Unprecedented: Nairobi to Host Africa’s First Reparations Festival in October
NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct 3 – Hundreds of people, including artists, musicians, policymakers,philanthropists, activists and cultural educators, are expected to be in Nairobi on the 22 and 23 October for the groundbreaking reparations festival.
The WAKATI WETU: It’s Our Time – ToResist, Repair and Reclaim will take place at the Entim Sidai wellness sanctuary. Over the course of two days, festival participants will discuss and strategise on a carefully selected list of issues ranging from climate justice to economic justice; from historical injustices to contemporarylegacies of the slave trade and colonialism.
The Wakati Wetu festival is the first of its kind in Africa. It coincides with the African Union’s (AU) theme of the year, which calls for justice for Africans and people of African descentthrough reparations.
Additionally, the festival seeks to draw significant public attention to the issue ofreparations. During the two-day activity series, the organisers have curated a series of sessions aimed at unpacking the limited public knowledge and interest in reparations in Africa, as well asexploring what civil society can do to change this trajectory.
Five different organisations spread across Africa and the diaspora have come together to organise this groundbreaking event. Dr Liliane Umubyeyi is the Co-Founder of the AfricanFutures Lab (AFaLab), one of the conveners of the festival.
She said a principal reason fororganising the festival this year is to elevate and socialise the discourse on reparatory justice on the continent. She noted that the festival intends to demonstrate how and why reparatoryjustice should be approached from an intersectional lens.
“Climate change, debt crisis,forced migration, and deepening socio-economic inequalities are not disconnected phenomena; they are contemporary expressions of a global system of racial domination that remainsstructurally intact. Mr William Carew, Head of Secretariat of the African Union ECOSOCC, supporter of the festival,echoes those sentiments.
Mr Carew said the “Wakati Wetu festival is unprecedented for manyreasons. However, primarily, it provides a platform for multisectoral interaction amongpolicymakers, civil society groups, cultural actors, and ordinary people. As the civil society organof the African Union, we collaborate to hold such gatherings as testaments to the AU’sdetermination to bring ordinary Africans along our collective journey to achieve the Africa wewant.”
It is worth recalling that in February of this year, the Assembly of Heads of State of the AfricanUnion (AU) declared 2025 the Year of Justice for Africans and people of African descent, with afocus on reparations.
This declaration was then followed by the AU’s decision to extend the theme of the year to a Decade of Reparations, spanning from 2026 to 2036. This milestone wasthe culmination of collective efforts and collaboration between civil society organisations,various organs of the African Union and Member States.
The Wakati Wetu festival is alsocoming at the back of calls by various African leaders for the reform of the current global systems and structures that continue to subjugate and dominate Africans and Afro-descendantsglobally.
It is, therefore, a momentous opportunity for the reparatory justice movement to takethe debates outside of conference rooms to the fields of public imagination and conversation. Organisers of the festival have indicated that this year’s event is a precursor to what they hopewill be the beginning of such gatherings over the next decade.
“This year’s event is just theopener.The campaign for justice, healing and accountability will continue until it is resolved.We are therefore calling on all Africans and people of African descent who are interested in thetotal liberation and genuine development of Africa, to join us at Entim Sidai, as we chart a pathfor a continent that is free from racial and colonial entrapments,” Dr Umubyeyi added
