Akina Mama wa Afrika: Akina Mama wa Afrika is an international development organisation for African women, based in the UK with an Africa regional office in Kampala, Uganda.

In Swahili, Akina Mama wa Afrika means 'solidarity among African women', signifying African sisterhood. The organisation was founded in 1985 by women from different parts of Africa resident in the United Kingdom, to create space for African women to organise and build links with each other to promote their own development.

Coordinating local, regional and international initiatives, Akina Mama serves as a mobilising, networking, information, advocacy and training forum for African women, building their leadership capacities to influence policy and decision-making.

Akina Mama believes in an alternative framework for leadership, which is not based on power and its acquisition and retention, but rather 'challenges and transforms accepted paradigms of leadership which keep women from being in control of their own destinies, and which thrive on their exploitation and exclusion,' says Akina Mama through its website.

"Promoting women's feminist organisations and women's human rights is a core principle or value for us," says board member Everjoice Win in her contribution to the latest edition of the organisation's journal, Leaders. "For us women's human rights are not just about what happens in the public space. It also refers to the sacred spaces of home and intimacy that politicians and the media do not want us to talk about ... We say that culture is changeable. Nothing is a given. We want to question everything. The personal is political. Women have a right to participate and be heard, and controversially, we need to engage with men on our terms."

Akina Mama also serves as a research forum on African women's issues, and its objectives are to influence policies that affect African women at national, regional and international levels; participate in the construction of a feminist epistemology by African women; strengthen and promote African women's feminist leadership; and respond to the leadership needs of African women and African women's organisations.

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To achieve these objectives Akina Mama conducts training programmes, publishes documents and books for use by the general public and is essentially a well-known source of genuine information regarding the situation of women on the African continent.

Akina Mama has also contributed a new approach to the telling of the African story--called 'herstory'. Herstory is the re-telling of Africa's history through her women. Many African women have contributed politically, economically and socially to the evolution of the continent--yet the stories of Africa have largely been told by foreigners or African men--rarely have the women contributed to the story of Africa.

According to Zeedah Mangeli, the executive director of Akina Mama, it is crucial that herstory be included in Africa's archives to prevent falsehoods and the further relegation of African women to the second class tier of society.

"Over generations, women have lost power, resources, land and property, because the 'guardians' of society's 'memory' chose to forget that women ever had rights and control over these assets. When their successes as women are remembered, per-haps there might be an increased chance for future generations to break the constraints of oppression and abuse," said Mangeli.