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Jessica Horn

Akiiki Consulting

Jessica Horn is a feminist activist and founder of Akiiki Consulting, a consultancy focused on women’s rights, health and social change. Before founding Akiiki, Horn played an integral role at other organizations such as donor Sigrid Rausing Trust and African women’s network Amanitare. She is also a founding member of the African Feminist Forum. When we caught up with Horn to talk about her work it quickly became clear that she is interested in progress and change at the most fundamental level: “the politics that I convey in any public forum...[are] in fact a collective politics and not only my own. It is an African feminist politics grounded in an understanding that we need to redistribute power at all levels, we need deep transformation!”

In particular, Horn’s work both as an activist and poet reflects the life experiences of African women: “In my poetry I explore violence, beauty and the mixed landscapes of African women’s lives...We live in our bodies- a reality that means that all injustice as well as all liberations play out on our bodies. Take the issue of HIV. We know that the reasons young African women are up to 6 times more likely to be living with HIV than young African men [are] not just a question of biology or the patterns of viral transmission. It is result of the fact that young women are more likely to be coerced into sex, as well as social norms that make it harder for women to negotiate condom use. Health issues are unavoidably justice issues, our bodies are the first site of struggle!”

While Horn’s activism takes shape in a number of different ways, the main thrust of her work is supporting efforts around expanding health, rights and choices around women’s bodies, including on violence against women, sexuality, and HIV/AIDS. Despite an ever growing industry of “aid work” in Africa, Horn reminds us that “African struggles are not only struggles for ‘basic needs’--food, safety in your own community, access to healthcare, dignified work--these issues will only be resolved if we tackle how power is used in society.”

Lilian Ajayi founded and leads the Global Connections for Women Foundation (GC4W), a not-for-profit organization that seeks to tackle one of the problems outlined in the Millennium Development Goals, established by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) (a list of eight concrete goals including the promotion of gender equality and women empowerment that UNDP hopes to confront by 2015).

Before forming GC4W, Lilian studied International Relations at Harvard University and worked at the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to the United Nations. She also sits on the Board of Directors of the Nigerian American Agricultural Empowerment Program (NAAEP), esta本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。