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What: 2nd FESTIVAL CULTURELLES - Marking the International Women's Day
When:6th & 8th March 2010
Where: Alliance Française de Nairobi
For the third year now, Alliance Française de Nairobi invites you to celebrate the International Women’s Day, marked on 8th March annually. The new millennium has witnessed a significant change and shift in both women and society’s thoughts about gender equality and women’s emancipation. But much more needs to be done globally for women’s education, awareness and representation in different sectors of the society. Through a series of activities, the Festival CulturElles, will highlight the part played by Kenyan women in artistic creation and celebrate the status of women through the medium of art and music. Through the screening of relevant documentaries, discussion and action will be provoked on the violation of women’s rights and violence against women.
Partners include: African Women and Child Feature Service (AWCFS), Coalition of Violence Against Women (COVAW), Federation of Women Lawyer’s (FIDA Kenya), Men for Gender Equality in Kenya Now (MEGEN) and Akina Mawa wa Afrika (AMwA)
Supporting artists include singers: Achien’g Abura, Iddi Achien’g, Suzanne Gachukia, Sally Oyugi, Susan Wanjiru, Zippy Okoth and Nina Ogot; visual artists: Clare Mungai and Patrick Mukabi and film directors: Kwamchetsi Makokha and Khamis Ramadan
Sat. 6th March @ 7pm, Alliance Française gardens, Tickets: 500/-
PAD RAISING CONCERT, giving a girl a chance
Leading afro-fusion singers, and socially engaged artists, come together for a fund raising concert in aid of underprivileged girls.
Proceeds from the pad raising concert will go to a selection of associations working on the promotion of education for girls, especially in the field of providing sanitary protection to girls from disadvantaged backgrounds thus enabling girls to continue attending school during their menses, and reducing the rate of drop outs.
We urge music lovers and sympathetic members of the public and the corporate world to come and support this endeavour and help achieve one of the Millennium Development Goals: improving rights and opportunities for women and girls.
Come and support a worthy cause and enjoy the creative energies of Kenyan musicians.
Mon. 8th March @ 6.30pm, Alliance Française, Entrance free
FILM – DISCUSSION - BOOK LAUNCH: Violence against women and protecting women’ rights
Two documentaries:
‘The Burden of Peace’ by Kwamchetsi Makokha – recounting the violence suffered by women in the aftermath of Kenya’s post-election crisis
and
‘The Woman Question’ by Khamis Ramadhan – questioning the lack of and abuse of women’s rights in East African Societies
will lead discussion on the often taboo subject of ‘violence against women’ (from different perspectives: domestic, how courts, police and social services re-victimize battered women, violence suffered by sex workers, sexual abuse, etc) which limits women’s rights and freedoms to mobility, education, work and and participation in public and political life.
Panelists include:
Kwachetsi Makokha (Communications Consultant)
Philip Otieno (from the association Men for Gender Equality Now)
Grace Maingi (Federation of Kenyan Women Lawyers Kenya)
Zawadi Nyongo (Independent consultant and writer)
with Mary Njeri, Executive Director of the Coalition of Violence Against Women (COVAW) as moderator.
Discussions will be followed by the launch of the book ‘When I dare to be powerful’, an Akina Mama wa Africa publication, written by Zawadi Nyongo, that tells the stories of sex workers who have been willing to share their stories and journeys of subversions and crossing the line. In breaking silences these women, together with AMwA, are contributing to feminist knowledge from the Global South and particularly to women’s narratives on sexual rights in Africa. There will be short readings from the books by members of the Bar Hostesses’ and Sex Workers Association.
The final activity for the evening will be the opening of an exhibition of paintings on the female figure by Clare Mungai and Patrick Mukabi.
About the partners working for the empowerment of women and girls:
AWCFS
The African Women and Child Feature Service is a Nairobi based media organization that promotes diversity, gender equity, social justice and development in Africa through engagement with media, training, research and content development.
It started in 1994 with four journalists eager to write about development issues and to give women a voice in the media. It envisions Africa as a continent that embraces media and gender as an important cornerstone for development. The organization disseminates information, with a gender perspective and its main aim is to increase the participation and visibility of women and children through gender sensitizing key media players and media institutes.
In January 2010, AWCFS launched an online paper ‘The Kenyan Woman’ – advocating for the rights of women, produced with support from United Nations Democratic Fund.
COVAW
Coalition of Violence against Women, is a non-profit national women’s rights non-governmental organization with the overall objective of generating and disseminating knowledge about violence against women in the construction of the Kenyan society and respective communities; and to catalyze and support the development of social movements that work to advance eradication of violence against women in communities, and the realization of the human rights of women in Kenya.
FIDA
The Federation of Women Lawyers – Kenya, a non-profit, non-partisan and non-governmental membership of women lawyers and women law students committed to the creation of a society that is free from all forms of discrimination against women through the provision of legal aid, women’s rights monitoring, research, advocacy, education and referral.
MEGEN
Men for Gender Equality Now is an independent organization which was originally set up for the African Women’s Development and Communications Network (FEMNET) to involve men in the initiative that strengthens women’s movement in Africa and in the struggle against discrimination and for gender equality.
MEGEN is now an autonomous organization working in 22 constituencies across the country with the objective of creating a critical mass of Kenyan females and males who believe in gender equality and are able to influence communities, organization, and the public to embrace gender equality.
AMwA
Akina Mama wa Afrika is an international, pan-African, non-governmental development organization for African women based in the UK with an Africa regional office in Kampala, Uganda. AMwA was set up in 1985 by women from different parts of Africa resident in the United Kingdom. Translated from Swahili, the name means 'solidarity among African women', signifying African sisterhood. AMwA was founded to create space for African women to organize, and build links with African women active in the areas of their own development.
The latest edition of the Reject Newspaper is out. The Reject is a bi-monthly online newspaper by the Media Diversity Centre, a project of AWCFS.
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