Efforts to improve health in sub-Saharan Africa are growing with recognition of those working behind the scenes for communities. La Quinta de Almeida will be the name of the women’s shelter in Bissau, the capital of Guinea-Bissau, that Fátima Djara wants to build with the 30,000 euros prize she received from the NGO Anesvad thanks to her work against female genital mutilation (FGM). “We are restoring the dignity of many women and girls who, thanks to this award, will have the opportunity to be protagonists in their history and their lives,” said the activist during the award ceremony on Wednesday evening in Bilbao.
“We managed to reduce the mutilation of girls between the ages of birth and four from 80% to 27%,” added Adriana Kaplan, director of Wassu Gambia Kafo, an organization that also received an award at the VII edition of the Anesvad Awards , add. a foundation that has been committed to health promotion in Africa for more than half a century. Holding the statuette carved in the shape of Moringa, an indispensable plant in ancient African medicine, Kaplan emphasizes that WGK’s struggle continues: “We continue to work that maybe in the next generation we will talk about giving up MFG”, concluded the anthropologist, confident in a different future for the girls of The Gambia.
These awards remind us that there are many of us who work for sustainable development in contexts that nobody pays attention to
The prize money will also contribute to the work of the NGO Aztivate, which was recognized for the work of its St. Martha Children’s Hospital in Turkana, northern Kenya. “Thank you on behalf of the children of Turkana,” said Javier Corbo, the organization’s president, via telematic message. Garbiñe Biurrun, President of Anesvad, stressed that the three awards give hope to those who care about the health of African communities. “They remind us that there are many of us working for sustainable development in contexts that nobody pays attention to,” Biurrum said.
The ceremony was also attended by the Mayor of Bilbao, the city where Anesvad started his work. Juan Mari Albutó congratulated the winners and called for the West’s efforts to be redoubled in the forgotten lands of Africa: “The sustainability that we speak of in the first world implies repairing the social, economic and environmental damage that hundreds of… years of development and exploitation.”
A space for reflection from Africa to the world
The ceremony also served as an excuse to discuss the current African perspective. In the colloquium Forgotten Crises: Perspectives from Africa Before the Changes in Global Geopolitics, Rosebell Kagumire, Ugandan activist, writer and editor at African Feminism, and José Naranjo, West Africa correspondent for that medium for more than a decade, spoke about the issues and issues expectations of the continent.
José Naranjo and Rosebell Kagumire during the colloquium after the Anesvad award ceremony last Wednesday NGO Anesvad (Anesvad)
The war between Russia and Ukraine opened the discussion. Kagumire and Naranjo agreed on the tragic economic impact the conflict is having on African households, where rising prices make access to essential products increasingly difficult. “A bar of soap that used to cost about two dollars in Uganda now costs six,” says Kagumire, giving an example of this problem.
Despite the attention the Ukraine conflict enjoys on a global scale, both speakers advocated remembering the wars that have long plagued Africa and which are progressing amid global indifference. “What we saw is that the war in Ukraine changed a lot of things for people in Europe, but for many people in Africa the war has always been a reality,” the activist said.
“I was recently in Chad, where there is an active conflict that is causing tens of thousands of displaced people. Some World Food Program workers told me that they had to halve the food aid ration for the displaced because donors were fed up with the crisis,” said Naranjo, who has covered the disasters of several wars in the Sahel region. where Chad is located. “Unfortunately, other crises always seem to be prioritized over those experienced in Africa,” lamented the journalist, who warned of at least 15 armed conflicts that the continent is currently experiencing.
With that in mind, Kagumire insisted that one of the first steps the international community must take to help Africa is to withdraw arms from its territories. “I live in a country (Uganda) that has had a President for over 30 years. This president will not cede power if NATO, Russia, the United States and China are delivering weapons on a daily basis,” says the woman, who insists the path to change is the other way around. “People need food, good health, innovation to change the world… Not all the weapons of war stationed on the continent,” she declared with conviction.
Finally, both Kagumire and Naranjo agreed that the world needs to look at Africa differently. “Now, with all this coming out of Russia and Ukraine, maybe it’s an opportunity to build a new order where Africa has the representation it deserves,” Naranjo said. The author supplemented this idea with a premise: “Humanitarian aid will not be the engine of the future. We have to put justice on the table.” The Ugandan woman wondered about the future of her people if the paradigms are not overcome: “Where is the future of the people if Africa is not taken seriously?”
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