Afrikan Sistahs

"Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable"

~~~ Kenyan proverb

Afrikan Sistahs seeks to assist in healing the Black woman worldwide, using Afrikan Tradition Spirituality, specifically  the Yoruba culture originating from West Afrika.. We intend to assist our people to return to the original ways of our Aral mothers in teaching Black women how to be tender with themselves and each other.

I was inspired in part, by the words of Audre Lorde, "and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard, nor welcomed, but when we are silent we are still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive."

Black women were brought to the new world to be used as slaves and to breed more slaves. The slave masters thought we would never survive the horrific, immeasurable odds against us. Nevertheless, survive is what we did and the Black woman in the Diaspora has become the backbone of the Diasporic Afrikan family. There is something missing, however, and that is our ability to use our inherent power as descendants of the Afrikan to heal ourselves as well as our power to pull together as Sisters. The ability to have true Sisterhood was left on the shores of our homeland. Unlike the religion of our ancestors, Sisterhood did not survive the Middle Passage and the resulting enslavement of our people.

In the villages of Afrika, women are respected as Mothers, Sisters, Wives, Co-wives, Aunts and Daughters. Women pull together for the survival of the family. The woman was actually the head of the family and owners of the Marketplace. Women are appeased in elaborate ceremonies by men to stave off bad luck. Women raise children together, make money in the marketplace and have their own societies to deal with the ills of the Afrikan community. This has been so from creation. Women birthed other women and women later buried women.

It is now time for "daughters of the yam" to learn to "draw up the powers from the deep like before," in the words of Toni Cade Bambara from "The Salt Eaters." If we investigate the ways of our forefathers, perhaps we can empower ourselves in their ways, learn to heal ourselves, our families and communities. Using this philosophy, we can even see a Black Woman in the White House.

May we all be blessed from the Heavens as we go about our healing journey.

Ase!

May it be so!

Princess Ademide Adinasse

Founder, Afrikan Sistahs

A single bracelet does not jingle

~~~ An Afrikan proverb

Before healing others, heal self, Afrikan proverb