Afghanistan Crisis: Human Rights champion Dr.Sakena Yacoobi pleas for help

 

Dr Sakena Yacoobi teaching/Credit: AIL

 

I wanted to share with you this heart-wrenching letter I've received from peace activist and educator Dr Sakena Yacoobi about the crisis going on in Afghanistan. Please read her first-hand account of the chaos and help out in any way you can. 

 

Yacoobi is an amazing woman: people call her Afghanistan’s “mother of education". She has founded the Afghanistan Institute of Learning (AIL) there and dedicated her life to educating women and children. I've interviewed her for a piece in the New Internationalist a few years ago. 

 

Here is her letter: 

 

Dear, Friends, Supporters, and Colleagues,

This is one of the most difficult letters I have ever written. After twenty years, our government collapsed with almost no resistance. The constitution we worked so hard for, the rights our women sacrificed so much to gain, thrown out the window like scraps for the dogs. Our military and the Ghani government fled, leaving our women and children to face the Taliban with no support. The world watched it happen, without care. We begged, screaming for help. So, now we see peace is again made on the back of women and children. It is what it is. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan has fallen, and Kabul is in complete chaos. My office and staff are unharmed, for which we thank God. 

The nation of Afghanistan is in turmoil. My schools still stand, as of now, we have been instructed that we can continue as long as we separate boys and girls. The day the Taliban took Kandahar, they planted their flags in the courtyard of three of them. My schools must be important, as they visited the very first day the Taliban took control. Our Women Learning Centers remain open as they primarily serve women. As of now, my staff is unharmed. We hope and pray this remains true. We have been told that Radio and TV Meraj are not to operate until we are given notice, we will wait for that instruction. We hope and pray that the Taliban wasn’t lying when they told the world they did not intend to shut the schools, but our universities have already shut their doors to women and told them to go home. Burqa sales have tripled, as have the prices to purchase them. Women who lived through the Taliban before, go now to purchase these garments, while the daughters raised under the American occupation throw them in the faces of their mothers, refusing to wear them. 

We are a nation at a crossroads, but AIL will do what AIL has always done. We will continue to educate and provide a safe space for children and women. We will continue to offer food and job training and medical care for as long as we can remain in our facilities. When it is no longer possible to remain in those buildings, we will find new buildings, and work from there. Wherever we have schools now, we will have schools next week or next month or next year. AIL was started in secret and it will continue in secret if it must. While we are afraid, we are not defeated. Our mission remains the same. We will set up schools in every province, now that the worst has come. We know what to expect. We know the Taliban very well. There is no question of how they operate, or what they expect. We know how to manage them. We will do so. 

Letter after letter, phone call after phone call, came in this weekend asking how you can help. We need humanitarian supplies. The refugee situation we updated you with last week and the week before has only deteriorated. We have 300,000 internal refugees and 80,000 children who are without shelter and food. Where we were short of supplies, now we are out. Those in need are overwhelming us. Aid agencies have left with the American’s. AIL will not be leaving, so we will expand our facilities to help those who lost everything, including their homes, in the fighting. We need dry milk, clothes, school supplies, medicine, hygiene items, and Covid is still present, so soap and sanitizers are critical. Many of you have asked what else you can do, and to that I say contact the UN and government officials and tell them you want them to use every possible tool they have to protect our women and girls through diplomatic means. Sanction Pakistan for their invasion of my country, and pray for the safety of my people. 

Our democracy may have fallen for now. Ideas do not disappear so easily. One cannot kill whispers on the wind. The Taliban cannot crush a dream. We will prevail, even if it takes longer than we wanted it too. 

Much love to you all,

Dr. Sakena Yacoobi

 What you can do to help:

Donate to AIL https://www.afghaninstituteoflearning.org/

UK MP information line, simply tell them whom you wish to speak to or give address information to find out the name of your MP. 020 7219 4272

Email the White House https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Email Number 10 Downing Street https://email.number10.gov,uk/

Request Peacekeepers https://peacekeeping.un.org/en/contact

International Committee of the Red Cross https://www.icrc.org,/en/contact

Hear Us – How refugee and asylum-seeking women experienced the pandemic

“Being destitute during a pandemic is the worst feeling ever. It makes you feel like you are just a box and if someone wanted to kick you, they could. It’s not easy relying on other people for food and shelter and it has caused me a lot of mental health issues,” says Edna (not her real name), who is living with no statutory support and relying on charities for her survival in Liverpool.


Edna is one of 115 refugee and asylum-seeking women in the UK who have shared their experiences during the pandemic for ‘Hear Us’, a new report by Sisters Not Strangers, a coalition of eight organisations. 

Most of these women have already fled violence and abuse. During the pandemic, they became more vulnerable: three quarters of them went hungry, a fifth of them were homeless, and most of them said that their mental health got worse, according to the report. 


The government’s research on the impact of Covid-19 on BAME communities found that Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women are almost three times more likely to die from COVID-19, compared to white women. The intersection of gender, race and immigration status, coupled with the trauma of their past experiences, means that asylum-seeking women are among those BAME women most affected by the consequences of the outbreak.


With charities closed, women have been unable to access meals and small hardship payments that have become so crucial both for women within the asylum system, who live in poverty, and women refused asylum, who are so often left destitute.


Three quarters of the women surveyed went hungry, including mothers who struggled to feed their children. A third of women were at high risk from coronavirus, reporting a serious health condition such as asthma, heart disease and diabetes. While the government emphasised social distancing, a fifth of women were homeless, relying on temporary arrangements with community members, and moving from one house to another. Self-isolation was impossible for the 21% of women who were forced to sleep in the same room as a non-family member. Frequent handwashing was a serious challenge for the 32% of women who struggled to afford soap and other hygiene products. A fifth of staff and volunteers had supported women who were trapped in unwanted or abusive relationships during the pandemic. 

Lo Lo (not her real name), an asylum-seeking woman who was homeless in London during lockdown says, “I have serious health conditions that mean it would be particularly dangerous for me to catch the virus. For a week during lockdown, I slept on buses. I went from one side of London to the other, because it was free to travel on the bus then.”

“Previous research has established that almost all women who seek asylum in the UK are survivors of gender-based violence. Even before this crisis, we have seen how they are forced into poverty and struggle to find safety,” says Natasha Walter, director of Women for Refugee Women.  “During the pandemic they have too often been left without basic support including food and shelter. It is now vital that we listen to these women and ensure that we build a fairer and more caring society.” 

In exposing deep structural inequalities along existing fault-lines of gender, race, citizenship and class, the pandemic is testing our society. We cannot simply return to normal, the report concludes. “We must seize this opportunity to build back better, and to create a society centred on solidarity and human dignity in which the lives of women seeking asylum, and women of colour, are fully valued.”

The Sisters Not Strangers coalition includes Coventry Asylum and Refugee Action Group, Development and Empowerment for Women’s Advancement (Sheffield), Oasis Cardiff, Refugee Women Connect (Liverpool), Swansea Women’s Asylum and Refugee Support Group, Women Asylum Seekers Together Manchester, Women for Refugee Women (London) and Women with Hope (Birmingham)

Women, Homelessness and Health

What do we know about the health issues facing homeless women? Of having no meal at all or eating five meals in one day for fear of having none the next day, of getting bed bugs and respiratory illnesses from sleeping on dirty mattresses and in damp places, of feeling too ashamed or exhausted to seek help?

Because homelessness is often seen as a male phenomenon, the experience of homeless women has been largely neglected by researchers and policy makers. We know far less about women’s homelessness than men’s – and almost nothing about health issues they face. Yet, homeless women have differing health needs to those of men and these specific needs are often overlooked in policy or service responses.

Women, Homelessness and Health, a new study by the homeless charity Groundswell and funded by the Greater London Authority, is focusing on these overlooked issues. The study is particularly valuable because it used researchers who have experienced homelessness, in all stage of the research process.
Groundswell researchers interviewed 104 women aged from 19 to 75 in London, using questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and focus groups.

They found that the trajectory to homelessness is often different for women and men: for women, the main causes are relationship and family breakdown, physical health issues and domestic abuse.  Not only is violence a cause of homelessness, but women also experience violence or harassment at homelessness services, day centres, hostels and on the streets, which is often a factor in perpetuating homelessness. Here is what one woman interviewed said:  “Being approached by men too often; being made fun of in the street; some guys take the micky out of you; guys touching but the tiredness from homelessness makes me let down my guard and get tired of fighting back. ” It is not surprising then that women are often reluctant to use services designed for and dominated by men, which can often be hostile places for women.

The research stresses that there is a clear need for gendered specific services, but they are not provided because homelessness is seen mostly as a men’s problem. “Women are not measured and counted – they are not as visible,” says Dr Joanne Bretherton, Co-Director, Women's Homelessness in Europe Network, University of York.  Rough sleeper statistics, for example, count people visibly sleeping rough.  Many homeless women sleep rough, but they make efforts to remain invisible – sleeping in hidden places or on buses - and so remain unknown to rough sleeper teams. 

“Often women will only access services when all other avenues, such as friends and family, have been exhausted,” adds Dr Bretherton.  “And they don’t seek help for fear that their children will be taken away.  They feel their mothering skills are judged all the time.”   Nearly half of the women in the Groundswell study are mothers and 22% of those women had children taken into care – an experience that was incredibly traumatic. 

Among the main findings, the study shows that participants have long and complex histories of homelessness, with 42% having been homeless more than once before and 70% having slept rough at some point of their lives. This suggests that women experience a cycle of repeated homelessness.

Three-quarter of the women interviewed have physical health issue problem compared to 37% of the general population. They mostly complain about joints, bones and muscles pain, problems with feet and stomach issues.  Many said that their health issues arose as a result of being homeless. This is unsurprising given the poor conditions women are sleeping in, the stress of homelessness and the amount of time women spend on their feet.

Sixty-four percent have a mental health issue- most commonly depression, anxiety/phobia and PTSD - compared to 21% of general population, suggesting that mental health conditions can develop and/or are exacerbated upon homelessness. In some circumstances, declining mental health can lead to addictions that where not present before homelessness.

Many participants spoke about how the stress and trauma of homelessness put pressure on their physical and mental health. “You are under stress constantly.  It means you are very vulnerable...in terms of illnesses and everything,” said one woman interviewed.  Stress causes headaches, hair loss, stomach pain, eye irritation, rapid heartbeat, panic attacks, chest pain and periods to stop.

Many say that the stress of being homeless and the lack of routine mean it is difficult for them to look after themselves or attend appointments.  Sixty-five percent say that they struggle to find the motivation and confidence to deal with their health issues. “I can’t make appointment, [I need to] wash first and eat first. Survival comes first.  Last thing we have as dignity is to keep clean.”  
 
“Until we have a larger body of evidence about women's homelessness, there is a risk that policy responses to, and services for homeless people will not adequately meet the needs of women,” says Dr Kesia Reeve, Principal Research Fellow at the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research (CRESR), Sheffield Hallam University. “It raises issues about, for example, maternal and reproductive health and wellbeing issues that rarely feature in other research but are central to some homeless women's experiences and needs.”
 
The report concludes that in order to better support the health of women experiencing homelessness there is a need for:
- a deeper understanding of the health of women experiencing homelessness
- more flexible, considered and participatory commissioning 
- flexible, compassionate and consistent support centered around individual need 
-  focused approach on the health of women who are homeless within NHS services
- joined up working between services and sectors who support woman experiencing homelessness 

You can read the full report here

Kosovar women fight patriarchy - 20 years after the war

The art installation Thinking Of You, by the Kosovan-born, London-based artist Alketa Mrripa-Xhafa, in Pristina, Kosova – 2015. Photograph: Hazir Reka/Reuters

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This month, 20 years ago, the 1988-89 Kosovo war ended. It was a particularly brutal conflict that led to allegations of genocide and crimes against humanity, and the controversial involvement and bombings from NATO. During that war, 90 per cent of the population was displaced and some 20,000 women and girls were systematically raped - a crime that was used as a weapon of "ethnic cleansing."

In this predominantly traditional ethnic Albanian country, the rape’s stigma is so strong that many women have never talked about what happened to them during the war and never sought help. Some of their husbands have left them, unable to endure the shame.

Two decades later and despite years of international supervision that was supposed to bring gender equality, rates of sexual assault and domestic violence remain worryingly high. In a 2015 survey, 68% of women reported that they had suffered from domestic violence at one point in their lives.

In Europe’s newest country (which declared independence from Serbia in 2008), women struggle every day for social and economic equality in a rigid patriarchal society where men have the final say in all family matters and women are left with very limited access to education, health, property, protection and job opportunities. More than three quarters of women don’t have jobs - Kosovar women have the lowest employment rates and education levels in all Europe. Many have been widowed during the war and placed in the role of primary provider for their families, but without access to skills and resources, they are unable to make ends meet.

But many are fighting back.  Some have formed associations that give women the tools and resources they need to rebuild their lives and their communities, while others have run for office.  Others yet have launched small business, like Zarie Malsiu, from Kacanik municipality, a mother of five who married young and dropped out of school, like many young women at that time. After the war, she enrolled in a training for social and economic empowerment run by local NGO Kosova – Women for Women. She has formed her own agriculture association, collecting and selling medicinal and aromatic herbs and forest fruits. Her organization now counts 100 women. Kosova – Women for Women, a local independent organization affiliated to Women for Women International, has trained over 33,000 women in over 30 communities across the country, in life and vocational skills and rights awareness.

Women have also fought for justice and campaigned for women’s rights.

Among them is the amazing Dr Feride Rushiti, a physician who is the executive director of the Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims in Pristina. Through almost two decades of research and advocacy, she has secured access to healthcare and justice for civilian victims of war. In 2017, her campaigning work led to a landmark government decision to fund pensions for Kosovo’s victims of wartime sexual violence. And now, after many years of silence, hundreds of survivors have started to come forward.

Kosovar women’s braided stories show the enormous challenges women still face in the country, but also how they have managed to become self sufficient and obtain recognition and reparation - and the impact it has on themselves, their families, communities and the next generations.

I wanted to report this story with Arben Llapashtica, a brilliant photographer based in Pristina, as well as a cameraman and documentary filmmaker, but sadly we couldn’t get a commission. If you know a publication that might be interested, please let us know.

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Yegna – a cautionary tale in humanitarian aid

Yegna in concert in Bahir Dar/Courtesy of Girl Effect

 

Should humanitarian aid be about food parcels and vaccination campaigns? Or could it be something more intangible and holistic?

Yegna,  a project trying to reframe the place of girls in Ethiopian society - a country where discrimination and violence against girls and women are common - crystallized that debate in the UK.

Over the past few years, the right-wing media waged a campaign against Yegna - which was co-funded by the UK Department for International Development (DIFD) - calling it “the most wasteful, ludicrous and patronizing” aid project in Africa and “blood boiling waste of taxpayers' money.” 

The articles caused widespread outcry from MPs and taxpayers. In January 2017, DIFD, which had previously given the program high marks and had planned to give it £11.8m between 2015 and 2018, cut all funding. 

Although the right-wing media dubbed it “Ethiopia’s Spice Girls”, Yegna is not just a girl group, but a brand that addresses issues such as early forced marriage, violence and barriers to education through a very popular radio drama, music and talkshows – all critical channels in a developing country with a strong musical and storytelling tradition. 

The radio drama, also called Yegna, features the five band members representing characters with different backgrounds, facing and overcoming many of the challenges experienced by Ethiopian girls. 

Take Mimi, for example. In the drama, she is a street kid who ran away from early marriage when she was 13 and had to sacrifice her education. She lives on the street and sells chewing gum and trinkets to passers-by. 

“Mimi is my favorite character because she is most like me. She’s very strong and does not give up,” says Alemtsehay Berihun, a 17-year-old Yegna fan who lives with her aunt in Wonka, a village in the Amhara region.

In Amhara, where Berihun lives, and in Addis, the two regions where Yegna is distributed, one in every two people listen to Yegna, according to Girl Effect. 

 “In our school, I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t know Yegna. You would walk into a random house in our town and find a Yegna poster inside,” Berihun says. 

The decision to cut funding disappointed Girl Effect, the charity behind Yegna, as well as other aid organizations, which are developing less traditional and more creative approaches to impact long-term changes.  “We were surprised and disappointed,” says Gaya Butler, the Ethiopia country director for Girl Effect. “Girl Effect addresses the demand for aid rather than the supply of it. For example, many organizations are building schools, but they are not filled because lots of cultural norms are preventing girls from attending school. We tackle those social norms.”

And they were having an impact. For example, 84 per cent of girls listening to Yegna, report that it has helped them become more confident, while 76 per cent report it has inspired them to continue their education, according to a 2014 audience survey, conducted by an independent local research agency.

Boys have also been inspired: 95 percent of boys who regularly listen to Yegna agreed that they would speak to someone if they saw a young girl being forced to get married. 

And Yegna has helped change parents’ attitudes, says Asnakech Kebede, 48, a mother of four girls and a primary school teacher. “It used to be culturally unacceptable for girls to stand up straight and speak up, but now parents see their value.” 

For aid workers and activists, the fate of Yegna is a lesson not only in tactics, but also in the limitations of foreign funding — and how much anti-aid sentiment exists in many countries.

Here is the story I wrote for Broadly on Yegna, explaining what Yegna is trying to achieve and how, and why I think it's a project well worth supporting, in spite of the smear campaign by the right-wing media.  Let me know what you think. 

Do It Yourself Online Safety for Women

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Does someone have pictures of you and you don’t know how? Do they keep showing up unexpectedly to places where you are?  Do they know things about your life that you haven’t told many people? 

Modern technology makes it very easy for people to stalk, intimidate and threaten their targets both online and offline. The good news is that there are lots of measures we can take to protect ourselves.  The DIY Online Security Guide for Every Woman, an easy-to-understand guide about online security launched earlier this month, shows some of most important ones.

The Security Guide was designed with women dealing with domestic abuse or stalking in mind, but its principles can be used irrespective of gender, location or situation. It is written in simple language and teach us everything we need to know about how we can be tracked – and how to hide our tracks on email, browsers, Facebook and other platforms.  

The guide, available in English, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Farsi, Urdu, Pashto and French, was developed over two years by CHAYN, an open-source volunteer-led project using technology to address problems women face today. 

CHAYN volunteers got the idea, while listening and speaking to women on Facebook groups for survivors of abuse. They noted that women didn’t know basic security measures they could take to stop the most common forms of online stalking or abuse. 

 “We started showing how their partners were keeping tabs on them by doing simple things like monitoring the check-ins of their best friends whose privacy settings were lax or looking at their Amazon account or browsing history,” says Hera Hussein, a CHAYN volunteer who worked on the guide.  “When we answered their questions, women were so relieved and kept asking why there wasn’t a resource like this.”

For somebody experiencing abuse from a controlling partner, their online activities are often a vital way to reach out for support and guidance. Yet, according to CHAYN research, almost half of women in abusive relationships surveyed in the UK reported that their online activities were monitored in some way by an abusive partner. “This seriously hinders their abilities to communicate freely without having to censor or conceal themselves. In many cases, this has a direct effect on their physical safety and ultimately puts them at risk,” says Aliya Bakheit, another CHAYN volunteer.  “It is important to know what information you may be inadvertently making available to harassers or abusers,” adds CHAYN’s Lee Ball. 

  

When the first draft was completed, CHAYN volunteers asked organizations working with survivors of abuse and stalking, as well as security experts, activists and members of the general public from all over the world to review the guide. 

This guide is not a bullet-proof solution as it cannot include all of the ways abusers can track someone, but it is a collection of useful steps, tips and instructions for women to protect themselves whilst staying connected. The group aims to update the guide regularly so women can receive the latest information on apps and privacy options on social media sites.

The guide has been published on Gitbooks under a Creative Commons Share Alike license, so everyone can remix, share and redistribute contents honouring the same license.

So, go ahead and share it!

PS: August 2018. I was just sent this new great guide on safety online,  which came out recently - also  written by women for women. Have a look and disseminate: 

https://www.vpnmentor.com/blog/the-empowering-internet-safety-guide-for-women/

Meet Sakena Yacoobi – Afghanistan’s mother of education

Sakena Yacoobi in Sayabad learning centre in Afghanistan/  © courtesy of WISE (World Innovation Summit for Education) 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to follow Sakena Yacoobi to remote communities in Afghanistan to see how she teaches women and children how to think for themselves and stand up for their rights.  But here I was at the Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel in London on a rainy day. 

Yacoobi is one of my heroes: someone who makes a difference, who makes the world a better place. She is called “Afghanistan’s mother of education” and for more than two decades she has been transforming lives through community-based education. 

I was so excited to meet her, but she was jet-lagged and drained – a small figure a bit hunched, wrapped in black, with a slow, tired voice. But when she started talking about education, she grew taller, her voice stronger, her eyes shone and her whole being was infused with passion.

Yacoobi was born in Herat, Afghanistan, and could have led a comfortable life in the US where she had studied, then settled as a university professor.  But when Russia invaded Afghanistan, she decided to go to Pakistan where many Afghans had sought refuge and set up schools in refugee camps.  She then moved back to Afghanistan where she opened schools for girls in defiance of the Taliban who had banned education for girls and set strict laws dictating what children could learn.   She wanted to “counteract ignorance” and give thousands of girls, women and unprivileged children a  better chance in life. 

She created the Afghanistan Institute of Learning (AIL) in 1995 and her organization now runs 44 learning centers for women and children in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as four clinics, a hospital, an orphanage, a program for street children and a radio station that brings education to isolated regions.  

She says she has dedicated her life to promoting education because it is the only way to bring peace. “Conflict is the result of ignorance. International governments spend billions of dollars on weapons – just think what that money could do if it went towards education.”

You can read my interview with Yacoobi in New Internationalist here.

Trouble in Paradise: Solomon Islands’ traditions foster inequality

Solomon Islands/ credit: olli0815 /bigstock.com

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Solomon Islands, the string of paradise-looking green islands tucked away in the South Pacific, is a place of exotic beauty where life flows at a gentle pace.  But it also a country with one of the highest rates of violence against women in the world.  And the violence is widely accepted as "the way things are".

A new report by the Equal Rights Trust shows that strong traditions, such as Kastom (Pijin for custom) and Wantok ('one talk') reinforce clan ties, but also emphasise differences and foster discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation.

In particular, the report highlights widespread discrimination against women, which is directly connected to Kastom - in this case, the patriarchal attitudes and gender stereotypes typified by the Bigman culture, whereby communities look to a strong male figure to provide leadership and consider women as inferior to men.

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Members of Solomon Islands YWCA march during International Women’s Day in Honiara by DFAT/Credit:Jeremy Miller

“We found that women are effectively second-class citizens in Solomon Islands; they are invisible in all areas of politics and government and do not participate equally with men in any area of life. Violence against women is alarmingly widespread and widely accepted by both men and women,” said Executive Director of the Equal Rights Trust, Dr Dimitrina Petrova.

Statistics highlighted in the report are startling: more than half of all women experienced sexual violence by an intimate partner and 64% of women between 15 and 49 suffered violence at home.

During a focus group discussion for the report, one woman summarised male attitudes towards women in these terms: “You women are here on earth to give birth and work for us men, and we are your bosses; so do as we say.”

In travel guides, the former British protectorate south-east of Papua New Guinea is presented as a friendly melting pot of cultures and traditions, but the report found serious discrimination between those of different Wantok, community groups based on shared linguistic and cultural heritage.  “Our research found compelling evidence of concern amongst Solomon Islanders that those in positions of power abuse their authority and make corrupt decisions in favour of their Wantok group,” says Petrova.

In addition, the report found that people with disabilities are perceived as “cursed” and denied equality of participation in education, employment and healthcare. And lesbian, gay and bisexual persons are subject to severe social stigma.

The report argues that if Solomon Islands is to move on from the civil unrest, which brought the country to the brink of collapse between 1998 and 2003, its people must stand up and fight traditions which exacerbate difference on the basis of ethnicity, gender, disability and sexual orientation. 

Meet the Queen Mothers of Ghana: taking back their power and driving change in Africa

  Dogkudome Tegzuylle I, Pognaa (Queen Mother) of Lyssah /Credit:Nyani Quarmyne

This summer, we spent a couple of weeks with some truly amazing women in Ghana. They are the Queen Mothers – women who recently reclaimed their ancestral power and are now taking leadership roles in their communities. There are some 10,000 Queen Mothers in villages and towns across the country. They form a remarkable, but little known, network, bringing tangible social and economic development to the country and the continent.

Thanks to a grant from the European Journalism Centre, we (a filmmaker, photographer, TV producer and myself) were able to spend time with Queen Mothers in Lawra Traditional Area, a vast, rural territory in the upper western corner of the country, and in Ho, a town in the Volta region. We wanted to see how Queen Mothers worked at grassroots level. We found strong, warm, charismatic women who managed to accomplish so much with so little.  I often think of them…

Here an article on the Queen Mothers, which I wrote for the Telegraph Magazine, along with beautiful pictures by Nyani Quarmyne.

And for a more immersive experience, watch our multimedia "The Formidable Queen Mothers of Ghana".