The 15th edition of Hub of Africa Fashion Week took place last month in Addis Ababa. Founder Mahlet Teklemariam highlights how the event blends African heritage with contemporary design in the fashion industry, while promoting Made-in-Africa brands on the global fashion stage.

In honour of Black History Month, the University of Toronto has announced several events to celebrate Black excellence and examine the systemic barriers that continue to affect Black communities. Headlining this series is the Annual Lecture with Dr. Howard W. French, author of The Second Emancipation: Nkrumah, Pan-Africanism, and Global Blackness at High Tide.

• Zimbabwe’s Tsitsi Dangarembga has been awarded the Lifetime Award at the Sharaj Festival of African Literature in the United Arab Emirates. She is best known for her trilogy comprised of Nervous Conditions (winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989), The Book of Not, and This Mournable Body (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2020), which explores themes such as gender, colonialism, and social transformation.
• In Sudan, the Emergency Response Rooms Network, a grassroots volunteer group, continues to offer food, medical care, and basic supplies to the most vulnerable amidst the ongoing conflict.
• Barbara Itungo Kyagulanyi, wife of Uganda’s opposition leader Bobi Wine, was assaulted during a military raid on their home. Her experience underscores the often-overlooked risks faced by women connected to human rights activists.

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Image: Tsitsi Dangarembga, Frankfurter Buchmesse 2021. 22 October 2021. Photo credit: Rudolf H. Boettcher, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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