Announcing the Ongea Mama Series: A Collaboration between The African Women's Development Fund and Black Women Radicals
Collage of African, Afro-descendant, and Black feminists for the Ongea Mama Series. Art by Doriana Diaz.
The Ongea Mama Series is an online collaborative series between Black Women Radicals and the African Women’s Development Fund.
About The Ongea Mama Series
A collaboration between Black Women Radicals (BWR) and the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF), “Ongea Mama” is an online series dedicated to curating discourses that uplift the unique perspectives, experiences, and activism of African feminists, from continental and diasporic approaches.
Watch the launch event of Ongea Mama on “African Feminist Politics, Leadership, and Participation” interrogated the state of African feminist politics and how African feminists have and continue to shape social movements on the continent and transnationally
The moderator and panelists for the event included Hakima Abaas, Dr. Stella Nyanzi, Nala Simone Toussaint, Maie Panaga, Dr. Wunpini Fatimata Mohammed, and Dr. Amina Mama, with a performance by Wiyaala.
“Ongea Mama” is translated as “Speak Mama” in Swahili. With this, the series is anchored around exploring major questions:
What does it mean for African, Black, and Afro-descendant feminists to be in dialogue with one another?
How can we learn from each other not only politically but personally, culturally, and even spiritually?
How do we address and forge past historical and contemporary differences and tensions that impact our understandings of each other in efforts to create solidarity, sisterhood, and siblinghood across borders and boundaries?
How can this series serve as a political education tool to learn more about feminist strategies, initiatives, and knowledge productions globally?
The “Ongea Mama” series is an extension of a previous event collaboration between the African Women’s Development Fund and Black Women Radicals which focused on “Health Equity and Power: Building Transnational Feminist Solidarity.”
Objectives of the Ongea Mama Series
To provide a dialogue and discourse among and between Africa, Black, and Afro-descendant feminists.
To provide political education about historical and contemporary African feminist leaders and their leadership.
To interrogate the work, activism, and productions of African feminists on the African continent and in the Diaspora.
To create and build solidarity with and among Black women and gender expansive activists from around the world.
About The African Women’s Development Fund: The African Women’s Development Fund is a pan-African, women-led, grant-making agency that resources African women’s organizations to deliver sustainable development initiatives targeting women on the continent.
About Black Women Radicals: Black Women Radicals is a Black feminist advocacy organization dedicated to uplifting and centering Black women and gender expansive people’s radical activism in Africa and in the African Diaspora.