advocacy skills. And these are just a few of the thousands of African women’s organizations AWDF has supported since its inception, that are working in many ways to make the continent of Africa a better place for its women, and minorities.

But whether the work requires combing through rape reports, providing emotional support to a widow whose in-laws have just thrown her out of her house, or standing with a female political candidate who is being viciously trolled on social media, trauma builds up.

In Akan ontology, a person is more than their physical body—they are made up of at least three more aspects, the others quasi-physical or completely non-physical. This idea informs the general African approach to health: fully healing requires healing of the body, the mind, and the soul. To treat body aches, for example, a traditional priestess will provide both a physical cure for the body’s ailments, as well as a ritual for mental and spiritual healing.

We want to bring such healing to African feminist activists.

That’s why the African Women’s Development Fund — with the NoVo Foundation’s Radical Hope Fund and in partnership with AIR — is launching the Flourish Project, a three-year initiative that will strengthen feminist organising across Africa through these key interventions:

• Grounding through a pilot model of a retreat for African feminist activists facing burnout and stress, and in need of a reflective and healing space—designed and implemented in collaboration with AIR, a network of African practitioners developing transformative feminist approaches to trauma, emotional wellbeing, and mental health;
• Seeding inspiration for the growth of African feminist movements through intergenerational dialogues and documenting a generation of liberation-era feminist trailblazers; and
• Connecting feminist activists to convene and grow their organising at national and community levels linked to the African Feminist Forum.

The Flourish Project aims to refresh and tend to the vibrant movement of African feminists who have and will continue to shape the future of Africa. It is an investment in the deep movement work that needs support alongside frontline advocacy: the work of documenting and sharing our activist legacies, of finding durable ways to sustain activists working in hostile terrain, and of keeping movement strategy and base-building spaces alive.

Social movements drive social change. And sustainable movements depend on resilient activists. Those activists need space and time to heal—we will not see our feminist dream brought to reality without it.

The African Women’s Development Fund wants funders, activists, and others in the movement to recognize that healing is just as radical and necessary as marching, protesting, or organising.

As the Black American feminist writer Audre Lorde said, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”

For the original article click HERE