La Voix des Résilientes: West African women creators

The UNESCO Regional Office in Dakar invites you to join its digital campaign La Voix des Résilientes (The Voice of the Resilient). For two weeks, you will discover the portraits and backgrounds of 10 West African designers with diverse, inspiring and unique profiles.

Two webinars organized on 3 and 4 August 2020 will launch the campaign through which these role models of the West African creative community will carry their voices and refound the discourse on gender.

The digital campaign will continue on social networks, including Facebook and Instagram, where everyone will tell their stories through short energetic, smart and inspiring portraits. These women testify to their vision, their analysis, their strategy to forge their way in the cultural and creative industries but also to face gender inequalities and, now to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has a major impact on the private and professional lives of women.

La Voix des Résilientes promotes and recognizes the contribution of these role models to the dynamism of cultural and creative sectors, whether it be cinema, music, fashion design, digital art, photography, painting or again from the exhibition curator. It is an initiative that presents itself as a space for dialogue but also a showcase for the enhancement and development of a new paradigm of thought on gender, which is more sensitive, adapted and inclusive.

These portraits will highlight Esi Atiase (videographer and president of the video-mapping collective ZOOM and of the SANAA FACES project), Fatima Bocoum (Exhibition curator and initiator of the online magazine OpenLetr), Fatoumata Diabaté (Photographer and president of the association of women photographers of Mali), Rama Diaw (Stylist and fashion designer, business manager), Khadidia Djigo (Manager of CanalOlympia Senegal and focal point for the English-speaking area in Africa), Maah Keita (First Senegalese bassist within of the TaKeifa group and president of the Care for Albinism association), Daba Sarr (President of Tringa Musique et Développement and of the AfricaFête festival), Dieynaba Sidibé dit Zeïnixx (First graffiti artist from Senegal and slam artist), Ndeye Fatou Thiam (Photographer and responsible for Urban Women Week project) with the participation of Maimouna Dembele (Head of Music in Africa, International Communicator and Program Producer), and Ayoko Mensah (Institutional Advisor and artistic programming manager at BOZAR Brussels, cultural specialist) will moderate the 2 webinars.

La Voix des Résilientes aligns itself with the global UNESCO #ResiliArt movement and the initiative of the UNESCO Dakar Office entitled “The Laboratories of COVID19”. It is above all part of a sustainable vision of the Dakar Regional Office which, for five years, has been carrying out pioneering actions in favor of the protection and promotion of women’s rights in the creative sector in West Africa, in the spirit of of the 2005 Convention and the Sustainable Development Goals. Support actions help to make the work of creative women visible, to promote equal representation in decision-making bodies, to promote equal access to funding, technical resources and professional networks, but also to fight against prejudices locking women away. still today in stereotypical statutes. This activity is also made possible thanks to the project Strengthening Cultural Policies through Fundamental Freedoms funded by the Swedish Agency for International Development and Cooperation.

Join La Voix des Résilientes and discover the universe of these Yennengas of cultural and creative industries

• On the UNESCO Dakar Facebook page (Facebook event) and on Instagram where the contents of the digital campaign will be broadcast for eight days;
• Do not miss the webinars which will take place on August 3 and 4 from 2:30 p.m. (Dakar time) click on the following links to follow the webinars or directly on the UNESCO Dakar Facebook page.

Webinar on August 3 at 2:30 p.m. (Dakar): you are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: Aug 3, 2020 02:30 PM
Theme: La Voix des Résilientes: West African women creators (in French)
Please click here to join the webinar.
Secret code: 940730

Webinar on August 3 at 2:30 p.m. (Dakar): you are invited to a Zoom webinar.
When: Aug 4, 2020 04:30 PM
Theme: La Voix des Résilientes: West African women creators (in French)
Please click here to join the webinar.
Secret code: 281129