Women And Resistance

Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla
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"Women And Resistance" is a groundbreaking podcast celebrating the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Each episode hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli and Adesoji Iginla will uncover untold stories of resistance against systemic oppression—be it colonialism, racism, sexism, or economic disenfranchisement. Through deep conversations, historical narratives, and contemporary analysis.The podcast will amplify the voices of trailblazers, freedom fighters, and community builders whose legacies should be known, because many either never got their dues or have faded into obscurity. From the bold defiance of Winnie Mandela and Fannie Lou Hamer to the activism of modern leaders like Mia Mottley and grassroots organizers like Wangari Maathai,"Women And Resistance" illuminates the transformative power of women in shaping a more just world. This is a call to honor the past, embrace the present, and apply the lessons for a more empowered future.

  1. 2d ago

    EP 11 Maria Firmina Dos Reis - The Black Woman Who Wrote Against Slavery | W.A.R.

    Host Adesoji Iginla speaks with Aya Fubara Eneli, who embodies Maria Firmina dos Reis, the 19th-century Brazilian teacher and writer. In character, Eneli recounts Maria's life: an illegitimate daughter of a formerly enslaved mother, a public school teacher, and the author of Úrsula, published in 1859. Takeaways *No verified portrait of Maria survives. A picture of a white woman was once placed on the cover of Úrsula as the author's image. *Her birth year is given as 1822 or 1825, in São Luís, Maranhão. She grew up in Guimarães in her mother's sister's house, where a few books were available. *She passed a public exam in 1847 for the post of girls' primary teacher in Guimarães. She refused to be carried in a palanquin by enslaved men. *Úrsula appeared in 1859 under the pseudonym "Uma Maranhense." Its enslaved characters speak, think and remember Africa, including Túlio and Susana. *She also published poems, the story Gupeva, the poetry book Cantos à Beira-Mar (1871), and the story A Escrava. *She opened a free mixed-gender school that lasted about two and a half years before pressure forced its closure. *After abolition on May 13, 1888, she noted that the Golden Law offered no land, wages or schooling. *She died in 1917 at 95, blind and poor. *Úrsula was found and republished about 45 years later. Chapters (0:01) Introduction: slavery, and a Black woman challenging it with a pen (1:30) Context: the world Maria lived in (2:03) Why no portrait of her exists, and the wrong face on the book cover (7:37) Birth and early life: Maranhão, 1822 or 1825, and her mother Leonor (10:33) Writing Úrsula, the first novel by a woman in Brazil (17:54) São Luís, the tides, and an economy built on enslaved labour (27:22) Moving to Guimarães and teaching herself from a few books (33:40) The Balaiada revolt and Negro Cosme's school (38:38) The 1847 teacher exam (42:33) Refusing the palanquin (46:16) Her classroom and what she taught the girls (49:20) Why she never married, and the children she raised (52:11) Úrsula published in 1859, the prologue and the pseudonym (58:04) Newspaper writing, Gupeva and Cantos à Beira-Mar (62:08) The mixed-gender school (65:09) Abolitionist movement and A Escrava (66:46) Abolition in 1888 and what the law left out (69:22) Death in 1917 and rediscovery of her work (71:00) Host reflections (72:26) Closing call to action from Maria (73:00) Next week teaser Send us Fan Mail Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla... You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation. That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

  2. Oct 25

    EP 10 Isabel de Olvera - The Black Woman Who Demanded Justice in 1600 | Women and Resistance

    This episode centers on Isabel de Olvera, an Afro-Indigenous free woman from Mexico who asked a Spanish official to document her freedom before travelling north in 1600. Her story shows how freedom had to be proven, protected, and fought for in colonial systems that could erase identity at will. Adesoji Iginla speaks with Aya as Isabel de Olvera, who shares her background, the legal dangers she faced, and why her declaration still resonates in conversations about papers, borders, race, gender, and power. Takeaways *Isabel was born in Querétaro, Mexico, to a Black father, Hernando, and an Indigenous mother, Magdalena. *Her freedom came through her mother’s legal status under Spanish law, but her Blackness still made her vulnerable in the colonial caste system. *In 1600, Isabel asked a Spanish official to document her freedom, unmarried status, and legitimacy, with witnesses and an official seal. *She explains that freedom was layered: being born free did not guarantee safety, mobility, or legal recognition. *The episode explores the caste hierarchy in Spanish Mexico and the rules attached to categories such as mullatto and mestiza. *Isabel outlines restrictions imposed on free Black and mullatto women, including tribute taxes, household service, dress restrictions, and limits on speech and prayer. *She contrasts two paths to freedom: fleeing into the mountains like Yanga, or using the law to demand protection. *The journey north spanned more than 1,000 miles along the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro. *The story of Juan de Oñate and the violence at Acoma shows how conquest, punishment, and forced labour could be presented as law. *Isabel explains how she turned fear into evidence in her declaration—and how the document could offer protection, even if it could not guarantee justice. *The conversation connects her story to modern questions of documentation, border enforcement, racial targeting, women’s rights, and historical recognition. Isabel’s closing message: no one gets free alone, and even small acts of resistance can spark wider change. Chapters 00:00 - Isabel de Olvera’s declaration of freedom before a dangerous journey 01:20 - Why her story matters to Women and Resistance 02:18 - Isabel’s origins in Mexico and her family background 04:01 - Being free, unmarried, and still vulnerable 05:36 - Why she asked for a written record, witnesses, and an official seal 07:19 - The story’s path: origins, rules, journey, and legacy 08:45 - Freedom as something that had to be proven 10:06 - Black labour, slavery, and erased family histories in Mexico 12:14 - Her father’s marriage and her legitimacy 13:56 - Her mother’s freedom and the legal status of children 15:23 - Querétaro, forced labour, and the thin line between freedom and enslavement 18:00 - Why a free woman still needed protection on paper 20:14 - Rules imposed on free Black and mullato women 23:21 - Dress codes, hair, and social control 24:03 - The Inquisition and the policing of speech and belief 25:24 - Kidnapping and the danger of being far from home 27:31 - Yanga and another path to freedom through resistance 28:48 - Free did not mean safe 30:23 - Who bears the stigma of slavery and conquest 32:29 - Oñate’s conquest of what became New Mexico 33:55 - Acoma, retaliation, and brutal punishment 37:47 - Recruiting people for the journey north 40:05 - Remembering women by saying their names 42:42 - Holding complexity: freedom alongside complicity in conquest 43:03 - Isabel’s declaration and the witnesses who supported her 45:44 - The court record and the power of testimony 48:09 - Turning fear into evidence 49:32 - Carrying the certified paper and using the system’s tools 50:08 - The long journey north on the royal road 51:54 - The official count—and who was left out 53:22 - Arrival at San Gabriel on Christmas Eve, 1600 55:36 - Hunger, tribute, and the taking of Pueblo resources 57:00 - The people of Acoma living under imposed sentences 58:32 - Law versus justice 59:02 - Fear, terror, and the use of Black bodies by colonial power 61:20 - What Isabel’s paper could—and could not—do 62:19 - What the historical record leaves unknown about her later life 64:30 - How Isabel’s story changes the timeline of Black history in the U.S. 65:51 - Black Mexico, erasure, and recognition 67:11 - Being counted as a condition of visibility and safety 68:09 - Isabel’s whole identity and the idea of intersectionality 69:05 - Claiming bodily autonomy and the right to belong to herself 70:35 - A closing call to learn history, fight for freedom, and say her name Send us Fan Mail Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla... You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation. That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

  3. Oct 18

    EP 9 Yelena Khanga - The Journalist Who Challenged Race, Identity And Taboo | Women and Resistance

    Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli trace the life of Yelena Kanga, the Black Russian journalist, television presenter, and author whose family story spans Mississippi, Moscow, Zanzibar, and Uzbekistan.  The episode explores resistance not only as protest but also as land ownership, education, survival, storytelling, and refusal of the roles history assigns you.  Aya frames Yelena’s life as part of a larger generational struggle, while Adesoji guides the conversation through the historical arc and the meaning of its turning points. Takeaways *Yelena Kanga introduces herself as Yelena Abdoulayevna Kanga, born in Moscow on May 1, 1962, to a family shaped by African American, African, Jewish, and Soviet histories. *She describes growing up as a Black child in Moscow, where she was often treated as a symbol of Soviet international brotherhood. *The episode follows four generations of family resistance across race, religion, nation, and politics. *Her great-grandfather, Hilliard Golden, was born enslaved in Mississippi, bought land after emancipation, and made land ownership an act of resistance. *After the Ku Klux Klan burned the family’s land twice, they were forced to leave Mississippi for Alabama. *Oliver and Bertha Biollet, a Jewish labour activist from an immigrant family, met in New York and eventually moved to the Soviet Union. *In Uzbekistan, Oliver worked as a scientist on cotton development, taught at an institute, and served on Tashkent’s city council. *Yelena’s mother became a pianist, tennis champion, historian, and scholar of African American history, publishing more than 100 articles on Africans in Russia and African music. *Her father, Abdullah Kasim Khanga, was a Zanzibari political figure and the first and only prime minister of the People’s Republic of Zanzibar and Pemba before his arrest and execution in 1969. *Yelena discusses how tennis gave her a space where performance mattered more than colour, and how journalism became her path in Soviet media. *She reflects on glasnost and a provocative sex-education program that addressed AIDS, homosexuality, and domestic violence. *A 1991 American television feature helped reconnect her with Black Golden relatives in the United States. *She also reconnects with Bertha’s Jewish relatives, restoring another part of the family story. Chapters (00:00) Opening the story of a Black Russian family across continents (03:32) Yelena Kanga introduces her full name and Moscow birth (04:35) Growing up as a Black girl with a Soviet accent (06:05) The family tree stretching from Zanzibar to Mississippi and New York (08:17) Four generations crossing racial, religious, and political lines (10:45) Being used as Soviet proof of racial brotherhood (12:45) Why Soviet anti-racism was real and incomplete (16:56) Hilliard Golden, slavery, and the fight to own land (22:23) Why land ownership was resistance in post-slavery Mississippi (23:30) The Klan burns the Golden family out of Mississippi (27:37) Standing on family land in the American South as a Soviet journalist (30:42) Oliver Golden, Tuskegee, and learning through George Washington Carver (31:58) Fighting in World War I and coming home to Red Summer violence (33:17) Great Migration to Chicago and the limits of Black opportunity (34:07) Communist organising as one of the only paths to equality (35:11) Studying in Moscow at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (36:39) Meeting Bertha Biollet in jail and building an interracial political family (38:58) Moving to Soviet Uzbekistan for cotton, work, and survival (41:22) Oliver as scientist, teacher, and city council member in Tashkent (42:31) Visitors like Langston Hughes, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Paul Robeson in the family orbit (43:53) Yelena’s mother is born in Tashkent and grows up through Stalin’s terror (45:58) Her mother’s piano, tennis, and scholarship career (47:01) Studying African American history in Moscow to find her father through archives (48:31) Yelena’s father Abdullah Kasim Hanga and Zanzibar’s political struggle (49:37) Zanzibar revolution, short-lived power, and the rise of repression (51:21) Her father’s arrest and execution in 1969 (54:02) American Black freedom icons seen from Moscow, and tennis as escape (55:16) Journalism at Moscow State University and work at Moscow News (56:39) Glasnost opens the door to freer reporting (57:05) Boston, Black America, and seeing race from a new angle (60:22) Breaking taboos on Soviet television with sex, AIDS, and domestic violence (61:20) A TV broadcast helps reunite her with Golden relatives in the U.S. (63:03) Reconnecting with Bertha’s Jewish family and recovering the full story (64:19) Soul to Soul and her mother’s memoir My Long Journey Home (66:06) Yelena reflects on a lifelong family legacy of resistance and resilience (68:24) Aya’s closing reflection on Black excellence, survival, and breaking ground (71:09) Final takeaway: turn hardship into advantage and live fully Send us Fan Mail Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla... You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation. That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

  4. Oct 11

    EP 8 Valaida 🎺 🎺 🎺 Snow - The Black Woman Who Took Jazz Around The World | Women And Resistance

    In this episode of Women and Resistance, Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli spotlight the extraordinary life of Valaida Snow, a Black woman performer who used music, performance, travel, and self-reinvention as acts of survival and refusal.  Valaida shares how talent, education, and style became tools for resisting racism, sexism, and erasure across the United States, Europe, and Asia. We discuss her childhood in a travelling performance family, her mastery of multiple instruments, her public reinventions, and the way she was overlooked in American music history despite her acclaim and influence. Takeaways *Valaida Snow explains why her life story contains shifting details, and how show business often required reinvention and performance as protection. *She describes growing up in a family of musicians and performers, with her mother Etta Snow teaching literacy, music, and discipline on the road. *Valaida reflects on being on stage from age five, mastering ten instruments by age fifteen, and turning education into a portable survival skill. *She discusses the racism built into early 20th-century entertainment, including minstrel traditions and segregated travel. *She explains how playing trumpet—a so-called man’s instrument—challenged gender norms, and how she paired it with glamorous stagewear. *She recalls touring Europe and Asia, finding opportunities abroad while recognising that Europe was far from free of prejudice. *The conversation touches on Harlem, Chicago, Broadway, and figures including Josephine Baker, Louis Armstrong, W. C. Handy, Earl Hines, and Ethel Waters. *Valaida describes the erasure of her contributions from credits and biographies, despite her work as a bandleader and performer. *She reflects on an abusive early marriage and leaving with the skills to support herself. *The episode addresses conflicting accounts of her wartime detention in Copenhagen and the ways stories about Black women performers can be distorted or simplified. Chapters 00:00 - What happens when a Black woman’s talent resists society’s categories 03:19 - A family of performers and the making of a musical childhood 05:41 - The Piccanini Troubadours and performing inside racist systems 07:25 - Recognition abroad and neglect at home 10:00 - Surviving life on the road and in the spotlight 11:16 - Resistance through gender defiance, travel, and reinvention 14:56 - Valaida's death, then the story rewinds to the beginning 17:23 - Chattanooga and slavery as living memory 20:59 - The handcuff act and childhood fame 25:23 - Learning ten instruments without music school 29:01 - Why the trumpet became her instrument of refusal 33:24 - Child marriage, abuse, and choosing to leave 36:01 - Joining Holiday in Dixieland and beginning a career on her own terms 38:38 - Harlem, Broadway, and the rise of Valaida Snow 41:31 - Josephine Baker, Banville, and Black stardom 44:35 - Europe as an imperfect refuge 46:22 - Touring Shanghai, Singapore, Calcutta, and Batavia 50:02 - Chicago jazz, Louis Armstrong, and the Sunset Cafe 52:03 - The seven-pairs-of-shoes act and its global symbolism 55:11 - Louis Armstrong’s influence and the double standard of being called a mimic 58:58 - Conducting Rhapsody in Black and being left out of the credits 60:39 - Copenhagen, wartime detention, and conflicting accounts 64:20 - Love, scandal, and film work in Europe 67:14 - Returning to Harlem and rebuilding her career 68:12 - Wrigley Field, Town Hall, and late-career recognition 69:35 - Her final performance at the Palace Theatre and burial in Chattanooga 73:19 - Valaida’s closing message: embrace everything in you and do it all Send us Fan Mail Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla... You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation. That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

  5. Oct 4

    EP 7 Rosa Castellanos: A Cuban Health Captain | Women And Resistance

    In this episode of Women and Resistance, Adesoji Iginla and Aya Fubara Eneli center the life of Rosa Maria Castellanos Castellanos, also known as La Bayamesa, a formerly enslaved Cuban healer, field surgeon, hospital founder, and captain in the Cuban Liberation Army.  Her story becomes a larger meditation on freedom, women’s labour in war, and how historical memory erases Black women’s leadership. The conversation moves through slavery, the Ten Years’ War, improvised battlefield medicine, and the hidden networks of women who sustained the Cuban struggle. Rosa’s final reflections sharpen the episode’s core arguments: peace without freedom is not peace, and kindness without watchfulness can be fatal. Takeaways  *Rosa Maria Castellanos explains that she was born into slavery in Cuba and was later known as La Bayamesa, a woman from Bayamo. *She describes becoming a healer, field surgeon, and founder of hospitals for wounded Cuban fighters in the mountains. *The episode places her life in the context of Cuba’s sugar economy, slavery, and Spanish colonial rule. *Rosa recounts her mother’s plant knowledge, showing how healing traditions were passed through enslaved Black women. *She explains how she used green wood ash, heated metal, leaves, bark, and poultices to treat battlefield wounds when no formal medicine was available. *Her husband, Jose Florentino Varano Estrada, is named as a crucial partner who helped restrain wounded men during treatment and fought beside her. *The episode highlights the burning of Bayamo by its own people rather than surrendering it back to Spain, framing it as an act of collective resistance. *Rosa details her work in the Sierra Maestra, where she carried messages, gathered food, mended clothes, made shoes, and treated soldiers without ever being officially appointed. *The episode emphasises that women in the Cuban wars were not passive supporters but cooks, spies, nurses, couriers, and combatants whose names were often lost. *Rosa reflects on being called “property” by enslavers and “Capitana” by General Máximo Gómez, underscoring how language tracks power and liberation. Chapters 00:00 — Introducing Women and Resistance and the mission of recovering erased women’s histories 02:47 — Rosa questions how her story will be told without Spanish and begins her own account 04:59 — Born into slavery, renamed, and shaped by Cuban colonial violence 08:33 — Green wood ash, heated iron, and battlefield medicine under impossible conditions 11:27 — Why Rosa was called La Bayamesa and later Capitana 12:36 — The barracoon, slavery’s daily violence, and why birth dates were lost 18:46 — Her parents’ forced renaming and the memory carried through her mother’s hands 20:13 — Plant medicine, Indigenous knowledge, and healing learned from women and elders 24:13 — Childhood labour, cane fields, and the realities of Cuba’s sugar economy 28:29 — Cuba, Spain, and the long survival of slavery after abolition elsewhere 31:40 — Flowers in her hair as an act of defiance against enslavement 33:30 — Love with Jose Florentino Varano Estrada as a form of freedom 36:13 — The 1868 uprising, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, and the start of the Ten Years’ War 41:13 — Bayamo burned rather than surrendered, and the meaning of choosing freedom 44:26 — Women’s hidden work in rebel camps and Rosa’s many roles beyond nursing 50:32 — Building hidden field hospitals and feeding starving wounded fighters 53:30 — Catching a Spanish spy and the moral complexity of war 56:24 — Máximo Gómez visits the hospital and names her Capitana 58:15 — The Pact of Zanjón and the limits of freedom after the war 61:07 — Martí’s vision of Cuba, the funding of another war, and Rosa returning at 60 63:38 — The Spanish-American War, U.S. intervention, and Cuba’s compromised independence 67:19 — Her godson Nicolás Guillén, her will, and her final legacy 68:42 — Rosa’s death, military honours, and a street renamed in her memory 71:44 — Final lessons: peace without freedom is not peace, and kindness requires watchfulness Send us Fan Mail Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla... You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation. That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

  6. Sep 27

    EP 6 Luísa Diogo's Contested Legacy - The Accountant of the Revolution| Women And Resistance.

    This episode profiles Luisa Diaz Diogo, Mozambique’s first woman Minister of Planning and Finance and first woman Prime Minister, in a wide-ranging conversation about nation-building under colonialism, war, structural adjustment, and recovery.  She explains why economics is inseparable from liberation, and why peace must be funded, coordinated, and protected. The conversation also connects her personal life to national history, from being born in a rice field in colonial Tete to raising a family while helping steer Mozambique through war, debt, famine, floods, and AIDS. Takeaways Luisa Diogo’s early life in Tete, Mozambique, and how her mother’s labour in a rice field shaped her worldviewColonial rule in Mozambique, including forced labour, assimilado status, and the extraction of African wealth and labourHer mother as her first economics teacher, and the lesson that girls must develop “twice the capacity” to be valued in societyWhy she chose accounting and budgeting as tools of liberation: no money, no schools, no health care, no developmentThe transition from independence struggle to state-building, including literacy campaigns, nationalisation, and socialist planningMozambique’s civil war, foreign-backed destabilisation through RENAMO, and the real human costs of roads mined, schools burned, and a million deathsStructural adjustment, IMF and World Bank negotiations, and her argument that you have to understand global institutions in order to protect national interestsPeacebuilding as a budgeted process: demobilisation, reintegration, reconstruction, and the idea that “if you do not pay for the peace, the war will come back to collect”Her leadership roles as Deputy Minister, Minister of Planning and Finance, and later Prime Minister, including balancing reconstruction with macroeconomic stabilityHIV and AIDS policy, women’s rights, reproductive health, and her push for more women in leadership across Africa Chapters (00:00) Why Luisa Diogo matters in the Pan-African struggle (01:49) Asking about her upbringing and path into numbers (04:41) The Mozambican woman as a symbol of survival and improvisation (06:01) “I governed the way my mother cooked” (08:21) Born in a rice field during colonial Mozambique (11:24) What Portuguese colonialism looked like on the ground (14:11) Forced labour, cotton, and labour extraction across southern Africa (17:56) Her mother’s lessons: housework, discipline, and survival for girls (22:06) Cahora Bassa, colonial permanence, and resistance politics (23:57) Mueda, Frelimo, Samora Machel, and the road to armed struggle (26:23) Why voting and political participation are matters of life and death (28:21) Commercial school, bookkeeping, and the power of numbers (33:38) Independence and the collapse of Mozambique’s trained administrative class (35:03) Building a new state: schools, literacy, vaccination, socialism (36:45) Supporting neighbouring liberation movements and paying the price (38:18) Joining the Ministry of Finance and studying while working (41:14) War, famine, drought, and Operation Production (43:21) Nkomati Accord, IMF entry, and managing scarcity (45:03) Rising through the finance ministry during structural adjustment (47:42) Multiparty politics, a new constitution, and studying financial economics (49:04) Demobilising soldiers and planning for postwar reintegration (51:34) “Peace has a budget” (53:14) Rebuilding Mozambique through a coordinated national project plan (55:02) Learning the World Bank from the inside (56:21) Drafting the first postwar five-year program (58:10) Cutting inflation from 75 per cent to 5 per cent (59:23) Debt, donors, and refusing rule by “40 masters” (60:52) Corruption, the Banco Comercial de Mozambique case, and Carlos Cardoso’s murder (62:30) The 2000 floods and rebuilding after total devastation (63:57) Becoming Prime Minister and the limits of growth statistics (64:37) HIV and AIDS, women’s vulnerability, and speaking openly about sex (66:17) The Maputo Plan of Action and organising women’s leadership (67:40) UN reform, one country-one program logic, and system-wide coherence (68:33) The personal cost of public service (70:14) Running for president, losing, and passing the baton (71:42) Leadership as responsibility, not privilege (72:45) Her final message: “Compriste” - you completed your work Closing takeaway Luisa Diogo’s story argues that liberation is not only fought on the battlefield. It is also fought in budgets, institutions, public health, and the long, unglamorous work of keeping a country alive. Send us Fan Mail Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla... You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation. That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

  7. Sep 20

    EP 5 Cécile Fatiman: Lighting the Fire of the Haitian Revolution | Women and Resistance

    This episode centers on Cecile Fatiman, the Haitian mambo whose role in the Bois Caïman uprising helped ignite the Haitian Revolution. Adesoji Iginla and Aya as Cecile Fatiman use storytelling, history, and spiritual teaching to show how resistance lives in memory, ritual, ancestry, and joy. We discuss how colonial power tried to erase African spiritual knowledge, why Vodou is a structured faith rather than a horror-story stereotype, and how liberation requires both strategy and spiritual grounding. The conversation closes with a practical reader-style spiritual exercise and a reminder that joy itself can be a form of resistance. Takeaways *In this episode: why Cecile Fatiman matters to Haiti, the Atlantic world, and Black liberation history. *The debate around Fatiman’s origins and why women’s histories are so often under-documented or questioned. *Saint-Domingue as the “richest colony in the world,” built on the labour of hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans. *How colonialism functioned as theft not just of land and labour, but of cosmology, language, medicine, and memory. *Vodou as spiritual lineage, ancestral connection, and a way of remembering peoplehood after enslavement. *The night of August 14, 1791, at Bois Caïman, where Fatiman, Dutty Boukman, and others gathered in secrecy to organise revolt. *The role of ritual, blood oath, drums, call-and-response, and collective planning in turning resistance into action. *Why the drum was treated as dangerous by empire: not just as music, but as communication, coordination, and survival technology. *The idea that Black spiritual systems were disguised inside Catholic imagery, songs, and everyday practice to preserve them under colonial rule. *A closing message on joy, self-love, and emotional freedom as part of breaking generational chains. Chapters 00:00 - Opening the show and framing women’s resistance as living history 01:01 - Introducing Cecile Fatiman and the significance of Haiti 02:16 - Fatiman on origin stories, uncertainty, and historical erasure 05:41 - Fatiman identifies herself as a mambo and priestess of Vodou 06:27 - Why liberation begins by returning to ancestors and spirit 08:16 - Saint-Domingue’s wealth, sugar, coffee, and indigo built on slavery 09:59 - Half a million enslaved Africans and the violence behind the word “enslaved” 11:47 - Motherhood as resistance under slavery 12:43 - “Cruelty” as the economic policy of slavery 13:09 - What slavery could not take: drums, songs, and spiritual inheritance 15:14 - Vodou as continuity, memory, and a way to remain, people 16:09 - Fatiman explains being chosen as a mambo 16:36 - The night of August 14 and the gathering in Bois Caïman 18:01 - Secrecy, safe spaces, and 200 men risking their lives to organise 19:33 - Calling the Iwa and the arrival of Erzuli Danto 21:12 - The black pig sacrifice and the oath to die free rather than enslaved 23:51 - Dutty Boukman’s words and the logic of call-and-response 25:44 - The uprising begins eight days later in northern Saint-Domingue 26:17 - Why colonisers reduced the revolution to folklore 27:43 - Colonialism as theft of land, labour, and cosmology 32:57 - Ancestors, drums, and inherited intelligence as revolutionary technology 36:53 - Frantz Fanon on colonialism distorting the past and future 38:06 - Why empire fears the drum more than the machete 39:05 - Haiti becomes the first Black republic and what freedom still demands 40:54 - Vodou explained as a structured faith, not superstition 42:21 - The Iwa, the Orishas, and shared spiritual lineages 45:27 - Ritual as protocol, apprenticeship, and resistance in camouflage 46:51 - A warning against treating spiritual traditions like costumes or aesthetics 48:36 - Why women’s histories are disputed and how records get written without women holding the pen 49:34 - Fatiman’s life details: marriage, age, and later generations preserving her testimony 53:05 - A spiritual question and pendulum demonstration 58:58 - Closing guidance on joy, self-love, and refusing shame 63:23 - Farewell and teaser for the next Women in Resistance episode Send us Fan Mail Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla... You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation. That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

  8. Sep 13

    EP 4 Delphine Zanga Tsogo - A Cameroon Trailblazer | Women and Resistance

    This episode features host Adesoji Iginla and co-host Aya Fubara Eneli in conversation with Delphine Tsogo, who reflects on a life shaped by colonial partition, forest-based community knowledge, nursing, politics, and women’s organising in Cameroon.  She traces how each stage of her life informed her work for women, children, and public welfare. The conversation matters because Delphine does not separate personal biography from public policy - she shows how language, education, healthcare, and political structure all affect whether women can live with dignity. Takeaways  *Delphine Tsogo introduces her roots in Lumi, deep in the eastern forest of Cameroon, and describes growing up under British and French colonial rule. *She explains how the forest, local women, and family discipline shaped her early understanding of responsibility, survival, and authority. *Delphine recounts being educated in Douala and Toulouse, and how colonial schooling opened doors while also trying to erase her language and identity. *She discusses starting out as a nurse, becoming an athlete, and how track and field taught her discipline, precision, and resilience. *She reflects on becoming a wife, mother of eight biological children, and later the minister who created Cameroon’s Ministry of Social Affairs. *Delphine explains the political dilemma of serving under an authoritarian system while trying to secure clinics, schools, and maternal health support for women and children. *She talks about entering the National Assembly, later serving as Vice Minister for Health and Public Welfare, and carrying out public service while visibly pregnant. Chapters 00:00 - Opening the conversation with Delphine Tsogo and the theme of women pushing back colonial power 03:16 - Delphine begins her life story and reluctance to center herself over her public work 05:04 - The origin of the name Cameroon and the colonial history behind it 06:32 - Born in Lumi in 1935 under a British mandate and raised in the forest 07:31 - Lessons from nature, discipline, and the women of her childhood 09:30 - Her father, books, and the hidden architecture of female authority 11:21 - Refusing to be decorative in a room full of men 12:21 - Her father’s career inside the French colonial bureaucracy 14:09 - Learning horse riding and rifle use and challenging gender expectations 15:41 - Her father’s rule: build your own name 17:19 - Starting her professional life as a nurse after school 18:02 - Track and field, high jump, long jump, and the discipline of measurable performance 20:27 - Education in Douala and the cost of colonial schooling 21:56 - Losing her mother tongue through French education 23:18 - Wifehood, motherhood, and later founding the Ministry of Social Affairs 24:44 - Gaining literacy in the coloniser’s language and using it against the system 25:57 - A writer visits her school and plants the seed for her future as a novelist 28:05 - Finishing school in 1955 and deciding never to wait for permission to be useful 31:38 - Studying nursing in Toulouse and seeing France as equipment, not assimilation 33:32 - Later life, financial struggles, and being helped by a woman inspired by her public example 35:24 - What nursing taught her about birth, death, suffering, and state neglect 38:46 - Meeting and marrying Sotasanga, who became a major figure in Cameroon’s public life 39:55 - Returning home in 1960 as Cameroon becomes independent 41:07 - Independence as both possibility and danger 42:00 - The reunification vote and the creation of the federal republic 44:02 - The UPC, the armed struggle, and the violence that continued after independence 46:20 - Ruben Um Nyobè and the erased history of resistance 47:08 - Serving inside Ahidjo’s one-party state and the moral cost of that choice 48:25 - Her bet that compromised state machinery could still deliver resources to women and children 50:32 - Her nursing work in Yaoundé and Garoua and the gap between promises and reality 53:13 - Becoming national president of the Council of Cameroonian Women in 1964 55:00 - How women organised through council structures when the new republic ignored them 56:28 - National Assembly work and later appointment as Vice Minister for Health and Public Welfare 57:31 - Women who later told her their mothers survived because of clinics she helped create 58:17 - Minister for Social Affairs from 1975 to 1984, including while pregnant with her eighth child 59:55 - International leadership and recognition for her work on women’s development 61:47 - Publishing novels in the 1980s to challenge culture through story, not law alone 63:45 - Her environmental work defending forests and supporting sustainable local economies 67:27 - Why African stories must include women as well as men 68:41 - Final message: create your own standing and build what you want Send us Fan Mail Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla... You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation. That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

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About

"Women And Resistance" is a groundbreaking podcast celebrating the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Each episode hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli and Adesoji Iginla will uncover untold stories of resistance against systemic oppression—be it colonialism, racism, sexism, or economic disenfranchisement. Through deep conversations, historical narratives, and contemporary analysis.The podcast will amplify the voices of trailblazers, freedom fighters, and community builders whose legacies should be known, because many either never got their dues or have faded into obscurity. From the bold defiance of Winnie Mandela and Fannie Lou Hamer to the activism of modern leaders like Mia Mottley and grassroots organizers like Wangari Maathai,"Women And Resistance" illuminates the transformative power of women in shaping a more just world. This is a call to honor the past, embrace the present, and apply the lessons for a more empowered future.

Information

  • Creator
    Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    88
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Women And Resistance
  • Show Website
    Women And Resistance