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Monthly Archives: January 2013

Werewere Liking – Cameroon /Ivory Coast

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa

I am fighting for African youth. … I want the youth to be more intelligent, more sensitive, more conscious, more responsible for themselves individually. I want them to be aware that each and every one of them is capable of changing the world, changing themselves to begin with. Each time one of us improves, s/he improves the world. And only through the improvement of humanity, inside of us, can the world be improved. – Werewere Liking

Werewere Liking was born in Cameroon in 1950 and has been living in Abidjan, Ivory Coast since 1978.  She is a poet, novelist, painter, choreographer, performer, educator and social activist.  I have not met her or gone to her cultural arts centre in Abidjan, Ivory Coast – Ki-Yi Mbock Village (which means ultimate universal knowledge in Bassa, her mother tongue)  but over the past few years I have read about her, and seen a documentary about her work and I am inspired.

She is deeply committed to African tradition, to the Arts, to community, to developing the youth – and has been successful in her work, despite having left home at a very early age.  She says when she wants to do something she tries it, even if there is no funding, she tries to make it happen – and she has had amazing success (and many failures, I am sure).  She has a very clear vision and has worked hard to put it into practice.  The cultural centre is intentionally called a village because it is about community.  At her centre she works with people of all ages and they explore all the arts – writing, poetry, music, art, dance, puppetry… and the those things that support the arts – sound engineering, costume design, stagecraft…  And if any of the ‘artists’ living, learning and working there can’t read, they get literacy lessons too, in French.

I recently found an interview presented in an article published by the Barnard Centre for Research on Women. For those of you who speak French, it has video clips of the interview (with English translations in the text of the article) of her speaking about her work.  I have pulled out some quotes of her views on Pan-Africanism, the Youth and Women.  For the full article click on this link: Werewere Liking | S&F Online | Rewriting Dispersal: Africana Gender Studies.

Werewere Liking on Pan-Africanism

For me, the label “Pan-African” implies that we take into account not only Africa, but also its diasporas. Because the term, “Pan-African” itself was conceived by Africans from the diaspora. So, it means including all the worlds born out of Africa. So, we claim them, but also offer them all we have.   …. it’s a view that’s a conviction for me, that Africa is rich in its entirety as a continent only in its diversity. Africa’s primary riches are its different cultures, its peoples. … Well, because, as you can see, these very borders render spaces extremely small. They reduce Africa. They weaken it. They prevent the circulation of vital energies. Consequently, they are a handicap for the development of this continent.

I love and believe what she says – that Africa is rich because of its diversity.  It is true and yet for the last few centuries – and more importantly the last 50+ years since we started the post-colonial period we made that diversity the reason for war, coups and everything that goes with it.  We forget that a tapestry, a beautiful piece of cloth, is beautiful because of all the different threads that are woven together to make it one.

She has a passion for young people whom she takes in to live and learn at her center, and she has this to say about  her work with young people:

I am fighting for African youth. I am fighting for children’s brains to work better. When I take charge of them, I try to help them use their brain. I force them to use their left hand because we have an entire part of our brain that does not work properly because we use only one part of the body, so there is a side of the brain that is less effective. There are many exercises that I have them do. I want the youth to be more intelligent, more sensitive, more conscious, more responsible for themselves individually.

… My battle is for little things and I see myself as a little ant, you know? The tiniest of ants can lift up crumbs ten times its own weight. However, because it [the ant] is so tiny, these are still small achievements. So be it! From my position, what I try to do is to try to lift ten times my own weight. That’s it.

On feminism and being a woman:

Because feminism, as it appeared at a time (in the 60s and 70s) —but I think it must have improved since—but the way it appeared at a time, it consisted mainly of lots of demands, lots of demonstrations, and I think this is a trap. Truly, when you look at it, we don’t need to demonstrate our womanhood. It’s like music for the heart. We know that we have things to do. We must do them, attain our goals, but without losing our nature. Our nature, our charm, our beauty, our gentleness. This is a totally different thing. This is not contradictory. To be a woman means to have it all. It’s to be all. Because for me God is a woman. So, it’s to be a creator, to be the source of life and consequently to privilege life above all. (my italics)

I first heard about her in 2008 when a someone in a workshop that I was facilitating spoke to me about her.  And then I saw the documentary about her – she spoke about her life dreams, her challenges, how she built up her cultural arts centre.  Her passion, drive, creativity, vision and resilience inspire me!!  She has through following her passion with conviction made an impact, not only in Ivory Coast, but internationally.  I would love to meet her.

Here are some links about her:

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The African Women’s Decade – 2010 – 2020

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa

I did not know that the African Union had made 2010 – 2020 the African Women’s decade – but they did!  Was there any media hype about it? Did I miss it, in the noise and media overload of this century?  Or was I just too tied up in taking care of my little 6 month old, who was just coming out of his premature stage and becoming stronger?  I don’t know, and I don’t think that really matters – not really… it’s just that the concept of the  ‘African Women’s Decade’ gives me a sense of excitement and possibility, and a sense of deja-vu.  It takes me back to Nairobi in July 1985 when Kenya hosted the U.N.’s 3rd World Conference on Women to ‘review and appraise the achievement of the UN Decade for Women’ (1975 – 85).   I was 21 years old and through some luck my friend Irene was able to get us to work as volunteers at the NGO Forum – see my badge!!! 😉 (P.A. Barlow)  It felt like such a privilege.

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To be honest I do not remember much about that time – except that it was very exciting, and the Forum was based around the National Theatre.  There were so many women in Nairobi – and the men, who had been excited about the prospect of being surrounded by many women ended up frustrated because all the women were interested in was Women’s issues!!!   Another thing  I remember that a group of us, young black women went to the Hilton Hotel (unaccompanied by any man) and they did not treat us like we were hookers, AND we had quick service!!! And all the street children disappeared from the streets of Nairobi for a time.

A lot was achieved, I am sure, – and a lot of decisions and strategies developed in the UN, Development agencies, Governments etc – but I want to know what impact it had on the ordinary woman.  Conferences often frustrate me because you spend most of you time listening to people talking AT you, and the most interesting encounters, for me, are the conversations you have over tea, or lunch, or when you are looking at the displays, and accidentally bump into someone.  I wish there were more spaces for people to engage – not just to ask questions of the speakers, but to sit and really engage, dream, plan, listen to each others stories, understand the different contexts….

You see I am more interested in the impact on people, rather than policy, and so on.  Policy creates an enabling environment, but if no one acts then its just words on paper.  I fight for women, but sometimes hard-nosed feminists turn me off.  I get frustrated when they paint all men with one brush (evil, pulling women down) and I reflect and realise that my mother would not have gone to University in the 1950s if it had not been for the foresight of her father.  Or when I can identify a number of women who pulled me back, and men who encouraged me.  I get frustrated when they speak of the patriarchical society, and then go on to behave in exactly the same way that they say men do – and thus silence all the women they are claiming to empower! Women, like men, are just human beings with strengths and weaknesses.

So while the idea of a women’s decade excites me, I want to approach it differently from the way it seems to come up in the mainstream.  I would like to be more awake than I was at 21, and, in some small way make this decade count in more than just words – or policies or projects  looking for funders (all of which are absolutely important – I know that).  The question I am asking myself, and you, is ‘What are you going to do to make  this decade of the African Women more than just words on paper – or people shouting in the political arena about what is not happening?  What mark will we leave – beyond the rhetoric and the hype – even if it touches just one person?

  • How will we define (or re-define) power, and powerful women?   Will it be all about money and business, or being senior in government?  Or will we recognise all the ways in which women support the continent?
  • What, in your deepest heart of hearts, do you want to be the legacy of this decade?  How can you contribute, in a new and innovative way – beyond the tried and tested ‘recipes’ that often do not touch the ordinary woman?
  • Who are we going to celebrate?  Whose stories will we share?  Will we celebrate that woman who makes sure (on her meagre earnings) her children have a safe place to sleep, a roof over their heads, and get an education as well as that woman who goes out and fights for policies and infrastructure, or who makes an impact in the field of Education, or in the Economy?  Or we going to focus on the ‘celebrities’?
  • Will we be able to go beyond the traditions that trap women, and recognise, also the ways in which women make those traditions work for them (check out this video – http://www.ted.com/talks/kavita_ramdas_radical_women_embracing_tradition.html)

How about starting by recognising your 10 most inspiring /powerful/amazing African women?  Lets talk about them! Send me a short email, and a photo, if you have one, and I will add them all to my blog.

As a starting point (and before I put my 10 most inspiring African women down) let me share this with you :

http://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2012/12/06/the-20-youngest-power-women-in-africa-2012/

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William Kamkwamba – Celebrating the Bold, Audacious, Inspiring, Creative, Passionate, Amazing Africans

Posted on January 23, 2013 by Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa

Today I salute William Kamkwamba of Malawi – and reflect on some of the beliefs we carry about development, education and poverty. There is often a belief that the people to be ‘developed’ (usually poor, lacking formal education, and in rural areas, or slums or townships) do not know what they want, and because of lack of education and poverty are unable to make a difference.  There is often a belief that if we do not ‘bring development’ to them, they will not be able to make a difference in their own lives.  And a belief that because they do not speak English very well they are not very bright.  William Kamkwamba tells a different story.

   kamkwamba_0001     kamkwamba

In 2010 I was going through the Schiphol airport in the Netherlands when my eye landed on this book.  The title is what attracted me first because it sounded like a myth or legend – and when I read the back of the book I knew I had to buy it – and what an inspiring read (I must also say it is a slow start – but picks up as you go along).

William Kamkwamba was  born in 1987 and grew up in rural Malawi.  When he was about 13, he started taking apart old radios, and putting them back together again, with a friend.  They later began to fix people’s radios for them, and because there was no electricity they would collect old discarded batteries to power the radios.  William was fascinated by how things worked and this led him to discover that the dynamo on a bicycle made electricity to power the light, and he could use it to power a radio (although the pedalling was tiring).   This triggered his desire to create electricity for his home and family – a dream he forgot and then re-discovered later.  In 2000, the year he finished primary school there were floods and a drought, and crops failed.  The villages further away were hit first by the famine and later  spread across the country.  Food became scarce, and very expensive. His father was a farmer, and like many other farmers in that period he lost all his crops.  And his family barely survived the famine.

The following year William learnt that he had passed his primary school exams well enough to go to secondary school.  He started school but had to drop out because his parents did not have the money to pay fees.  They were trying to recover from the damage of the famine.  William was upset about this, but his desire to learn was so strong, he continued to go to the library of a local primary school to read.  There he found a book, ‘Using Energy’, which had pictures of windmills on the cover.  This reawakened his dream to make electricity, and although he could not read very well, he understood the pictures in the book, and used this to guide his project.  In 2002, in spite of all the village thinking he had gone mad, William finished his windmill (using scrap material, and getting favours from people), and it created electricity for his home.

His story, by some strange fate ended up in the national newspapers, and on someone’s blog, and this led to exposure on the TED Africa, and TED Global front.  He was later sponsored, and went back to school – in Malawi, then in Johannesburg.

William is now 24 years old, and studying environmental studies with a minor in engineering at Dartmouth College in the USA. He has, through the help of others, made a water pump for his family (and village), so his father can harvest twice a year, regardless of whether the rains come or not.  He has started an NGO to support primary school he went to in Wimbe, Malawi, has built two more windmills and has dreams of returning to Malawi to continue his work.

Maybe, when we are engaging in the practice of development we need to LOOK more carefully and LISTEN more closely in order to understand what is really going on, and then SUPPORT those people who, in spite of everything around them, are already making a difference!!!

SOME LINKS FOR INFORMATION ON WILLIAM KAMKWAMBA

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Celebrating the Bold, Audacious, Inspiring, Creative, Passionate, Amazing Africans – Building our Nations

Posted on January 19, 2013 by Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa

This year I am telling the ‘other’ stories – loudly and without apology! I am talking those things  that dont make the mainstream news often, except when people die.  I want to write about them. 

Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, at a TED event  (http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html) speaks of ‘the danger of a single story’ – that story that presents a person, place or thing as one-dimensional.  We all have them – we speak about people of a certain tribe/race/gender/profession in a particular way, respond to them in a particular way because ‘they are like that’.  We have very particular expectations of certain people or certain roles – and are surprised or suspicious if they turn out to be different.  We have a single story that we tell of ourselves as Africans even when we know that it is not the only story we can tell.     Well I am tired of the single story about Africa and Africans (often told by Africans)  that focuses on that which does not work; that  spotlights only those who fail, or steal, or destroy.  I am fed up of those conversations that cut people’s dreams into little pieces, that seem to say ‘the status quo cannot change;  those conversations that perpetuate the negative, make us believe, at a very subliminal level, that as Africans are unable to run un-corrupt governments, have great economies,  create anything new or do anything good!  These stories are too simple, they are an easy cop-out – and they are silent on the rest of the picture – the many other stories of people who enable, create new realities, make a difference everyday.   I want to tell the other stories.

This year I will recognise and celebrate those Africans, who make or have made a difference.  For some the contribution is small, and very personal or local; and for others, the impact is felt, immediately, by many, and sometimes over a very long period of time.  I want to focus on HOPE,  BELIEF, LOVE, POSSIBILITY, CREATIVITY, LOYALTY AND RESILIENCE – because that is what brings about change.  We can only build on what is there, on what is working, on what is not broken.  But if we do not recognise what is working, if we do not see or tap into our potential, how then can we change?  I want to focus on that which is working, that has potential, that we can build on – and on those who have, in some way supported, or enabled.

MY INSPIRATION?   My mother and father, who were great nation builders.  Throughout my life, and even after their passing, I have seen or heard about how they supported people, challenged people and stepped into difficult situations boldly because it was the right thing to do.  They did their best for the family (immediate and extended) and Uganda at large. Here is one small story:

We were 5 children, and the two who came before me had cerebral palsy.  My parents believed in education and when they realised that Fay and Chris would not be able to go to normal schools they got together with 6 other parents, and a few other people they started the Kampala School for the Mentally and Physically Handicapped.  They started out in a store-room at Mengo Primary School (Mrs. Wambuzi was the headmistress) and later the school moved to its current premises, land which was given them by the Kabaka.  Many children who would otherwise not have gone to school, or who would have remained hidden, as a curse, got an opportunity to have an education, and parents got support.  I remember taking Fay and Chris to school there, and just loving the way the other children loved them.  The children had access to physical therapy and occupational therapy at Mengo Hospital – and then, as Amin’s regime progressed this fizzled out.  Soon, it became obvious that the school did not have the staff trained to support Fay and Chris, and they stopped going to school.  The name of the school dropped the ‘mentally handicapped’ because there were not enough staff to support them.  But my parents remained involved in the school for a very long time!  They helped develop a vocational education wing, which the current headmistress has developed into an amazing centre.

When my father passed away in 2006, the first people to put an orbituary in the papers, even before we as a family did, were the Old boys and Girls Association of the Kampala School for the Physically Handicapped.  And at my mother’s funeral last year, one of the old boys came and spoke.  On the side he told us that his disability was a result of an accident as a child, and his family disowned him, and left him at the school.  He said my mother supported him, encouraged him to go to secondary school after he passed his P7, encouraged him to do his tertiary education, and he is now an accountant, drives a car, and supports the family that rejected him.

The school lives on, over 40 years later, and many who go there do not know my parents, or the other people involved in the starting of the school.  For me, though, this school teaches me something – that in addressing a personal challenge it is possible to help others beyond your life time!

For a long time I have wanted to find a way to honour them and I think that collecting stories of people who make a difference is one way of doing this.

I am inspired everyday by ordinary people who quietly get on with life, not complaining, but actively making a difference in one life, or 100 lives, inspiring others, believing in others, standing up for others, inventing, creating and actively making a difference.  Like the woman in Khayelitsha (a township in Cape Town) whose daughter had cerebral palsy, and died young, but she went on, with nothing, to create a school to support other children and parents with the same challenges.

I am also inspired by the book the  Vision Group in Uganda published to celebrate 50 years of independence – reminding us of the people who stood up and made a difference.  Stories of 148 people (a small number) of people who made a difference.  And while the vision book focused on those who had contributed positively and negatively, I would like to focus on those that inspire.

I commit to write about someone at least once a fortnight;  to share a story about an African making a difference.   Some will be people who are well-known, and some will be little known – and doing what seems like something very small and insignificant, but they will, in my opinion, be making a difference.

JUST SO THAT YOU KNOW:   I will, without apology, write about people who I know, who may even be related to me as well as those who I do not personally know, because bold, inspiring, courageous acts  happen everyday, in big and small ways, and often the contributions of those closest to us go unnoticed.  I want to acknowledge all those who I think are making a difference in one way or another.

My INVITATION to you:  If you have a story you want to share, please send me an email at namutebi@mweb.co.za

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Would you buy someone else’s dream – with your last pennies?

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Philippa Namutebi Kabali-Kagwa

In January 2012, while on a storytelling course, I was given a story to c0-narrate with a colleague.  It was about a man who bought a dream – and, like some stories do, it left Johnson and I wondering about what the message of the story really was.  Everytime we thought we had grasped it, is seemed to slip away, or raise a different question.  A skeleton version of the story goes like this:

A poor man was sitting with his friend who was fast asleep.  As the friend woke up, a bee flew out of his nose.  He shared his dream which was about finding a pot of gold under a nandin bush in the garden of the richest man in Osaka.  The poor man was so impressed by the dream he took all his savings and bought the dream.  His wife was angry – what use was someone else’s dream?  The man left home, armed with hope, and walked 400 kms to Osaka, and found the rich man’s house.  He asked to spend the night there, and told the rich man the story, asking for help to find the gold.  As he slept the rich man got his servant to dig in the garden and they found a pot.  when they opened it a bee flew out – and there was nothing else inside! He re-buried the pot, and the next day, the poor man dug it up – to find nothing.  He was devastated, and almost did not return home for he was ashamed of what he had done.  But his love for his wife was so strong he returned home.  When he got there she ran up to him and told him that on the day he left, she heard bees in the attic – and when she opened to door a bee flew out, and then lots and lots of gold coins fell out of the  attic.  They were so happy, and were never poor again.  (for a written version of the story go to – http://www.timmyabell.com/mandream.htm or google it)

This story left me feeling like I had not really ‘got it’.  And then I forgot about it… until November when I went to a show by Hugh Masekela and Sibongile Khumalo called ‘Songs of Migration”.  It was a beautiful show exploring, in song, narration and movement, people leaving home in search of … work, riches, refuge – based mainly in South Africa during apartheid, but also touching on immigrants from other parts of the world, and migration in post apartheid South Africa.  At some point Hugh said something like, “Those who stayed at home long for those who have gone.  And those who have gone long to return, but cannot because they have not found what they set out to find.  They are too ashamed to go back.”  And in that moment I thought of that man who had bought a dream – and almost did not return because how could he?  He had used up everything they owned on a ‘foolish’ dream.  How could he face his wife?  And yet his love for her took him back, ready to face the consequences of his foolishness – and he found riches, and love and joy.

There is so much richness in this story – still more to be mined, but as I think of this year – my prayer is that we all have the courage to follow our dreams, and to have the courage, when it fails (or seems to have failed) to go back home to the place of love and acceptance, to have the courage to face the consequences of our failure – and to be open to surprise!!!!!

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