The Sawaba Institute for Critical Consciousness Raising
The Sawaba Institute for Critical Consciousness Raising was designed to nurture African revolutionary theory and praxis through creating space for curiosity, rigorous theorisation and collective inquiry. It is a place where epistemic and epistemological agency are reclaimed, cultivated, and exercised in the pursuit of liberation.
Sawaba, meaning freedom or redemption in Hausa, honours the enduring legacy of Hajia Gambo Sawaba, who began organising for the liberation of women and children in Northern Nigeria at just seventeen. Her life reminds us that liberation is not inherited; it is practised, defended, and carried forward by each generation.
The Sawaba Institute brings together feminist organisers, scholars, queer rights activists, lawyers, judges, artists, grassroots organisers, storytellers, and everyone committed to building more liberated futures.
What The Institute Does
Expands worldviews by equipping scholars, artists, feminist organisers, community organisers and those deconstructing dominant narratives and assumptions with tools for critical inquiry.
Brings experiences of oppression into public and political discourse, midwifing individual and collective experiences into knowledge, analysis and possibilities for transformation.
Nurtures African feminist revolutionary movement-building across the continent and the diaspora.
Creates spaces for reflection, exchange and meaning-making by building links through experience-based discourse and convenings that share knowledge, strengthen solidarity and sustain liberatory praxis on the continent.
Interrogates normative institutions and dominant assumptions by supporting seekers to ask critical questions of law, the state, family and religion, while examining prevailing ideas of power, gender, race, justice and identity.
Creates space to reimagine liberated frameworks, structures and systems that move us towards decolonial liberation.
