You Can Help Yari Yari Ntoaso Bring Black Women Writers to Ghana
By Gina Athena Ulysse  | Ms Magazine Blog

A diverse gathering of dozens of women writers from Africa and its diaspora will meet in Accra, Ghana from May 16-19. And you can help make it happen by joining the indiegogo campaign that will help women writers attend.

The Organization of Women Writers of Africa Inc  (OWWA) is sponsoring Yari Yari Ntoaso: Continuing the Dialogue—the third Yari Yari event held over the past 15 years. The word yari, from the Kuranko language of Sierra Leone, means “future,” while ntoaso, from the Akan language of Ghana, translates as understanding and agreement. “This Yari Yari will extend the dialogue of the first two Yari Yaris, which put hundreds of women writers and scholars in discussion with thousands of people,” says conference director Rosamond King, a poet and an assistant professor of English at Brooklyn College.

The legendary activist-poet Jayne Cortez founded OWWA, a nonprofit literary organization concerned with developing and advancing the literature of women writers from Africa and its diaspora, along with Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo in 1991. Since its inception, OWWA’s has been creating opportunities for exploration and exchange. In 1997 it sponsored “Yari Yari: Black Women Writers and the Future,” and in 2004 it held “Yari Yari Pamberi: Black Women Writers dissecting Globalization.” Both were held at NYU, co-sponsored in part by the Institute of African-American Affairs, and documentation of the events are available for viewing in their archives at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York City.

via You Can Help Yari Yari Ntoaso Bring Black Women Writers to Ghana.