The purpose of the 'Mbuya Nehanda Afrikan Women & Reparations Project' is to develop co-produced knowledge about Afrikan women's gendered right to a remedy and reparations which centers Afrikan-Centered Women's perspectives, narratives and cosmologies; & strengthens Afrikan women's political participation and decision-making power in the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR).

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This project has been initiated by the MET in association with the International Network of Scholars & Activists for Afrikan Reparations (INOSAAR) and is being launched in connection with the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations Link (APPGARL) on Afrikan Women & Reparations; with a view to concretising Afrikan 'Womanist' approaches to policy-making and other strategic interventions which is relevant to the work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations (APPGAR).

The Mbuya Nehanda Project was launched on Sunday 20th February 2022, the 124th anniversary of the 20th February 1898 arraignment of Mbuya Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana in the case of ‘The British Queen of England versus Nehanda'. Mbuya Nehanda-Charwe, was a powerful spirit medium committed to upholding traditional Shona culture and heroine of the 1896/7 First Chimurenga war against British settler colonialism. She is one of the greatest Afrikan Sheroes who shaped and influenced the early Afrikan Liberation struggle against the Maangamizi of colonialism. Mbuya Nehanda-Charwe was hanged by the British settler colonial regime on the 27th April, 1898 with Sekuru Gumboreshumba, (the medium of the Keguvi spirit also known as Murenga), for her contributions in mobilising communities against colonial misrule and dispossession. Before she was hanged, her dying words of resistance were that her bones would rise again to lead a new, victorious rebellion against the settlers.

Project Purpose

The purpose of the Mbuya Nehanda Afrikan Women & Reparations Project is to:

(1) develop co-produced knowledge about Afrikan women's gendered right to a remedy and reparations which centers Afrikan-Centered Women's perspectives, narratives and cosmologies;

(2) strengthen Afrikan women's agency, political participation and decision-making power in the International Social Movement for Afrikan Reparations (ISMAR) through supporting them to develop policies and contribute other interventions to the emerging glocal Pempamsiempango (reparations planning) processes; and

(3) in association with the Stop The Maangamizi Campaign, to support international campaigning efforts for the rematriation to Zimbabwe of Mbuya Nehanda's remains being kept against Afrikan people's will at the Natural History Museum in London, England, UK.

(4) connect with veteran Afrikan women freedom-fighters and elders and bring alive and amplify the reparatory justice meaning of their lives and contributions to the Afrikan Liberation Struggle in such a way as to promote their individual and collective rehabilitation, as part of transformative adaptation towards Planet Repairs within the context of Pan-Afrikan Community Regeneration.

This project bears the name of Afrikan Reparationist Mbuya Nehanda because she is a quintessential example of a woman that epitomises how Afrikan women have always resisted the Maangamizi and played central roles in the struggle to effect and secure holistic Afrikan Reparatory including; including the strategic goals of restoration of Afrikan Self-Determination and Nationhood as well as the renewal of Indigenous Afrikan knowledge systems as an essential aspect of Rematriation; i.e. restitution of Afrikan Matriculture/s in furtherance of Planet Repairs, in its Global Justice meaningfulness.


The project outputs include:

• The development of policy recommendations for the glocal Pempamsiempangos (Reparations Alternative Progression Plans).


The project will also engage with wider audiences, further knowledge-exchange, policy-making and community capacity building in a variety of different ways:

• The production of a short video of policy recommendations;

• The development of training materials;

• Online workshop to consider findings among community activists, organisers and civil society researchers.
 

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