20 Years of African Women-Led Change

Founded in Nottingham in 2006, AWEF has grown from lived experience into a community-led platform for support, leadership and systemic change.

3 September 20261 minute read

Founded in Nottingham in 2006, the African Women Empowerment Forum is a frontline organisation led by African women and rooted in lived experience.

AWEF listens to women, provides practical and culturally responsive support, strengthens community leadership and uses what women teach us to influence the systems that shape their lives.

Support the woman. Strengthen the community. Influence the system.Our work connects individual support with collective learning and long-term change. We believe experience is knowledge, voice is power and participation creates change.

Women leading, learning and organising in Nottingham.

Dignified, consent-based photography from AWEF’s work with women and communities.

Women greeting each other at an AWEF community session, with AWEF banners behind them. — An AWEF community session, Nottingham, 2015.

Faith Gakanje-Ajala speaking outdoors during a community project interview. — Community voice and lived experience in action.

Women seated and standing together in front of AWEF banners at a community session in 2015. — AWEF women together, 2015.

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