Festival pledges to reclaim history, resist injustice and repair Africa’s future

By Eunice WAWUDA

Kenyan 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 – To Resist, 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 contemporary legacies 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 descent through reparations. The festival seeks to draw significant public attention to the issue of reparations.

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 as exploring 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 African Futures Lab (AFaLab), one of the conveners of the festival.

She said a principal reason for organising 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 reparatory justice should be approached from an intersectional lens.

She said: “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 remains structurally 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 many reasons.

However, primarily, it provides a platform for multisectoral interaction among policymakers, civil society groups, cultural actors, and ordinary people. As the civil society organ of the African Union, we collaborate to hold such gatherings as testaments to the AU’s determination to bring ordinary Africans along our collective journey to achieve the Africa we want.”

It is worth recalling that in February of this year, the Assembly of Heads of State of the African Union (AU) declared 2025 the Year of Justice for Africans and people of African descent, with a focus 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 was the culmination of collective efforts and collaboration between civil society organisations, various organs of the African Union and Member States.

It is, therefore, a momentous opportunity for the reparatory justice movement to take the 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 hope will be the beginning of such gatherings over the next decade. “This year’s event is just the opener. 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 the total liberation and genuine development of Africa, to join us at Entim Sidai, as we chart a path for a continent that is free from racial and colonial entrapments,” Dr Umubyeyi added.