Film Screening: When Women Speak

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The documentary film, When Women Speak, traces the stories of 16 Ghanaian women who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. It follows their experiences (as told in their own words) as Ghana passed through periods of military, single-party and multi-party rule. These women were prominent in public life – in the law, the media, academia, politics, and various governmental and non-governmental organisations for women. Their stories tell us about the issues around which women mobilised, and their modes of activism and advocacy at home and abroad, during the ‘lost decades’. They challenge the popular perception that gender activism is a foreign import, which came from ‘the West’ and found its way to Ghana with the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1992.

The film was Produced/Exec Produced by Akosua Adomako Ampofo and Kate Skinner, directed by Aseye Tamakloe and shot entirely in Ghana with a Ghanaian crew. It has a runtime of approximately 100 minutes, and includes live interviews, historic footage of places and events in Ghana, some animation, and some great music.

2025 Claude Ake Visiting Chair - Professor Akosua Adomako Ampofo is Professor of African and Gender Studies, and a former Director of the Institute of African Studies and the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Ghana. A feminist, activist scholar, her work on African Knowledges, Gender and Masculinities, and Popular Culture is informed by a commitment to social justice. In 2022 she co-produced the documentary on women’s activism in Ghana, When Women Speak., with Kate Skinner and directed by Aseye Tamakloe. Adomako Ampofo is the founding vice-president and immediate past President of the African Studies Association of Africa, and a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2023-2024 she was the Wangari Maathai Visiting Professor at the University of Kassel. In 2024 she established 715House Productions, a creative media company, with her daughter, Akosua-Asamoabea Ampofo, dedicated to reshaping narratives about (global) Africa.

Beatrice Brew is a peacebuilding practitioner with over a decade of experience translating field insight into policy action across West Africa. She specializes in conflict analysis, security policy development, localization, safeguarding, capacity strengthening, and countering violent extremism (CVE), with a focus on women and youth.

Beatrice holds an MSc in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University, an MA in International Affairs, and a BA in Geography & Resource Development and Psychology from the University of Ghana. She has contributed to teaching, and knowledge exchange at Bowdoin College (USA), the University of Victoria (Canada), the International School Hellerup (Denmark), and the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC)-Ghana.

Her work and research explore gender-responsive DDR, SDG 16+, and R2P within the broader context of institutional resilience and post-conflict recovery. She is a former Rotary Peace Fellow (Class XXII).