The Harambee Award for the Promotion and Equality of African Women was awarded to Antoninette Kankindi, a philosopher and professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy (from Kivu Norte, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo). This is the reason that Antoninette Kankindi visited Barcelona, where she gave a talk entitled “Leadership among women in Africa” at our university.

Antoinette Kankindi holds degrees in Philosophy and Literature and Law, and a PhD in Political Philosophy. She has been a professor of Ethics and Political Philosophy at the University of Strathmore in Nairobi, Kenya, for 12 years. She is convinced that it is impossible to improve life in any part of Africa if work is not done to improve the situation of women: “Women - said the philosopher- are the real driving force in Africa”.

In 2013 she was invited to the International Women’s Leadership Conference held in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Her talk about leadership among women in Africa was well received which meant that “the Urgent Action Fund - Africa (UAF-A) funded the programme for the past two years, in which businesswomen, politicians, journalists and scientists from various African countries participated”. This meant that she received the 2017 Harambee Award, sponsored this year by René Furterer laboratories.

The aim of the project she is currently directing is to teach leadership and integrity skills to young women and provide them with knowledge about their rights and responsibility to help towards a sustainable livelihood for other women. Kankindi will receive the Harambee Award on 14 March, in Madrid.

Harambee –which is Swahili means ‘all together’– is an international project for solidarity with Sub-Saharan Africa which works with educational, healthcare or care projects that are set up and carried out by Africans themselves within their own countries. In 2017 the project is carrying out work in the Congo, Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo and Uganda.