After successfully bringing our Girl Talk Coordinators from different Francophone and Anglophone countries to finally gather for our first 3-day retreat, our vision at Girt Talk Afrique for feminist organizing has expanded and grown. This implies a vision that has gained a sense of alternative possibilities of greater social justice and a fuelled power of collective feminist energies to bring about radical change.
This retreat that took place in Kigali, Rwanda from 3rd – 7th February was also a form of celebrating and marking the five-year anniversary of Girl Talk. The program was first launched in Rwanda in 2018, pioneering the introduction of feminist conversations that were considered taboo-like but also challenged the status quo. Whilst growing into a movement that recruited young, passionate feminists, Girl Talk over the last 4 years continued to gradually expand to different cities and currently operates in 12 countries across the continent.
During this retreat, we focused on equipping ourselves with an in-depth analysis of intersectional feminism, learning more about effective ways of community organizing, and setting clear strategic goals for the next three years of Girl Talk organizing. We asked ourselves important questions such as; How have feminists in Africa organized in the past and present, and what are the ends to which feminist organizing is directed? What strategies are used to pursue which goals, how do we measure impact, and what trajectories of change/impact are envisaged?
On day one of the retreat, our first session was opened by Bonitah Kobusingye and translated by Uwase Arlette, GT Rwanda Coordinator, as an opportunity for the Girl Talk team that was meeting for the first time to get to know each other through different icebreakers, games and feminist trivia which was preceded by setting clear intentions, expected outcomes, and purpose of the retreat. The second session was facilitated by Judicaelle Irakoze, providing the team with an insightful presentation about Intersectional Feminist theory and praxis, challenging us to broaden the lens in which we organize in and with.
We learned that intersectionality encompasses more than just the intersections of race and gender, our life experiences are based on how your multiple identities intermingle. Our work should represent the interplay between any kinds of discrimination, whether it’s based on gender, race, age, class, socioeconomic status, physical, gender or sexual identity, religion.
“There’s nothing as powerful as the love for our communities because through it, we are able to reimagine new possibilities for ourselves and our communities and work towards creating the world we want.” Sifa Anam, GT Coordinator, Kenya.
Our session on Movement building led by Bonitah Kobusingye shared insights on how Girl Talk is evolving and integrating movement-building principles and practices. Bonitah shared more about principles and key elements constituting a movement with heavy reference to different examples of feminist mobilizations like lobbying, protests, marches and digital campaigns, and more. This session was further complimented by lessons on strategic ways of community organizing. This was a transformative moment for the team to gain more insight about building power as a collective through organizing, responsibilities of an organizer, following a strategy roadmap growth for indicators of successful and impactful organizing.
All the lessons learnt shaped a particularly prominent focus on setting strategic and clear goals for the next 3 years for the Girl talk Movement and mapping out practical steps to be implemented. Through exercises facilitated by Bonitah, a well-constructed manifesto for Girl Talk Afrique packaged with a shared vision, missions, core values, and strategic goals (both long and short term) became the end product.
Judicaelle closed the retreat by equipping the team with holistic guidance on security and safety for organizers. During this session, through different exercises and security breach scenarios we were trained about risk analysis assessment, ways in which to protect and preserve collective memory as a tool to ensure safety, communication strategies, reactions to managing and responding to threats plus many more. This specific session was one that was very crucial and provided comfort to concerns of how organizations such as Choose Yourself protect their community organizers.
The retreat gave the Girl Talk team time to reflect, share about their struggles, experiences, wins, and lessons learned from the organizing they’ve been involved in. Our GT Coordinator from Kinshasa, Emmanuella Kahete shared with us a powerful reflection from the retreat, “As community organizers and Girl Talk Coordinators, it was crucial for us to develop a shared vision of what we would want to achieve despite the different contexts of our countries. During the Girl Talk retreat, I’ve learned that feminism is not just a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression, but feminism is also an identity. Being a feminist involves love for self, for others, justice, and freedom for all”
She remarked, “As a feminist, I’m called to live with integrity while valuing other people’s experiences. And I believe that despite human rights violations and systems of oppression that keep reviving anger, there is hope to live in a more equal world if we notice and undo the social, political, cultural, legal, economic systems that oppress women, and we keep rebuilding one step at a time.”
Written by,
Kobusingye Bonitah.
