News/Events
Africa Day 2024 – The Time is NOW
Every year, Africa Day is celebrated on the 25th May. Just like every other year, this year’s Africa day was celebrated by Africans, institutions, governments, across the globe with the theme: “Education Fit for the 21st Century: Building resilient education systems for increased access to inclusive, lifelong, quality and relevant learning in Africa”.
Education, in the words of Nelson Mandela, is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world – a powerful quote which Africans can reflect on this year and beyond. African governments specifically need to prioritize education on their national agendas and ensure that the education curricula matches the ever growing and changing world – that Africans can compete on the global stage and also transform the continent with the desired knowledge and experiences.
As a network, we believe in the power of young people who also use their voices for change in one way towards impacting society – part of our mission towards starting this initiative. On Africa Day, we had two young changemakers from Africa in the persons of Grace Akubuike and Benard Semen join our Africa Day session where they shared their knowledge and insights on the theme with our audience. This was also an opportunity for our audience to interact with these changemakers about the work they were doing in their fields and dissect key challenges affecting Africa’s education systems and overall progress.
At the end of the session, our thoughts coincided with the United Nations research which showed that “Africa has the youngest population in the world, with 70% of sub-Saharan Africa under the age of 30. Such a high number of young people is an opportunity for the continent’s growth.” This means, as a continent we have the potential, the opportunity and the means, hence the time to act is NOW!
#AfricaDay #GlobalActivistsNetwork
April Event: How to Influence Feminist Foreign Policy
HOW TO INFLUENCE FEMINIST FOREIGN POLICY
On Saturday 13th April, we hosted our April session on influencing feminist foreign policy with brilliant guest speaker Kirthi Jayakumar.
Kirthi is a feminist researcher and conflict resolutions practitioner with extensive experience in women peace and security issues. It was delightful to hear Kirthi share her views on what feminist foreign policy means and how we can influence feminist foreign policy by looking into our own communities and decolonising our perspectives.
“Whose feminism is it? Is it the feminism of the state that is adopting a feminist foreign policy or is it the feminism of the state or the country where that foreign policy will be felt? Because this part of the conversation often gets sidelined. There is no single feminism. We have a few areas that maybe our feminism can align, maybe we have different interpretations or maybe we have lived experiences that inform the way we see feminism”
Kirthi shared valuable insights to how foreign policy is a concept with inherently, deep-rooted colonial histories. For Kirthi, decolonising foreign policy is a key step to a feminist foreign policy that celebrates intersectionality, justice, and healing.
“The first key thing to remember is, especially if we’re coming from the Global South, we come from long histories where feminist foreign policy in the action is part of our cell memory. And I don’t say this with any sense of exaggeration or inflation or presentism about history. But just think back to how women in your communities resisted colonisers, what kind of efforts they played in the freedom struggles of their country. And think about whether those stories continue to be told in fairness, with due respect for these women and the work they put in. And when you get into those spaces, you already see that there are such rich examples of not only resistance and subversion, but also of daring to exist and continuing practices that were elbowed out because the coloniser thought they weren’t worthy of inclusion. So the key step that we all have to think about taking is to start from where we are. Feminist foreign policy are three words that currently are looked like a buzzword, but it’s part of our lived experience. It’s part of who we are. Its part of this very moment that’s brought us into these spaces together to even talk about a thing like decolonisation in a world that is refusing to look at it
Thank you to Kirthi for a truly informative, inspiring, and enlightening session on influencing feminist foreign policy. Our changemakers network can harness these thoughts into their own communities, striving to challenge colonial perspectives, and celebrating women and inclusivity in so doing.
Our First Twitter Space! Running Effective Campaigns in International Development
RUNNING EFFECTIVE CAMPAIGNS IN INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
On Thursday 4th April, we launched our first live Twitter Space session! Although we experienced a couple of technical glitches (thank you for bearing with us!), the session proved inspiring and enlightening to the ups and downs of international campaigning.
Our guest speaker, Adam Bailey, is the Senior Campaigns Manager for the ONE UK & Ireland, with extensive experience in running effective campaigns in international development. Adam is a seasoned advocate for social change, with experience in refugee rights, child health, sexual health and reproductive rights, as well as the COVID-19 response. His expertise in campaigning shone tantamount to his true passion for social change, advocacy, and helping others.
“The campaign is basically the vehicle that brings together those people that are on their own, they might not feel that they have a lot of power, and who previously necessarily weren’t pulling in the same direction and basically lays train lines for them to come together to be greater than the sum of their parts and harness that collective will and effort as an engine of change for the greater good”