Oumou Sangaré to headline concert at Hamwe Festival in Kigali

Also performing will be Rwandan singer and activist Nirere Shanel, Tulani Banda (Malawi), Claris Motho (DRC) and Daniel Bangura (Sierra Leone).

One of the organisers, Uwase Mutimura, told Music In Africa that the concert would seek to celebrate outstanding female champions of women's health.

“Oumou Sangaré has been a women's rights activist for a very long time,” she said. “ She started when she was a young girl living in a polygamist household. She saw how much it hurt her mother and began to sing about that pain and soon she realised that other women felt the same way and kept singing.

“As for Shanel, she has previously released a song called ‘Atura’ (Break the Silence). In it, she encourages victims of gender-based violence to speak up about the injustices that they have suffered.”

The She Matters Concert has been organised by the University of Global Health Equity in Kigali as part of the first edition of Hamwe Festival, which seeks to build bridges between the health sector and the arts and creative industries to improve health equity.

The festival runs until 13 November and will feature influential leaders who have utilised the arts to make an impact on global health.

“We believe that including artists in the design and implementation of more health programmes, health education and other health interventions can facilitate action against seemingly intractable health challenges,” Mutimura said.

“Using the unique vantage points of artists and creators, the festival aims to provide an enabling environment for strong collaborations between sectors, so that new insights into global health challenges and their corresponding solutions can be found.”

Hamwe Festival will also feature an installation titled Beauty as Medicine at the Kigali Convention Centre between from 8 to 10 November. The same venue will host on 10 November French psychoanalyst and philosopher Cynthia Fleury who will give a talk on the contributions of philosophy to healthcare. 

There will also be an Arts in Health masterclass for selected professional students from the health and creative sector at Kigali Heights on 11 and 12 November. 

View the full festival programme here.