Celebrating the role of women in Zambian history
Originally published on Amaka Studio
This Women’s History Museum Is Boldly Championing the Contributions of Zambian Women
Whether it’s the Museum of Black Civilisations in Senegal, Benin’s Zinsou foundation or the National Museum of Slavery in Angola, ‘decolonising’ education and narratives relating to Africa’s various cultures is becoming increasingly important, particularly for the continent’s burgeoning tourism sector. For artist Mulenga Kapwepwe and journalist Samba Yonga, Black women have always been an integral force for the development of nations, including their native Zambia. With this knowledge in mind, they decided to embark on constructing a museum to commemorate and celebrate these contributions: The Women’s History Museum of Zambia (WHM).
“We were set up in 2016 as a way of using digital media and platforms to restore mainstream indigenous narratives and systems of knowledge that have been obscured, mainly around women,” Yonga tells me.
Mulenga and Samba have been friends for several years, in fact the idea for a women’s history museum transpired in one of their regular discussions about women’s history and indigenous knowledge in Zambia. When you look at their impressive credentials, it’s easy to see why this was made possible. Their communications and art backgrounds are steeped in both their love for storytelling and their Zambian identity. Yonga is the Founder of Ku-Atenga Media, a media consultancy firm, and was named one of Destiny’s “Power of 40” most influential women in Africa in 2017, while Kapwepwe is the chairperson of the National Arts Council, the founder of the Lusaka Youth Orchestra, and is also known for her work as a playwright and arts activist who has built libraries to help young Zambian children educate themselves.
“We were set up in 2016 as a way of using digital media and platforms to restore mainstream indigenous narratives and systems of knowledge that have been obscured, mainly around women,” Yonga tells me.
museum’s site is hosting three online collections, one of which includes traditional quilts from the 1940s as well as hundreds of colonial and post-colonial audio recordings courtesy of the Basler Afrik Institute.
Similar to other continental African cultures, oral histories are particularly significant in preserving the knowledge of family lineages and communal histories. However, Scott D. Taylor in his book ‘Cultures and customs of Zambia’, explains that unlike in certain West African cultures where the role of the ‘griot’ or the storyteller is designated intergenerationally through men, both men and women are able to assume that position, particularly in rural areas.
The Women’s History Museum of Zambia was set up to preserve and restore indigenous knowledge and the histories of Zambian women, while also collecting and exhibiting women’s crafts, artifacts and political contributions to the country’s independence movement and its aftermath. Currently, the museum’s site is hosting three online collections, one of which includes traditional quilts from the 1940s as well as hundreds of colonial and post-colonial audio recordings courtesy of the Basler Afrik Institute.
Similar to other continental African cultures, oral histories are particularly significant in preserving the knowledge of family lineages and communal histories. However, Scott D. Taylor in his book ‘Cultures and customs of Zambia’, explains that unlike in certain West African cultures where the role of the ‘griot’ or the storyteller is designated intergenerationally through men, both men and women are able to assume that position, particularly in rural areas.
It’s within this same spirit that Samba and Malenga hope they can establish a permanent home for the museum. They are working towards moving the museum’s artifacts to the Chaminuka Nature Reserve in 2022. The location is a 40,000 acre reserve about 40km northeast of Lusaka, home to over 7, 000 exotic animals, as well as about 300 species of birds, some native to the land and others visiting water bodies for rest during their long migrations. For Mulenga and Samba, there is no better place than Chaminuka to become a spiritual center for women’s contributions to Zambian culture.
“You can’t speak about women without discussing the natural world. We believe indigenous women to be the first eco-feminists,” says Kapwepwe.
As with many purpose-made art institutions, including other museums, the current pandemic has proven to be an obstacle. Zambia may have just over 73,000 cases of COVID-19 and 1000 deaths (as of the writing of this article) , but there’s been a higher exponential infection and death rate in the second wave of the pandemic recently, particularly in Southern African countries. This has had a major impact on the projects they have outside of the digital space. While the collection has always been online, Samba tells me that during the pandemic, one plus-side is that they’ve been introduced to new opportunities and new audiences. “This last year has been no doubt challenging, but in a way allowed us to validate the use of digital to share content that is sometimes thought of as too dense or deep,” says Samba.
In fact, beyond the scope of the women’s museum, the pair are involved in a number of different projects online to amplify Zambian women’s voices. Leading Ladies is a series of 2–3 minute animated podcasts launched by WHM and released in 2019. Each episode is dedicated to Zambia’s historical women between the 17th and 19th century who held significant positions of leadership and power. These have included Julia Mary Nsofwa Chikamoneka Mulenga (also known as Mama UNIP) who is recognized as a ‘Mother of the Zambian independence movement’, and Chabala We Tuna, a Zambian activist who advocated for women’s rights during colonial rule, when it was common for British soldiers to take advantage of native women and use them as bait to lure men in the community to conscript into combat.
“You can’t speak about women without discussing the natural world. We believe indigenous women to be the first eco-feminists,” says Kapwepwe.
As with many purpose-made art institutions, including other museums, the current pandemic has proven to be an obstacle. Zambia may have just over 73,000 cases of COVID-19 and 1000 deaths (as of the writing of this article) , but there’s been a higher exponential infection and death rate in the second wave of the pandemic recently, particularly in Southern African countries. This has had a major impact on the projects they have outside of the digital space. While the collection has always been online, Samba tells me that during the pandemic, one plus-side is that they’ve been introduced to new opportunities and new audiences. “This last year has been no doubt challenging, but in a way allowed us to validate the use of digital to share content that is sometimes thought of as too dense or deep,” says Samba.
In fact, beyond the scope of the women’s museum, the pair are involved in a number of different projects online to amplify Zambian women’s voices. Leading Ladies is a series of 2–3 minute animated podcasts launched by WHM and released in 2019. Each episode is dedicated to Zambia’s historical women between the 17th and 19th century who held significant positions of leadership and power. These have included Julia Mary Nsofwa Chikamoneka Mulenga (also known as Mama UNIP) who is recognized as a ‘Mother of the Zambian independence movement’, and Chabala We Tuna, a Zambian activist who advocated for women’s rights during colonial rule, when it was common for British soldiers to take advantage of native women and use them as bait to lure men in the community to conscript into combat.
Additionally, WHM has partnered with Wikipedia and the Embassy of Sweden on the #WikiGap #WIkiWomen global project that aimed to increase the number of stories of women on Wikipedia. This had led to the training of 24 writers by Wikipedia’s Bobby Shabangu, from South Africa, as well as Wikipedia entries and documentation for over 100 women from Zambia. The partnership also includes the exploration of significant cultural objects from Zambia, and avenues for these items to be “digitally repatriated” and shared with the public in Zambia and around the world.
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They’ve recently announced season three which will include contributions from Zimbabwe as well as Malawi. It’s the culmination of a dream the pair have had since the first series, in which they could replicate their content across the continent and partner with other media houses, cultural organizations and other educational resources.
Additionally, WHM has partnered with Wikipedia and the Embassy of Sweden on the #WikiGap #WIkiWomen global project that aimed to increase the number of stories of women on Wikipedia. This had led to the training of 24 writers by Wikipedia’s Bobby Shabangu, from South Africa, as well as Wikipedia entries and documentation for over 100 women from Zambia. The partnership also includes the exploration of significant cultural objects from Zambia, and avenues for these items to be “digitally repatriated” and shared with the public in Zambia and around the world.
Though the challenge of delivering these projects exist because of the current pandemic, there’s probably never been a more important time than now to do this work. The duo hope that they can take advantage of today’s progressive discourses relating to women’s empowerment and leadership that centers not only Zambia’s relatively unknown women’s history, but that of the continent as a whole, to inspire the next generation of women leaders in African and its diaspora.
