Message from the Director

In addition, the Centre recognises that, in our region, we continue to refer to and use theories and frameworks whose basic assumptions do not include African women’s worldview. Theories of power, political and other, need to be interrogated from the African women’s experiences point-of-view. Looking at such novels as Margaret Ogola’s The River and The Source (Kenya), Mariama Ba’s So Long a Letter (Senegal) and Lena Elieshi’s “Parched Earth’’ (Tanzania), among other books, will help us understand what this means.

Despite the remarkable growth of gender and women’s studies in Africa over the last three (3) decades, and the intellectual importance of this work, it is still difficult to find works on African women in our libraries and resource rooms. This situation makes it difficult to develop a sense of the historical, intellectual and creative ingenuity of the African woman’s ideas and analyses, the development of theories, and the manner in which they can influence our thinking. The AWSC seeks to bring these views, perspectives, knowledge and experiences to the fore. The Centre addresses the need to have special focus on African women and women of African descent in order to bring their views and perspective into mainstream academic and policy dialogue.

The establishment of the African Women Studies Centre was a journey, a worthwhile journey. The process towards the establishment of the Centre received full backing of the women and men at the University. With great support of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Student Affairs) Prof. Isaac Mbeche (then Principal, College of Humanities & Social Sciences-CHSS), and the Principal of the CHSS, Prof. Enos Njeru, (then Dean, Faculty of Arts). With the support, the journey towards the birth of AWSC was well on course.

Our appreciation goes to the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Stephen Gitahi Kiama, for his tremendous support right from the beginning.

We at the AWSC thank all those who have made the great idea of bringing the African women’s experiences and knowledge to the centre of academic discourse, policy dialogue and national development to a reality.