“Freedom is what I truly look for as a human being” – Chanceline Mevowanou (Benin)

My name is Chanceline Gwladys Wangninan Mevowanou, my friends and family call me “Chance”. I’m from Benin and I’m 25 years old. I grew up in Avankrou, a town in southern Benin in Ouémé department. I currently live in Cotonou, not far from the beach. I love the beach. Watching the sea helps soothe my anxiety, shut down the noise in my mind and clear my thoughts.

I like chill evenings and parties. Now you know that you must invite me to your parties. I love scented candles, wine, backpacks, and sneakers. I wear sneakers with almost every outfit (don’t call the Fashion Police, please 😄😂). 

Freedom is truly what I look for as a human being. My goal is to grow, to fulfil myself on my terms, and to thrive in environments where I can live a dignified and nurtured life. I want to exist freely. It’s for that freedom that I am a feminist first and a feminist activist second. I want to be free, free from the patriarchy and all the other systems of oppression that feed it. That’s why I’m in action. I personally and collectively want to contribute to the dismantling of systems that brainwash women, hinder their freedom, and destroy their humanity.

I had my first feminist awakening within my family and my village. My mother told me how my father decided to only send the boys to school and to let the girls take care of the house chores. I remember seeing my father hitting my mother in front of us during an argument and throwing her belongings outside. I also clearly remember how my mom stayed after experiencing this violence. I heard her say that she would stay with her children no matter what. She said that she would put up with anything. 

In my village, I saw the injustice that children, girls, and women particularly endured, and still endure, repeatedly. I remember the stories of women who were frequently beaten by their spouses for one thing or the other; of families who abused their children, using beatings as well as demeaning language to supposedly educate them. I also experienced this. My parents and the “grown-ups” would beat us to teach us manners. I was repulsed by this “violence” we were raised in. This violence is doubled for girls. Because they are girls. I saw many girls from my village quit school. They were sent back home or forced into marriage because of early pregnancy. My father also threatened to send us back home if one of us became pregnant without graduating high school. I was constantly afraid. When I first had my period, my parents almost took me to the hospital to check if I was still a virgin. I strongly believed that we could be raised differently and that they could talk to us. I felt a lot of anger regarding these treatments.  

My parents taught me that if I became a strong woman, no one would dare hit me or humiliate me as they did the other women, girls, and children. They told me that if I had a job, money, a house, and other possessions, no man would disrespect me or lay a hand on me. They said that going to school was the path to becoming such a strong woman. I would also see women on TV and say that I would be like them: free to express myself. So, I saw school as a pathway to freedom, the path to stop experiencing injustice. I had this theory: the more kids would go to school, especially girls, the more they would be prepared to react to injustice and not experience it silently. That was what I believed in. That’s why I studied hard in school.  

At school, I didn’t simply study. I did everything to be among the best students and to be rewarded for it.  To show people that girls are strong. I wanted to stand out because of my excellent grades, my insightful answers, and my ability to speak my mind and speak in public.  I also got involved in extracurricular activities that would allow me to strengthen my self-confidence. I was a member of the middle school drama and dance groups. I developed a passion for poetry and slam poetry. I viewed these groups as a place to talk with my peers about things I couldn't discuss at home. I started writing about the importance of sex education for children as well as fighting against violence against girls and women. I practiced thinking, brainstorming, coming up with ideas, writing, and initiating conversations with peers.

Writing and slam poetry were my first tools for action. Then there were the scenes we had to perform on stage. I noticed that after each of our performances, whether it was in class or during culture day, people would ask questions and talk about these issues and a conversation would arise. So, I continued. Writing, theatre and slam deeply changed me as a person, liberated my thinking and my voice, and pushed me down a path of free and unorganised community organising. They showed me how I could begin to get into action without waiting to become a strong woman.

In the 11th grade, Peace Corps volunteers came to our school to run a girls’ empowerment program. I was in the selection of the best girls who should participate in this program, and then I was granted a scholarship for the program. We were given training and exempted from paying school fees for two years. We were two girls on a scholarship. With the volunteers and the two teachers delegated by the school to run this program, we followed several training courses on girls' leadership, gender, puberty management, and role models. This training strengthened my abilities, my beliefs, and my will to act for the rights of girls and children. 

I started moderating school clubs. In the first girls’ clubs that I ran, we focused on what we experienced as girls, women’s realities, the other students around us, and how many people, us included, had to discuss it to find answers together. I believe that when something’s wrong in our communities, we ought to talk about it and have conversations! Because we won’t find solutions without conversations, the tool that allows us to understand why and how children, girls, and women are affected. 

That was the mindset I was in after graduating high school: mobilising and gathering girls and boys, women and men around issues that affect us and fuel conversations that will lead to action. I went back to my village to set up initiatives and people - upon seeing me doing this - called me an activist and a feminist. I carried these two hats for a long time before deciding to understand what they meant. I had to understand and then build what being an activist and a feminist meant for me. I think that’s what I’m currently doing. Along the way, my understanding of inequalities evolved and is still evolving. The injustices that women face in our societies are mere symptoms and expressions of bigger oppressive systems. These systems influence our lives, our thoughts, our beliefs, our norms, our actions, our policies, the economy, and our societies’ growth… And we can resist, challenge them loudly and dismantle them. No woman will ever talk too much or write too much in our societies as they are today.  Let’s raise our voices and liberate our thoughts and our actions. 

I found Eyala at a time when I was exhausted from being the young feminist activist working in an NGO where her feminism might not grow. I remembered that I had to seize opportunities to keep on being part of conversations for the radical liberation of every African girl and woman.  I want to take part in important conversations for my generation and amplify the voices and actions of African feminists. In self-preservation and sisterhood. I want to be where we discuss and act together to dismantle the patriarchy. That's why I joined Eyala. Join us on our journey as a feminist collective.

“Whether you think you can or not is neither here nor there, I believe you can…” - Edwige Dro (Côte d'Ivoire)

Accra / Prampram – Ghana

For the past five months, we’d been solely meeting online, and chatting via WhatsApp as we planned the content of Eyala for its relaunch, as we dug deep into Eyala’s vision: To be a platform by, for and about African feminists. As we went through the treasure that Françoise had gathered throughout the years. Watch this space!

Throughout those five months, we wondered whether we had what it took to be the aunties with the mostest for Eyala, with Françoise not even having a care in the world as to the welfare of her baby.

“Whether you think you can or not is neither here nor there. I believe you can; otherwise I would never have come to you,” she said, and we had to believe her, that we could manage without dropping the baby on its head.

And while we did a lot via Zoom, well, Zoom is not able to replace human interactions nor does it allow for silence, or for those conversations that veer off, seemingly having nothing to do with the topic at hand but containing in them the seed for something fantastic. And that is why the retreat had to be, because we had to meet to dig down with the relaunch of Eyala, to meet with our wonderful community in Accra, and to actually meet!

And meet, we did.

We will spare you the search for a coffee percolator that had us go from a coffee shop to a mall to a supermarket. Phone calls were even made, dear readers, and half a day of meeting flew off, but we found the coffee percolator, a coffee plunger aptly named Kofi the Coffee Maker. Once it was found, we then continued on our journey to Prampram. For the next three days, from 9am until 6pm, with two hours allocated to lunch, we planned the relaunch of Eyala… looking at materials that we already had, things we had to write about as conversations veered off, and the values we stood for, among which, lovingness and kindness as we engage with African feminists and with African feminist conversations. Most importantly though, we got to meet, get to know each other, and we got to have fun! The love is real, and not just via Zoom.

Jama is not only a boss of a content strategist and planner, but she is also the sister with all the quotes. As for Nana, we are unanimously calling her the Executive Coordinator-in-Chief. Nothing fazes that woman, not even being in an environment she has never been in before, organizing working spaces, whether that space is a conference room or tables by the ocean. Françoise’s confidence-boosting chats during lunches and dinners, and the openness and the transparency she wore every day. Then there were the cards we exchanged as we wrapped up the retreat. Cards with such uplifting and encouraging words that demand no other response but, “Just step into your power already!”

   Then it was back to Accra, where our Accra-based Afrifem community gave us the warmest of welcome, shared what they were looking forward to, and asked how they could be of help. How wonderful to be supported, uplifted, and challenged by women, even when you make them drive around Accra in search of a coffee percolator, as I did!

Did I mention the laughter? Oh, the laughter! Laughter during our meals as we protested the bonfire the resort was trying to push on us and demanded instead that they bring back the Kelewele. Laughter as we were regaled with the very on-point quotes by Jama Jack. And laughter as we pondered the what about-ism that has seems to rear its ugly head every time feminists reflect or do anything to dismantle the ever-pervading patriarchy entangling everyone.

Need I add that we all looked forward to getting home, and getting to work, while making plans that these Eyala retreats should become a tradition. 

“Taking my foot off the accelerator… ” – Edwige-Renée Dro (Côte d'Ivoire)

Recently a friend wrote a portrait about me. In it, she mentioned all those things I undertake in the following words:

She is Program Coordinator for AYADA Lab. She is a Miles Morland fellow working on her first novel, a translator, and a reader for the Commonwealth Foundation. All this takes place alongside running a library, residencies, literary judging roles, leading writing and literary translation workshops, publishing and writing short stories, her favourite genre, and translating.

She went on to add: I’m in awe of all Edwige does.

Put like that, even I am in awe of all that I do. Another friend once asked me, “How do you manage?” and I replied, “As long as I have 8 hours’ sleep, I’m good to go.”

It is very much true that I require 8 hours’ sleep – not 9, not 10 because then I get up groggy and tired and cannot do anything. So, eight hours. No less, and no more. On those occasions I have thought that I could do so much more if I slept less, probably after reading some silly books that tell you to sleep for five hours to achieve more, or when I have listened to capitalistic soundbites like, I’ll sleep when I’m dead, I have not achieved more. In fact, I have ended up being tired and lethargic, and not productive at all, thereby not achieving anything. I have also come to realise that I do not do all the things I do because I’m on a course to achieve something, to be the Madam on Top; I’m just a passionate person and all the things I do are natural sequences of all those things I’m passionate about. 

When I take part in interviews or I’m asked to send my bio, you will always read these words: Edwige Renée Dro is a writer, a literary translator, and a literary activist. 

It isn’t the fact that I wrote down somewhere that I would become a writer, and then I would do A, B, C and D and move into translation. No, rather, these things have been natural sequences. I’m a conversationalist. I love politics and its impact on our lives and I’m that person who believes that everything is political. So in choosing to translate literature and other things that feed into my politics, I was interested in bringing in new voices to whatever conversation was happening then, and at that time, the conversation was very much focused on Africa being the future, the hopeful continent, the place to watch; these soundbites coming in very much from the West, and living in Africa, I’m very much aware of how the continent can still be confined to its linguistic borders, so I was interested in bridging the gap and for me, stories bridge gaps. 

When I set up the 1949 library in Yopougon Abidjan, I wanted to address the social inequalities I see in the city of Abidjan. I adopted a feminist approach because I was sick and tired of seeing the stories of African and black women being buried or the edges of their stories softened. And now, being the French content writer for Eyala is another one of those natural sequences.

During the reflection period for 1949, Eyala was one of those platforms I consulted often. I appreciated the accessibility in the language, the musings and interviews that called for reflection and conversations and pondering in a kind of let’s gather and chat way. The desire that shone through to have a collective where individuality shone. I enormously appreciated the fact that the platform was French-English bilingual – nobody was playing catch-up on that platform.

So, when Françoise asked me if I would be interested in being part of the adventure, absolutely, I said yes. I also said yes because this adventure would be getting me out of my comfort zone, if simply for the fact that I would be writing in French and not English. But again, writing in French at this moment in my life is another natural sequence. I have noticed that the conversations around feminism in Africa, and even around the world, are very much English language focused. Even references seem to be dominated by what is happening in the anglophone African sphere. It feels like a woe betide situation if you should not know some African feminists, all because said feminist had been lucky (what other word is there?) to be born in the English-speaking part of the continent. Like that time, I pretended not to know a particular big name because of that hegemony, and I was met with, “How can you not know…?” 

In the same way you don’t know Constance Yai, or Awa Thiam. What’s the problem?

So, as I let myself be taken in by these natural sequences, I want to embrace stepping outside my comfort zone: by writing in French, yes, but by also laying down some of the many things I do. Before I would be saying yes to this and that,but here I am, choosing to cruise along and take in all the sights, listening to all the sounds, and just being attuned to the natural sequences of the little things that make up life.

“I pray my feet will always take me where my heart leads” – Jama Jack (The Gambia)

I cannot remember when I first started writing, but I know that it is my most comfortable means of expression. When I speak and people praise my eloquence, many among them do not know that I would rather write than speak. 

My journey with my voice has taken so many turns in the thirty and some years that I have existed in this world. With each turn, there is an awakening to this true gift of expression that I am reminded to embrace as a blessing. 

When I was young, living timidly in my little shell, you would always find my nose (or maybe my whole body) buried into a book. My appetite for reading was fed by my mother who would always buy us books to read and made heavy investments in quality education for us. I remember when she went to study for her Master’s in the UK and brought a big box of books for my sister and me, instead of the fancy party clothes we had been requesting in the year she spent away. 

My uncle - of blessed memory - would also come home daily and give me the newspapers he brought home from work. Sometimes we would read them together and analyse the news. I also remember Sarjo, one of our domestic workers from my childhood who once told me that I will be stolen by jinns because I had developed a habit of picking scraps of paper on the streets to read what was written on them. 

The more I read, the more I wanted to write; and the more this desire filled my chest, the bigger my courage to put pen to paper and express my thoughts, whether in my padlocked diaries or through poems and short stories I wrote for school. 

As I grew up and found new understanding of the world around me, my voice also grew, each time in alignment with my values and the things that I was passionate about but picking up courage to discover new horizons.

It grew from the 10-year-old voice demanding the respect of children’s rights and advocating for support to People Living With HIV, to the 19-year-old voice that had found a name and community for her feminism, to the 31-year-old voice that continues to learn and grow in the ways it comes out to me and to the world. 

A while ago, I tweeted about being grateful that my paid work included a lot of writing, thinking of how it may fit into a ‘dream job’ ideation. However, I also recognised the challenge of lapses in creative drive when I have deadlines hovering above me and activating bouts of anxiety. In understanding this feeling, especially over the past two years (because pandemic writing), I have been teaching myself to move into a space of grace and patience for myself and my creative process. I am accepting, with each new challenge, that my words come to me when I am ready, and sometimes force me towards the medium through which I will share. 

Respecting and trusting in the process has allowed me to say a resounding ‘YES’ to many things that I would have thought impossible or unreachable. I have very happily embraced the transition from writing only for a blog to writing for the big screen and immersing myself in the world of filmmaking. Though tedious and sometimes scary, that journey has been so beautiful that I often find myself daydreaming about a future where all I do is make films, write books, and explore my creativity fully. 

One thing that has remained consistent in those dreams is that I wish to do all this in ways that serve humanity and align with my feminist journey. 

This is why even when self-doubt hit me a million times, I chose to say YES to Eyala and the new journey we are taking together. I remember speaking to a friend about my Eyala role in the early days and describing it as the very intersection of feminist creative storytelling that I wish to exist in forever. Doing this with a community of awesome colleagues is the cherry on top of this wonderful cake, and I hope my feelings of excitement ahead of team meetings never leaves me. Who gets excited for 2-hour Zoom meetings, eh?

I still wake up on some days feeling very anxious about the trust that has led me here, and the expectation (really from myself) to excel and give my absolute best. But, I also know that I don’t have to do this alone, and there is great beauty in sharing journeys and building community with people who don’t see your dreams as “too big” or dismiss your fears as unnecessary. 

As I continue to read, write, and create, I pray my feet will always take me where my heart leads, because she has always found great spaces and fulfilling experiences for me.