THE 2023 LEAGUE OF AFRICAN WOMEN WRITERS CONFERENCE IN MOROCCO

Matilda Phiri Thursday, March 30, 2023

BY MATILDA PHIRI (President Malawi League Of Women Writers)

The League of African women writers was born after the League of Morocco women writers. Now we have the League of African women writers, an association of African women writers where they meet and share different ideas. There was a conference for 3 days in Morocco, Rabat from 9th to 11th March, 2023 for the league of African women writers. The aim for the League was to help African women get to know each other, further our writing career internationally and also to reap from our works. Many African Countries attended like Malawi, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Burundi, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, DRC, Comoros Islands, Angola, etc.

As women we are powerful and as women writers, we can bring change to our continent. We were advised to write about the history of Africa continent, Children's rights, Women's rights, Human rights and also to lobby for women's rights in our countries. Our work should reach generation to generation. We have to preserve our culture and that every voice should be heard. We write our own culture what we know most. You cannot write what you do not know. And writing also goes with morals and ethics, we should not forget this.

The conference also supported that as Africa, we need to transform digitally as the world is changing every day. We need to meet the needs of digital transformation and as women writers we have a great role to play to achieve this. We should publish our books digitally as literature does not have borders.

The League of African Women Writers’ conference was graced by the minister of culture in Morocco and was held at the National Library of Morocco. The National library is involved with an aim of preserving culture and literally works. The 9th March, 2023 was an important day for Morocco to celebrate African women writers, to celebrate our culture and diversity.

The afternoon session, was for group discussions on declaring the league of African women writers and its committees. The League has a constitution and objectives. The main principles are:

-The importance of thought and culture in the development of relations between peoples and states.

-The importance of thought and culture in contributing to economic, social, cultural and environmental development.

-The importance of being open to the thoughts and cultures of other people's and using them as a mechanism for cooperation and solidarity.

It was noted that most African countries do not have the reading culture and that there is need to find ways to make Africans love reading and buying our books. We learnt that South African Publishers can publish your book if they like it and sell you copies at a cheaper price and if they sell your books you also get your loyalties. We also learnt that we need to translate our books to other languages for wider readers.

The League of African women writers has now been created and is for all African countries and as a participant I was elected as the president of the League in my country. The eligible members of the league will be African women writers. The league also elected league president who is Badia Erradi from Morocco. The league will be funded through public subsidies, subsidies from the private sector, aid from international organizations, membership fees and subscriptions.

As a league, we will have anthologies for all African women writers in different language. We will also create website and upload our books on the website database. There will also be league meetings every 6 months. Long live the League of African Women Writers.