KAMPALA, Uganda —In the words of Yvonne Vera, ‘A woman writer must have an imagination that is plain stubborn, that can invent new gods and banish ineffectual ones’. Professor Sylvia Tamale, a Ugandan feminist scholar and educator, spoke at the 2022 African Feminist Forum on decolonising knowledge and implored feminists to engage vigorously with feminist writings and works and to write and document with equal verve to keep us flooding the past and our future with light. In support of this point, Dr. Awino Okech has continuously emphasised the importance of building and visibilising African feminist knowledge systems by citing African scholars.
Akina Mama wa Afrika, with support from the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) and the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung East Africa Office, under the auspices of the African Feminist Thought Leadership (AFTL) Series, sought to radicalise, disrupt and contribute to intellectual activism through the LEADERS’ Journal, a platform for feminists to provide thought leadership and to create homegrown repositories of knowledge on gender issues using feminist tools of analysis.
In 2021, 47 young African feminists undertook the indispensable work of feminist political education and influencing discourse by infusing a feminist political analysis into their writing. They were from over 14 African countries; Botswana, Uganda, Kenya, Cameroon, Malawi, Nigeria, Ghana, Burundi, Zambia, Namibia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and the Gambia. Their writings birthed “The Leaders’ Journal Issue 2: Re-imagining Feminist Alternatives to Organising in Africa” and Issue 3: A Decolonial Economic Anthology amidst Post-COVID-19 Economic Renewal in Africa.
‘At AMwA, we envision a dignified and equitable feminist society for African women, girls, and gender-expansive persons. In our efforts to extend the frontiers of Afro Feminism, it is crucial that “we claim the right to theorise for ourselves, write for ourselves, strategise for ourselves and speak for ourselves as African feminists. Thus, the Journals are an intervention that has further enhanced the writing skills of young feminists and contributed to forging solidarities to strengthen intellectual activism in Africa’. – Eunice Musiime, Executive Director, AMwA.
Digital technology has opened new spaces for activism and advocacy. Technology is also bridging and creating new and efficient ways of working and collaborating. It is why diverse writers from over 14 countries were able to produce a body of work through a peer review process that encapsulates the core aspects of feminist writing; Scholarship, Activism and Building Legitimacy for African Feminist Thinking.
With these Journals, AMwA seeks to:
- Increase feminist consciousness
- Popularise discourse around the issues raised in the Journal that are central to the feminist movement
- Build solidarity for an African feminist movement.
Download the LEADERS’Journal Issue 2
Download the LEADERS’Journal Issue 3
Contact: Oluwatobiloba Ayodele, Communications Coordinator
Email: ayodele@akinamamawaafrika.org/[email protected]
About Akina Mama wa Afrika
Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) is a feminist Pan-African development organisation founded in 1985. AMwA’s interventions target global, regional, and national development processes with focalised programmes in Africa currently being implemented in Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Tunisia, Ethiopia, and Sudan. AMWA’s work is rooted in feminist principles and beliefs guided by the Charter of Feminist Principles for African Feminists, which defines our leadership development program and movement-building work. In addition, we are proud members of the Solidarity for African Women’s Rights (SoAWR), NGO CSW Africa, and the Gender Is My Agenda Campaign, and, more recently, Tax Justice Network Africa.
