The Kuchu Beehive: How Activists are Using Coalitions to Promote LGBTI rights in Uganda

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Aug 022010

[Photo credit: painting by Brian Kezaala Nkoyooyo]

The following Guest Post by Mark Canavera addresses one of the controversial issues that is concerning many people in Africa at the moment. It was previously published on the Huffington Post. You can follow Mark on Twitter @canavera.

You may also be interested in J Kainja’s article Gay Issues in Malawi and Uganda on this site.

The Kuchu Beehive: How Activists are Using Coalitions to Promote LGBTI rights in Uganda

by Mark Canavera

The kuchu movement is abuzz in Uganda.  Kuchu is a (plural: kuchus) word, apparently of Swahili origin, that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) Ugandans have minted to describe their identities.   “We do not use the word ‘queer,’” explains Frank Mugisha, chairman of Sexual Minorities Uganda, an umbrella entity that brings together LGBTI organizations for advocacy purposes.  “We’ve got our own word that encompasses the whole idea: kuchu.”

Despite a penal code that criminalizes homosexual acts with penalties of upwards of 10 years of imprisonment, Uganda has witnessed an astounding flowering of kuchu organizations in recent years.  Each cluster is structured differently: some exist primarily as online discussion fora while others run legal aid clinics or provide health services to sexual minorities.  Some meet in bars and members’ living rooms while others maintain offices with laptop computers and Wi-Fi internet connections.  Taken together, they represent a richly diverse community and a potent symbol of how far Uganda’s LGBTI movement has come in a short time period.  “We are out talking,” says Kasha Jacqueline, the executive director of Freedom and Roam Uganda (FARUG), an association dedicated to empowering lesbian women. Some activists note that one reason that kuchus are able to speak out is that Ugandan law allows only for the arrest of homosexual acts, not for LGBTI identities. “We want to talk about these things.  It’s our resilience that is making all of this happen.”

Uganda’s embryonic LGBTI movement could hardly have been prepared, however, for the onslaught of activity that would result from the introduction of an Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Ugandan Parliament last year.  “The last six months have been chaotic,” writes Val Kalende, the manager of programs and communications for FARUG, in an e-mail, further explaining that most organizations were forced to slow down their other day-to-day activities to focus on fighting the bill.  The proposed bill calls for the death penalty for cases of the newly concocted crime of “aggravated homosexuality,” criminalizes advocacy on behalf of gay people, and would require third parties (including family members) to report known homosexuals within twenty-hour hours.

The bill has garnered significant media attention in the West both for its connections to the American religious right (the subject of at least two documentaries) and the threat of donor governments to withdraw their aid to Uganda if the bill were to pass.  Most American evangelical churches have distanced themselves from a bill that the Swedish government called “appalling” and President Obama deemed “odious,” but others like Canyon Ridge Christian Church in Nevada remain steadfast supporters of those who promote the bill.

Whatever else it did, the bill provided the nebulous LGBTI movement in Uganda with a common enemy, and the myriad organizations that were just beginning to take shape recognized the need to come together to kill the bill.  “When the bill was introduced, there was a need to reach out to other human rights groups, not to take a back seat” says Mugisha.  Kalende explains that, “Everyone got on the telephone and called the head of an organization they knew asking them to join the coalition and sign our first press statement condemning the bill.  In just a week, we had registered 21 organizations, including those we thought would never support LGBT rights.”  Thus was born the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, or simply, “the Coalition.”    In addition to fighting the bill, the Coalition aims to strengthen the capacity of LGBTI organizations throughout the country.

Today, the Coalition boasts 32 confirmed members, says Coalition coordinator Adrian Jjuuko.  Member organizations of the Coalition run the gamut, including HIV/AIDS-focused organizations, labor associations, women’s rights non-profits, and refugee and prisoner rights groups.  Some women’s rights groups turned a cold shoulder to the invitation to join the Coalition, but Kasha stresses the importance of continuing to extend a welcoming hand.  “We should continue building links even if we are not very welcome there,” says Jacqueline.  “We are women, and we should not only talk about issues that concern only lesbians but also other women.  They need to know that we feel the pain.”  Mugisha notes that two years ago, no other civil society organizations were willing to join hands with the LGBTI movement, so he sees the creation of this Coalition as a major achievement in and of itself.

Swarming together as a Coalition has clear advantages, say activists.  “Working with these networks has given us a lot more power as a movement,” says Mugisha.  “We speak out as one, but we are able to advocate in a number of ways.  We can pursue quiet advocacy to with a number of different policymakers and organizations through a variety of channels.”  Jjuuko explains that the Coalition has also helped to broaden the base of support for the LGBTI movement.  He explains, “Since other organizations have joined forces with this movement, others do not say, ‘Oh it is just the LGBTI organizations making noise again.’”  Jacqueline adds that working in a coalition gives the movement “a bigger space for our struggle.”

But of course, this network-based approach contains inherent challenges.  “As in many young coalitions elsewhere,” says one respondent, “the struggle for power is still at hand.  Everyone wants to be at the top, and we forget Rome was not built in one day.”  Beyond what seem to be relatively minor leadership tussles, however, larger challenges loom.  The security situation for kuchu people – who by their own accounts are regularly subjected to blackmail by police officers, public harassment and assault, and imprisonment – represents a daunting context in which to seek to expand membership.  Some organizations of the Coalition have already been visited by “infiltrators” from the anti-LGBTI movement.  “It’s hard for us,” says Jacqueline.  “You can’t really do a triage.  We have had security training for our members, but otherwise, it is a risk that we have to accept to live with.”  Finally, the large-scale visibility that the Coalition has been able to mobilize around the bill has brought with it increased visibility for the services available for the LGBTI community, which are too meager to cope with the demand.  “Positive and negative media campaigns have wooed many LGBTI members who were in the closet to come and seek our services,” says Moses Mulindwa, public relations officer for Spectrum Uganda Initiatives, a health and HIV/AIDS-focused service organization, “[but] we have limited capacity to handle [these new cases].”

There is little indication what will happen next.  A cabinet committee tasked with reviewing the proposed bill recently recommended that the law be scrapped, suggesting that most of the law’s provisions were already adequately covered by the country’s draconian penal code.  Whether or not the bill will rear its head again, Uganda’s legal and public opinion environment will still prove extremely challenging to the kuchu community there, and retaining cohesion will surely be a challenge, says Jjuuko.  Be that as it may, Uganda’s kuchus have proven that they can coalesce with astonishing speed and power to protect their collective wellbeing and advance their goals.  “If we put the movement first before ourselves,” writes Kalende, “we will achieve much more.”

This article is the second in a series profiling organizations and individuals in sub-Saharan Africa promoting the rights of sexual minorities. The first article in the series profiled the work of a pioneering agency in Malawi, and the next article will cover a West African setting.

Links to Websites of Key Organizations working to Promote LGBTI/Kuchu Rights in Uganda

Posted by SL at 10:21 pm AFRICA, Life Africa, Politics Africa, Uganda Tagged with: , , , ,

African Market Women: Seven Life Stories from Ghana, Book Review

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Jul 282010

Woman Trader In Accra's Makola Market, Ghana

[Photo credit: transaid images]

I came across a book review today of a book that looks really interesting. Gracia Clark writes African Market Women from many years experience living in Ghana. African Market Women: Seven Life Stories from Ghana is a sequel to her first book Onions Are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women. However, unlike the earlier work it is presented in the market women’s own words.

Buy a copy

African Market Women: Seven Life Stories from Ghana
Onions Are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women

For anyone who has spent time in West Africa these two books will be of great interest.

Gracia Clark.  African Market Women: Seven Life Stories from Ghana. Bloomington  Indiana University Press, 2010.  265 pp.  $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-253-35417-4; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-253-22154-4.

Reviewed by Sara Berry (Johns Hopkins University)
Published on H-Africa (July, 2010)
Commissioned by Brett L. Shadle

Little by Little: Life Histories of African Market Women

Gracia Clark is an anthropologist whose ethnographic research and writings center on the lives of women traders in Kumasi, Ghana’s second largest city and capital of the historic Asante Region. Since she first began working in Kumasi in the late 1970s, Clark has carried out several extended periods of ethnographic research in and around Kumasi’s vast Central Market, observing women’s activities, sharing their surroundings, and following them on trading journeys to the countryside around Kumasi, and to markets, towns, and cities in other regions of Ghana. In journal articles and, now, two monographs, Clark has produced richly detailed accounts of the women’s business practices, their daily lives, and the economy, society, and political world in which they live and work. In addition to intensive ethnographic observation and analysis, she brings a historical perspective to her work–tracing continuities and changes over time in economic conditions, government policies, and city life in Kumasi, and discussing their significance for market women’s lives.

Clark’s first book, Onions Are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women (1994), is a meticulously detailed description and analysis of women’s business practices, market conditions, traders’ social and familial relationships, and the place of Kumasi Central Market in the regional economy of central and southern Ghana in the early 1980s, when Clark did her fieldwork. Dominating wholesale trade in staple foodstuffs in Central Market and the surrounding region, Kumasi’s women traders built their own system of market governance–organized in associations of women who trade in a particular commodity, elect their own “market queen,” and meet as needed to exchange commercial information, resolve disputes, and debate strategies for coping with official interventions or with crises, such as a collapse in prices, a fire, or a change in government policy. Approaching fieldwork as a learning experience, Clark positioned herself as a student, her informants and research assistants as teachers. Realizing during the early stages of her fieldwork that traders often responded to her as they would to a small child, she incorporated her social position into her research methods. As time passed, “I began to be entrusted with tasks appropriate to a five-year-old–watching the stall for theft or playing with the baby. Then I was promoted to eight- or nine-year-old status, capable of making ordinary retail sales and purchases and carrying complex messages.”[1] Based on this extended process of learning and social maturation, Clark developed a deep, experiential understanding of Asante society and the market economy that lies at the center of the women traders’ lives. African Market Women builds on this understanding.

Soon after Onions Are My Husband was published, Clark returned to Kumasi for further research on market women’s life histories. Reconnecting with some of the women she had known through her earlier research and getting acquainted with others, she asked for volunteers who would be willing to narrate the stories of their lives and have her record them. Seeking uninterrupted reflections from each of her informants, she altered her research methods from the earlier study. Instead of conversing with and observing women in the marketplace and on trading journeys, she invited volunteers to visit her lodgings, one at a time, thereby removing them from the noise and distractions of the market, and recorded their narratives as they told them, interrupting as infrequently as possible, and only to ask the speaker to clarify or expand on a point. The result is African Market Women, a collection of autobiographical narratives told by the women in Twi, transcribed and translated by Clark and two Ghanaian assistants, and reproduced in the book with short chapter introductions and minimal editing by Clark, plus an introduction and a conclusion. In the introduction, Clark provides a brief overview of the history of Kumasi Central Market and the position and importance of women traders there, and describes in detail the methods she used in eliciting, recording, and producing the women’s narratives. In the conclusion, she reflects on the collected stories, pointing out some of their common themes, but concluding that what is most valuable about them are their idiosyncracies. “Privileging their individuality focuses … on the interpretive insights for which in-depth interviewing has the most advantages…. Rooted in multiple contradictory connections … they … illuminate … social cleavages, [but] they do so by also partly bridging them” (p. 218).

The narratives themselves share a central focus on the women’s work as traders–detailing business strategies and practices, describing market conditions at different points in time, and recalling contingent events that opened new business opportunities or destroyed a trader’s capital. Most women interspersed their accounts with reflections on their families and, less frequently, other topics, such as biblical allusions, government policies, or the puberty ceremonies that their families had held for them in their youth. For the most part, the narratives are not arranged in chronological order or by theme, but move from one topic to another, sometimes within a single paragraph, often returning repeatedly to a particular theme, connecting it to various topics, circling back to offer explanations, or make judgmental comments on particular actions or associates described at an earlier point in the story. After commenting on skills required to trade in a particular commodity, a woman might go on to discuss her own business successes or misfortunes, describe her relations with a “mother” or “sister” who had helped her with her trade, detail her experiences with a former husband, or reflect on the way prices or standards of living had changed since she was young.

As Clark emphasizes in her conclusion, the narratives do not provide systematic accounts of changing market conditions, trading practices, or stages in a woman’s life course, but do help to illuminate the kinds of connections market women make between one theme and others, and the ways in which they explain the causes, or weigh the morality, of seemingly disparate activities and behaviors. Unfailingly realistic, they do not waste energy hoping for miracles. “Slow but steady progress, kakrakakra (literally, little by little),” as one elderly trader put it, is the key to business and personal success (p. 229). It is also a useful guideline for reading this book. Because Clark has chosen to give us the women’s narratives largely in their own words, African Market Women does not immediately engage the reader in a compelling plot or hold her attention by using its ethnographic evidence to unravel an analytical puzzle. Rather, its strengths lie in the understated manner with which it brings the reader into Clark’s conversations with her informants and the texture of their take on the circumstances and events of their lives. The book may be read as both a scholarly study and a collection of primary sources: accessible to a general reader, and likely to be of  particular interest to students and scholars seeking knowledge about Ghana, women’s studies, and/or African social history and economic life.

For readers who are already familiar with Clark’s first book, African Market Women will be a welcome and rewarding companion volume.

Note

[1]. Gracia Clark, Onions Are My Husband: Survival and Accumulation by West African Market Women (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 22.

Citation: Sara Berry. Review of Clark, Gracia, African Market Women: Seven Life Stories from Ghana. H-Africa, H-Net Reviews. July, 2010.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=30817

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States
License.

Posted by SL at 7:15 pm AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, Anthropology Africa, CULTURE AFRICA, Ghana, Life Africa Tagged with: , , ,

Africa Paper: Defending children's rights, Rwanda

1 Response »
Jul 032010

Rwanda UNESCO

[Photo credit: bonyphoto]

This paper, Defending children’s rights: the legislative priorities of Rwandan women parliamentarians, Powley,E. produced by: Hunt Alternatives Fund (2008), is an interesting one. The gender difference in the way men and women view legislation is seldom explored. Worth a read.

This report argues that the inclusion of women in national legislatures has positive policy outcomes for children. The report states that global analyses and the Rwanda case in particular, has shown that legislators are more likely than their male colleagues to prioritise children’s rights and family health and welfare.

Women parliamentarians have been vital in promoting children’s interests in Rwanda. Their leadership is demonstrated by three pieces of legislation:
a. In 1999, they took the lead in advocating for legislation that established women and girls’ rights to inheritance and succession.
b. In 2001, they helped pass the “Law Relating to the Rights and Protection of the Child against Violence.”
c. In 2006, they drafted and introduced a genderbased violence bill that places special emphasis on crimes against children.

Download pdf of Defending children’s rights

Suggested Books (US)

Suggested Books (UK)

Posted by SL at 4:01 pm AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, Life Africa, Papers & Reports Africa, Politics Africa, Rwanda Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

African Street Children - you can make a difference

2 Responses »
Jun 292010
Streetchildren at Daara market, Senegal

[Photo credit: nebedaay under a Creative Commons license]

An article on IRIN NEWS about street children in Gambia set me thinking. In many African countries tribes of street children work the streets, selling, begging and washing car windows (whether you want them to or not!). Often, as in the Gambian story, the authorities crack down on this and round the kids up.

Anyone travelling in West Africa will be familiar with the phenomenon of groups of children begging. These children are sometimes dressed in unbleached cloth and wearing a kind of bonnet, in local dress or in ragged western clothes. They all carry a large tomato tin, often tied with string round their necks. This is organised begging and is different to the homeless groups of street children. These children ‘belong’ to a local marabout or Islamic religious teacher. They are known as ‘almodous’ in Gambia and ‘talibés’ in Senegal. They beg for food for themselves and money for the marabout. They are often beaten if they don’t come back with enough money. Parents sending their boys to the marabout think that they are giving them a Koranic education, but, as the article says:

in some cases they inadvertently feed a thriving network of child traffickers and smugglers, says child rights protection NGO Samu Social.

I remember sitting at a street-side breakfast bar in Ségou, Mali where we were eating before starting our research work in a local school. We were eating bread spread with mayonnaise and drinking milky coffee when we were approached by four little boys dressed in the typical talibé uniform and carrying tomato tins. The boys just stood and watched us. I broke off the end part of my ‘sandwich’ and passed it to the eldest boy. He carefully broke it into four equal pieces and solemnly gave each boy their piece. The way the children ate that bread showed how hungry they were. I did the same with my coffee and passed the eldest boy my mug. He gave it to the youngest boy first and each took a good sip before he solemnly passed the mug back to me. Each morning when we ate breakfast before going to the local school we went through the same pantomime. On our final morning we told the boys that we were going back to Bamako that day. They lined up and solemnly shook our hands. In its way it was a humbling experience.

Talibé child, Thiès, Senegal

[Photo credit: jooseph under a Creative Commons license]

ACTION!

So, what can be done to help these kids? Well, a coordinated effort has been made by a consortium of agencies called STREET CHILD AFRICA. At the moment they work in: Mozambique, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal.

Street Child Africa mobilises kids in the UK to help kids in Africa. You can help too, by supporting the work they do.  As they say – a little goes a long way!

Please explore their site and consider donating to help their work. Thank you.

Some related articles

GUINEA-BISSAU: The long road home for talibés

SUDAN: Vulnerable girls risk sexual exploitation on Juba’s streets

KENYA: Collins Ochieng, “I know the importance of going back to school”

Suggested Books (US)

Suggested Books (UK)

Posted by SL at 12:00 pm AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, GOOD CAUSES AFRICA, Gambia, Life Africa, Mali, Senegal Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Africa Culture : Shopping in Mali

5 Responses »
Apr 162010

Shopping in Mali is fun – most of the time. In the markets are many little shops. They are usually grouped together in sections, so you’ll find all the material sellers together, and all the household goods together. Not always, but mostly.

My favourite market was Medina Coura which is a huge sprawling market on the northern outskirts of Bamako. The backdrop of hills behind and the multitude of winding paths through the market make this an unforgettable experience. Few tourists go there, and if you go wearing local dress you will be welcomed with open arms. I think it is one of the friendliest markets I have ever been in. Don’t be surprised to get lost though ….

Here is a fabric shop in Timbuktu. It is quite typical of fabric shops you’ll find all over Mali. A wonderful collection of materials. This one seems to have mostly men’s material, although some of the patterned material on the right of the photo is unisex. The darker colour material in the foreground is for business suits and trousers.

Fabric shop in Timbuktu Mali

[Photo credit: Jonah Horowitza (Creative Commons license)]

This shop shows a typical sight which can be seen all over Mali.  Household items, mostly imported from China, arranged beautifully. Some of the recycled materials are made in Mali or neighbouring countries. This shop is in Timbuktu

Timbuktu shop Mali

[Photo credit: marshall.mayer (Creative Commons license)]

In Sevare there is a tourist shop called  Farafina Tigne  (http://www.farafina-tigne.com/) you will find all sorts of things on sale here, all made by local artisans, but of particular interest are the beads. There is one big section in the shop which is all lengths of beads strung on string. Other items include Bogolan cloth (mudcloth), carvings, bags and some clothes. If you go up the stairs in the shop you’ll find the Bead Museum. It is quite fascinating.

Farafina Tigne shop in Sevare Mali

[Photo credit: cdntraveller (used with permission)]

As you drive around Bamako you’ll see lots of things by the side of the road for sale. Artisans tend to group together, so for example in one section of road you’ll find beds for sale.

Beds for sale in Bamako Mali

[Photo credit: 10b travelling (Creative Commons license)]

In the centre of Bamako there is an Artisanat which sells goods from all over Mali. It’s really for tourists but you can buy all sorts of nice stuff, leather, jewellery etc without much hassle and at good prices. There is an extensive jewellery section with gold and silver jewellery being made and sold. The price is by weight.

Artisanat in Bamako Mali

[Photo credit: rustinpc (Creative Commons license)]

Suggested Books (US)

Other books about Mali

Suggested Books (UK)

Other books about Mali

Posted by SL at 11:43 am AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, Arts and Crafts Africa, Life Africa, Mali Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

Border Jumpers : A Few Words About Ethiopia

2 Responses »
Mar 262010

Guest Post By Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack, BorderJumpers.org

We started this trip in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a place most Americans associate with war and hunger due to the famines of the mid 1980s and 1990s. Even today, more than 6 million people in Ethiopia are at risk for starvation so we had mentally prepared ourselves to see very desperate people.

Instead, we found farmers and NGO workers full of hope for the future of agriculture in their country. That’s been our greatest surprise about the continent in general — how vibrant, entrepreneurial, friendly, positive, and alive people are here.

Ethiopia: Kids Playing With Water Well in Askum

[Photo credit: Nourishing The Planet (with permission)]

We met Kes Malede Abreha, described by our guides/interpreters as a “farmer-priest,” on his farm near Aksum in the Central Zone of Tigray region. One of the leading “farmer-innovators” in his community, eight years ago he started digging for water on his very dry farm and, though his neighbors thought he was crazy, about 16 meters down, Kes Malede hit water. He then went on to sketch ways that would make it easier to “push” that water to the surface. He developed a series of pumps, improving on each one.

As part of a group of farmers who can apply for and receive funding for their innovations from the global, NGO-initiated organization, Prolinnova, Kes Malede is teaching other farmers in the community by example, showing them how small investments in technology can make a big difference on the farm.

In Ethiopia we also had the opportunity to see on the ground something we’ve been reading about for a few years now: China’s investment in foreign infrastructure. In Aksum alone, the Chinese have built more than 150 kilometers of roads and provided cell phones for farmers — allowing them, for the first time ever, to check prices before they go to market and to call ahead for supplies and materials.

But this investment isn’t entirely altruistic. China, a nation of more than 1. 3 billion people and counting is concerned about its ability to feed its own population today and into the future, and buying up Ethiopian-grown cabbage, carrots, onions, and other crops to ship back home.

We ended the trip in Addis Ababa, which is one of our favorite cities in Africa. Alongside the bumper to bumper traffic, people herd flocks of sheep and vendors walk between cars hawking everything from Mentos to vacuum cleaners.


Ethiopia — Border Jumpers [www.borderjumpers.org]

Danielle Nierenberg and Bernard Pollack founded BorderJumpers.org when they began a journey to visit countries across Africa in October 2009. Their goal is share stories of hope and success as they meet with farmers, community organizers, labor activists/leaders, non-governmental organization (NGOs), the funding and donor communities, and local, regional, and international press at every stop along the way.

Suggested Books (US)

Suggested Books (UK)

Posted by SL at 7:39 pm AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, Agriculture Africa, Ethiopia, Life Africa Tagged with: , , , ,

Sudan journalists trained to make a difference in election reporting

1 Response »
Mar 242010

I don’t know if you have heard about  Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa which is a not-for-profit network with over 40 reporters in 30 African countries. They do a great job with grassroots reporting to more than 70 local newspapers and about 100 radio stations in Africa. One of their significant roles is that of building the capacity of African journalists by providing training through thematic workshops and training programmes. The following press release shows how that training is utilised by one group of African journalists in Sudan.

Journalist Hou Akot from Nhomlaau FM in Malualkon, Sudan interviews the Dinka mothers who visit the Action Contre Faim Nutrition Centre to receive food rations and a basic medical check-up for their young children. (Eleanor Dobing/Internews)

[Photo credit: Internews Network]

Sudanese Journalists prepare for Historic Elections

Sudanese journalists attending “Reporting Elections” training with IPA Africa have been urged to use their responsibility as journalists to tell the stories of ordinary people.

IPS Africa, with support from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, hosted a training workshop for South Sudanese print, radio and television journalists in Nairobi (Kenya) during 15-17 March 2010, to critically examine the role and responsibility of the media during elections reporting.

African Media Initiative (AMI) Executive Director, Mr Amadou Mahtar Ba, one of the guest speakers at the workshop, reminded Sudanese journalists about being responsible in their election reporting to the Sudanese public.

Close to 16 million Sudanese will head to the polls on April 11th for the first time in more than 20 years.

Mr Ba acknowledged that Sudanese journalists suffered tremendously during the lengthy civil war waged between the North and South, and reiterated that they have a very important role to play in the country’s future.

“I know you have your own feelings and histories and you will face dilemmas in your reporting of the election but you have a responsibility to report accurately to the people.”

Addressing the Pan African Media conference during the media and conflict debate, Mr Ba re-told the story of the Sudanese journalists and the dilemmas they face in reporting the forthcoming election.

During the final session of the workshop, which ended with a certificate ceremony, the head of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Dr Mo Ibrahim, told journalists they have a responsibility to report with honesty and tell the stories of ordinary people.

Dr Ibrahim said they should execute their job with honour and take charge of communicating issues. “Don’t just be sensational in reporting on issues,” he added.

Veteran African leader and the former African Union envoy for Darfur, Dr Salim Ahmed Salim said the media plays a very important role in reporting on the forthcoming election but also the referendum due in 2011: “You are in an honourable profession and people’s lives depend on your reportage.”

Both leaders wished the journalists well in their reporting of the April 11th election. Participants also attended the Pan African Media conference on 18 and 19 March, where African presidents including Kenyan President HE Mwai Kibaki and other leaders spoke during the opening session.

For more information and interviews contact:

  • Abdullah Vawda, IPS Africa, Tel: +27 (0)11 325 2671, Email: avawda@ips.org.
  • Rebecca Davies, Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Tel: +44 (0)7969 239 286, Email: Davies.R@moibrahimfoundation.org.

[Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa (http://www.ipsnews.net/africa) is a leading and credible source of information about Africa, with a network of more than 100 writers reporting from almost 50 countries. Focusing on Africa's untold stories, IPS strives to produce regular features focusing on development issues such as poverty, women's empowerment, governance, access to water, research and trade. IPS Africa's journalistic output is primarily available in English and French, with translations in Swahili and Portuguese. The organisation is part of the IPS international News Agency (http://www.ips.org) registered in Rome, Italy.]

[The Mo Ibrahim Foundation (http://www.moibrahimfoundation.org) is committed to supporting great African leadership that will improve the economic and social prospects of the people of Africa. The Foundation has been established to: Stimulate debate on governance across sub-Saharan African and the world; Provide criteria by which citizens can hold their governments to account; Recognise achievement in African leadership, and provide a practical way by which African leaders can build positive legacies after office, and Support aspiring leaders for the continent.]

Suggested Books (US)

The Responsibility to Protect in Darfur: The Role of Mass Media
A History of Modern Sudan
Sudan, 2nd (Bradt Travel Guide) (2010)
Sudan Map by ITMB

Suggested Books (UK)

The Responsibility to Protect in Darfur: The Role of Mass Media
A History of Modern Sudan
Sudan (Bradt Travel Guide)
Map of Sudan (2009)

Posted by SL at 3:54 pm AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, Life Africa, Politics Africa, Sudan, Workshops Seminars Courses Training Africa Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,

Africa in Pictures : Shopping at the butchers

1 Response »
Mar 232010

I remember the day when I first saw meat being sold in shops like the ones below. It was in a market in Yaounde, Cameroon on a very hot day. Flies were everywhere and a small boy was employed to use a whisk to try and flap the flies away from the meat. I learnt not to worry about it but just to make sure I cooked all meat thoroughly.

Butcher Uganda

[Photo credit: hamoid]

Butcher's shop Central African Republic

[Photo credit: Teseum]

No part of an animal is wasted, although I’ve rarely seen a collection of Goat heads like the one below.

Goats heads in a butchers shop in Morocco

[Photo credit: DarkB4Dawn]

Butcher's shop in Cameroon

[Photo credit: ourmanwhere, www.ourmanincameroon.com]

Posted by SL at 3:32 pm AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, Life Africa, Photography Africa Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,

CFP: The Real Story? Personal Papers, Life Histories and Africa, UK June 2010

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Feb 222010

CALL FOR PAPERS

The Real Story? Personal Papers, Life Histories and Africa

SCOLMA (the UK Libraries and Archives Group on Africa) Annual Conference

British Library Conference Centre, London, 8th June 2010

The conference will investigate the research potential of personal papers for African studies.

What can collections of private papers tell us about African history and biography, and how have they been used by historians? Who leaves private papers, who keeps them, and how should they be / are they being dealt with? What differences are there internationally in acquisitions and preservation policies? What are the tensions and relationships between private papers and public records? What difference is the digital revolution making?

We welcome papers from librarians, archivists, academics and other researchers looking at either single or multiple collections, held
anywhere in the world. Colleagues from continental Europe attending the ELIAS (European Librarians in African Studies) meeting on 7th June 2010 are encouraged to offer papers.

Personal / private papers are defined as collections assembled, and usually authored in whole or in part, by a single person.

It is envisaged that selected papers from the conference will be published in SCOLMA’s journal, African Research and Documentation.

The deadline for the submission of proposals is 31 March 2010.

Please send your proposal (including name, affiliation, title and a one-page abstract) to:
Dr Marion Wallace, African Curator, British Library
Email: marion.wallace@bl.uk
Tel.: +44 20 7412 7829
Fax: +44 20 7412 7641
Please also contact Marion if you would like further information about the conference.

To pre-register for the conference, please contact
Lucy McCann, Archivist, Bodleian Library of Commonwealth & African
Studies, Rhodes House, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3RG
Email: lucy.mccann@bodley.ox.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0)1865 270908

SCOLMA website: http://www2.lse.ac.uk/library/scolma/

Posted by SL at 7:18 pm AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, Conferences Africa, EDUCATION AFRICA, History Africa, Life Africa Tagged with: , , ,

Africa Mali Anthropology : Fulani Naming Ceremony in Bamako

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Dec 112009

(More from my old diary, this time from February)

We left around 6.30 for the baptism of a Fulani baby born 7 days ago. We had to be there before dawn. I am exhausted and the day is only just started!

First of all, the men and women are separated. I’m being treated as the baby’s grandmother which is sweet. My friends mother can’t come so I am stand-in. My role is to sit beside my friend most of the time. As we arrived the ladies were in a panic still getting dressed. Soon we departed the bedroom for the sitting room where a mattress was laid on the floor and a big blanket on the floor beside it. A mute lady shaved all the hair from the baby’s head. We all had breakfast together – milky coffee, bread and a sort of meat sauce. It was just the closer family in the room, until the praise singers arrived. Now that WAS an experience! The first few were fine, older ladies,come to sing the praises of the new baby and her family. The men meanwhile got together for prayers, and then the word came that the baby would be named. I’m not sure if my friend knew the baby’s name until that moment – the word went round that the baby was called Mariam after her grandmother. Everyone applauded. Then the ‘vultures’ arrived. These are a different class of praise singers or griots to the earlier ones. I ran out of small coins to give (did I say you have to pay to have your praises sung?). One guy singer comes in and tells me I HAVE to go and ask my husband for money for him. In fact he leads me by the hand to my husband. But he was fine in comparison to some of these ladies – three of them refused to budge until I paid them. The other ladies in the room were catching my eye and motioning ‘no’ to me, telling me to stand firm. In the end I lay down beside my friend and pretended to go to sleep. They finally went.

We’ve now excused ourselves for a couple of hours but we have instructions to be back by midday ready for the big meal. I’m not sure what will happen this afternoon but I think it is the ladies party. Iwas told to take my best best dress and we’ll change around 4 pm.

After a short break at home we went back to my friend’s compound for lunch. Again – men and women separate. We ate with one hand. Try tearing meat from bone with one hand! Then came a couple of hours of sheer boredom. Sitting in a hot room with lots of other women, nothing much happening.

Around 4 I changed into my best best boubou (kaftan), pagne (wrap-round skirt) and head tie. All the ladies assembled in the sitting room. A man arrived with a local type of guitar. He serenaded us for the next few hours. Wonderful music. First he sat next to the new mum and sang a beautiful song of blessing for the baby, later he sat at the side of the room and gave us a sort of continuous accompaniment. A griot (praise singer) arrived – this was the official one who had sung in the morning. She opened the proceedings proper. She had a sort of side-kick who emphasised certain things she said, or agreed with them. She sang the praises of my friends family and sang the name of the baby. This was the women’s ‘baptism’ ceremony. A non-religious one.

Then came presents! Wow talk about complicated! My friend has to keep a book with the name of everyone who gave a present and what they gave. Later she has to visit everyone of them and give them presents at appropriate ceremonies. There were lots of mums with babies. Everything was given publicly and my job as grandma was to show the gifts around, and then place them in a baby bath (also a present). Finally a rich member of the family gave the baby her first gold earrings. Great ceremony was made of this by the griot.

Then the other griots decended. These are the ones I called ‘vultures’ earlier. It was pandemonium. The noise was amazing. I think there must have been a dozen of them in a tiny sitting room already crowded with women. We had already taken a collection for the official griot and the musician, but these ladies also wanted money.

Frozen bags of drink were sent round and also take home bags of cola nuts. At the same time the official griot and my friend were arguing about the contribution taken for the griot and for the food. Eventually someone gave the extra amount demanded. This was a reasonably friendly haggle – the ‘vultures’ haggles were not. People started to go, but I was not allowed to. As I was stand-in family I had to be one of the last to leave. The vultures hounded me and in the end I took refuge in a bedroom with a couple of the teenagers and hid! Can you imagine it?

Finally they left and we emerged. We were asked to take a family home across town, and while we were waiting for them to get ready one of the griots descended on me again. This time insisting I paid her fare home. It took a lot of arguing before she finally left.

Now I am home. It has certainly been an interesting day and this little baby has been well and truly blessed, and many useful gifts have been given to the family. For the young mother it has been absolutely exhausting. For the last week she has been confined to a room with the baby with only family attending her. Now she has to spend 6 more weeks on the family compound. The baby will be 7 weeks old before she leaves the compound for the first time.

Posted by SL at 6:20 pm AFRICA, AFRICA COUNTRIES, Anthropology Africa, CULTURE AFRICA, Life Africa, Mali Tagged with: , ,
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