The Nzinga Effect

26/09/2018

The Nzinga Story Lab works with organisations to challenge narratives shared about Africans and Africa. Since Feb 2017, we've been working with British Council East Africa Arts to tell the stories of artists they work with across the UK and eastern Africa. This short film about The Salooni is one of those stories.

Watch here:

On a sunny day looking over Nalubaale (also known as Lake Victoria), we spent time with Gloria, Darlyne, Kampire and Aida to talk about The Salooni Project a...

05/08/2018

We'll be back on your feeds in September.

21/06/2018

"Solutions journalism is so important, [but focuses almost exclusively] on those are the people suffering the ills of structures that are created. We don’t have enough reporting that looks at the people who create the structures.

When we focus on a woman who is using mobile technology to count her cows, we forget that the reason she doesn’t know what the market price for her milk is that there is asymmetry of information, and that is benefiting somebody somewhere else. We don’t do enough reporting on those root causes."

Our founder Eliza Anyangwe speaks to News Deeply about why we need new stories about African women and girls. Tell us what you think: do you agree that development reporting can be part of the problem?

Reporting on international development can often fall back on tired clichés about women and girls. With a platform dedicated to elevating the voices of African women, Eliza Anyangwe wants to change that.

23/05/2018

As part of Africa's Communication Week, this Friday, our very own will be moderating a panel on Africa's narrative with Rama Salla Dieng, , and Hanna Ali at the British Library
Come along if you can. The link to the event is in the bio. P.s It's free!

18/05/2018

AFRO-TURK

Throwing the spotlight on everywhere. Melis Sökmen is a jazz singer who was born in Ankara, grew up in Germany, and is an advocate for Black History Month in Turkey.

16/05/2018

Valerie Amos - who said she was 'astounded' to discover she was the first black woman to head a UK university - is calling out the persistent under-representation of people of colour - especially in higher education.

Key stats: -

Only 110 of 18,000 professors in the UK are black

- There is an average 16% pay gap between UK-based white and ethnic minority academic managers, directors and senior officials

- There is a higher dropout rate for black undergraduates.

So, what are we going to do about it? Let's follow the Soas director's lead.

Amos moved to the UK with her Guyanese parents when she was nine. Prior to 2015, she was an Undersecretary General at the UN, an adviser to the Mandela Government, a Foreign Office Minister, Secretary of State for International Development, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord President of the Council, a UK High Commissioner ... (We'll stop there)

📸 - / Twitter

30/04/2018

This International Jazz Day, (re)discover the music of Valaida Snow, Alice Coltrane, Lil Hardin Armstrong and the first trumpet player to have recorded a jazz record, Dolly Jones!

When we speak of women in Jazz, we often draw the link to great singers who left their mark in the industry, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Etta James and Nina Simone, only to mention a few, even though there have been a decent number of instrumentalists.

23/04/2018

Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid were the sole signatories of a successful legal challenge against the plan for South Africa to buy up to 10 nuclear power stations from Russia at an estimated cost of 1tn rand ($76bn).

After a five-year legal battle, a high court outlawed the deal last April and accepted the plaintiffs’ claims that it had been arranged without proper consultation with parliament.

Winners of the world’s leading environmental award faced down Vladimir Putin and the country’s recently deposed leader, Jacob Zuma, to overturn a multibillion-dollar nuclear deal

19/04/2018

What does economic empowerment mean for women in Africa today?

Our founder, Eliza Anyangwe, moderated a panel discussion for the Royal African Society (Royal African Society) last night, with Nunu Ntshingila-Njeke, Head of Facebook Africa; Fatimah Kelleher, International Women's Rights and Social Development Advocate; Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President & CEO of Women's World Banking; and SOAS University of London academic, Dr Catherine Dolan.

You can now listen to their brilliant and wide-ranging discussion here: https://www.mixcloud.com/royafrisoc/what-does-economic-empowerment-mean-for-women-in-africa-today/

07/04/2018

One to watch!
Directed by Claudine Pommier, this 50-minute long documentary titled The Power of Art: Women’s Voices in Africa, explores how contemporary African women who choose to be professional artists deal with the stereotypes associated with being an African and a woman. The film also explores the role professional artists throughout Africa may play in addressing the challenges women are faced with on the continent.

"Africa is not only a continent of war and crisis. There is...

04/04/2018

“Just do right.
It may not be expedient, and it my not be profitable, but it will satisfy your soul.”

Writer, teacher, mother and grandmother to many, Maya Angelou would have been 90 years-old today.

Dr. Maya Angelou says that in order to be the best human being you can be, you must follow one simple directive: "Just do right". Watch as Dr. Angelou reveal...

03/04/2018

We’ve been so moved by all the great tributes to Winne Madikizela-Mandela.

Mama Winnie was bold, outspoken, and fearless - which made her much maligned. In the days following her death on 2 April, much ink will be spilt to explain this great woman.

For all her faults there is little doubt that South Africa and the world would have been kinder were she a man, but she blazed a bright trail nonetheless.

All in the forest is silent because a great tree has fallen.

You meet a man. You fall in love. You dream of a world of possibilities and a great future together. You know he is a freedom fighter, as he is a lawyer, working in an office in downtown Johannesburg; and so are you, a freedom fighter who wants to see the end of the Apartheid Regime. Little do you know, you will barely get to enjoy your young marriage, you will be left as a single mother and you will not see much of your husband for 27 years, you will be jailed, tortured, harassed, taken away from your children and your home will still wear the bullets that were shot at your family while you were still inside. You will uphold your husband's legacy and the Movement, making him a worldwide name and, eventually, the first President of post-Apartheid South Africa. You will be right there for him upon his release from prison, even though you are divorced. But if you dared to find your own happiness in these bitter circumstances or if you made mistakes along the way, fighting the vile inhumanity and succumbing to the vicious violence of Apartheid, you just might be derided forever, by some who would never understand you, anyway. But some of us do understand, without fully knowing the depth of what is behind your eyes. We see you, anyway, Winnie Mandela. We see you, anyway. Rest in Peace, Mother. Wife. Warrior. Woman.