“The African Woman wants to advance without letting anyone fall behind”

​Antoinette Kankindi, Professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at Strathmore University (Kenya) has been awarded the Harambee 2017 Prize for the Promotion and Equality of the African Woman for her project “African Women Leadership”, an initiative aiming at “unveiling the leadership” of women of her continent, “without letting anyone fall behind”.

Antoinette Kankindi receiving the Harambee 2017 Award for the Promotion and Equality of African Women

The essence of the program from Africa, aimed at the women of Africa is “to reduce inequalities by fostering equality of opportunity towards attaining economic independence, so as to prevent young Kenyan women from leaving to join queues of immigrants in other Western countries.”

By means of theoretical and practical formation, Kankindi enables African women between 24 and 35 years of age to lead their families, their businesses and society, thus “unifying their traditional values and the challenges of the 21 st century”. The training program she develops aims at an integral preparation of her students, to qualify them to exercise their public responsibility with more effectiveness.

Further, the African Women Leadership program aims at uniting urban and rural societies by consolidating a decent employment for the young women of Kenya, fostering entrepreneurship and strengthening family and social leadership through their formation.

In practice, the project offers resources to the young participants, enabling them to set up small and medium-size enterprises that improve sustainable life resources for other women. This way of fighting poverty and the marginalization of women from Africa is the essence of the project recognized by Harambee. It expects to promote initiatives from the continent that help dignify the lifestyle of African society starting from the women “authentic engine of Africa”

Dr. Antoinette Kankindi

Kankindi has been grateful for the world-wide solidarity with the Dark Continent, but as an intellectual leader of an indigenous social revolution, she has indicated that “what truly helps us is women’s access to education” and the development of initiatives that practically confirm the potential of feminine leadership towards the future of Africa’s inhabitants.

The Congolese philosopher has pointed out that “woman is the guardian of African social values, handed over from generation to generation, as well as being responsible for making such values respected and lived also by men.”

Kankindi has underlined that the advancement of the role of women in African societies is compatible with keeping the principles of coexistence. In this sense, she has pointed out that her priority in developing this project is “to prevent the women whom we form for their good and the good of our society from retreating into liberal individualism, a novelty that is spreading very rapidly in African countries”.

The Harambee 2017 Award is sponsored by the René Furterer laboratories, a pharmaceutical enterprise with social responsibility. It explores the talent of authentic African tradition and fosters collaborative agreements that favour decent work, especially of women, by offering resources and business for the indigenous development of African societies.