Help Start the All Black Women Library
Donation protected
Sistah Circle Collective was launched in December 2018 and is a grassroot community organizing space based in Rwanda. It is a decolonizing Black feminist and womanist organization tailored to address the needs of Black women and girls by curating and providing safe spaces for and by Black women to exchange experiences, resources and knowledge. Sistah Circle Collective is a labor of love from the Black women of Rwanda living across the globe and operates under the graciousness of grants and funds and support from other radical decolonial and/or grassroot organizations and personnels.
Today, the collective is made up of a team of six women operating in and through indigenous village politics of organizing. In the short period of less than a year, Sistah Circle Collective has held five events, including the invitation of international scholars of Afrikan history and storytelling such as Malawian Upile Chisala who made Forbes under 30 Afrikan creatives. Additionally, it has 3 programs already established namely; intimate circle, feminist brunches and curated panels.
A core belief of Sistah Circle Collective is providing material for young Black women and girls who wish to learn more about feminism, Black history, Black women's history in organizing and engage with scholars/ scholarship that reflect shared experiences of Black womanhood. To this reason, Sistah Circle Collective is launching a new program of establishing a reading list and library centering Black/ Afrikan feminist and womanist oriented books across various feminist fields. Moreover, books by women authors that have been fundamental to the growth of the continent and diaspora, the fight for emancipation and liberation as well as the works to which we owe much knowledge about the gender equity movement that Rwanda is highly part of. The All Black Women Library is set to be a space that supports Black creatives, writers, and scholars, show that there is fast knowledge by Black women and contributions in terms of theory and practice to the collective resistance and liberation of Black communities as well as prioritizing knowledge from our own communities as a form of decolonizing both theory and organizing as seen in the global sense.
The All Black Women Library additionally would be the only library with the focus on women's works in Rwanda to further tackle issues or silencing and erasure of women in our communities but also go beyond encouraging young women who want to become writers, poets, scholars and so forth by practicing the consumption and celebration of knowledge from Black women. To show, first ourselves and then everyone that Afrikan women too have been theorizing through various avenues and it is time to acknowledge them.
To make the All Black Women Library happen, Sistah Circle has various ways for community members and allies of Black women and Black scholarship to be a part of it. We will have the option for folks to donate both money via money apps and GoFundMe as well as donate books (to which can be shipped to either US, Kenya, Rwanda and the UK addresses). Additionally, we are seeking out grassroot organizations that share similar goals to donate both money and books. The money will help us purchase the books, ship them, find a place to house the library, purchasing shelves as well as other materials used in the library and other miscellaneous expenses of starting a library.
Today, the collective is made up of a team of six women operating in and through indigenous village politics of organizing. In the short period of less than a year, Sistah Circle Collective has held five events, including the invitation of international scholars of Afrikan history and storytelling such as Malawian Upile Chisala who made Forbes under 30 Afrikan creatives. Additionally, it has 3 programs already established namely; intimate circle, feminist brunches and curated panels.
A core belief of Sistah Circle Collective is providing material for young Black women and girls who wish to learn more about feminism, Black history, Black women's history in organizing and engage with scholars/ scholarship that reflect shared experiences of Black womanhood. To this reason, Sistah Circle Collective is launching a new program of establishing a reading list and library centering Black/ Afrikan feminist and womanist oriented books across various feminist fields. Moreover, books by women authors that have been fundamental to the growth of the continent and diaspora, the fight for emancipation and liberation as well as the works to which we owe much knowledge about the gender equity movement that Rwanda is highly part of. The All Black Women Library is set to be a space that supports Black creatives, writers, and scholars, show that there is fast knowledge by Black women and contributions in terms of theory and practice to the collective resistance and liberation of Black communities as well as prioritizing knowledge from our own communities as a form of decolonizing both theory and organizing as seen in the global sense.
The All Black Women Library additionally would be the only library with the focus on women's works in Rwanda to further tackle issues or silencing and erasure of women in our communities but also go beyond encouraging young women who want to become writers, poets, scholars and so forth by practicing the consumption and celebration of knowledge from Black women. To show, first ourselves and then everyone that Afrikan women too have been theorizing through various avenues and it is time to acknowledge them.
To make the All Black Women Library happen, Sistah Circle has various ways for community members and allies of Black women and Black scholarship to be a part of it. We will have the option for folks to donate both money via money apps and GoFundMe as well as donate books (to which can be shipped to either US, Kenya, Rwanda and the UK addresses). Additionally, we are seeking out grassroot organizations that share similar goals to donate both money and books. The money will help us purchase the books, ship them, find a place to house the library, purchasing shelves as well as other materials used in the library and other miscellaneous expenses of starting a library.
Organizer
Sistah Circle
Organizer
United States
