The Evidence Archive

Welcome to the Meza Yetu Collective Evidence Archive. Operating at the intersection of grassroots data, narrative research, and feminist creative expression, this digital repository preserves multi-generational truths on African womanhood, parenting, gender, and power structures.

This page serves as a living resource for researchers, activists, policy advocates, and digital storytellers. By merging raw multimedia storytelling with rigorous documentation, we map systemic vulnerabilities, counter anti-gender digital discourse, and provide actionable tools to advance gender justice across East Africa.

01

Unmothering the Woman

Foundations & Mothering Under Crisis

The first body of work asked what happens when women are invited to speak honestly about motherhood. Through filmed interviews, women in Kenya talked about single motherhood, queer motherhood, the decision not to have children, and the quiet weight of maternal regret. The conversations challenged the myths that shape who society considers a good mother and what that title is allowed to cost.

02

Unmothering the Woman

Widening The Frame

The second body of work moved into territory the first had opened. Conversations covered mental health and motherhood, non-biological motherhood and adoption, mothering from inside prison, blended families, divorce, toxic motherhood, and the particular pressures of mothering during the COVID-19 pandemic. A roundtable with male allies closed the series. Twenty-two women and men were interviewed across fifteen episodes.

03

Unmothering the Woman

Brave Spaces

The third body of work moved the conversations from screens into rooms. A series of convenings brought together women, thematic experts, medical professionals, and feminist practitioners for in-person dialogue on the issues raised by the earlier work. Alongside the events, the team built a digital resource database connecting women with reproductive health support, therapists, and sexual and reproductive health information in English and Kiswahili.

04

Unmothering the Woman

Tandaza Mkeka Podcast

Tandaza Mkeka, meaning "spreading the mat," took the form of a podcast series. Six episodes explored sex work and mothering, firstborn trauma and parentification, mature motherhood, respectful maternity care, the economics of domestic labour, and sex and pleasure after birth. The series also introduced intergenerational conversations, pairing women across generations to surface what each had carried or left unspoken. A closing episode reflected on the project's full arc and what ethical storytelling about women's lives requires.

Anti-Gender Narratives Research & Toolkit

Countering Anti-Gender Narratives: Design Framework & Template

An exploratory research framework mapping the digital coordination patterns, rhetorical framings, and emotional triggers used in regional online spaces. Includes practical design templates and Kenyan case studies for building evidence-grounded alternative narratives.

Multimedia Archive

(Audio & Video)

01

Foundations & Mothering Under Crisis

02

Widening The Frame

03

Brave Spaces

04

Tandaza Mkeka Podcast

Research &

Publications

Countering Anti-Gender Narratives: Design Framework & Template

Meza Yetu Collective

RNW Media

Multimedia Archive

(Audio & Video)

01

Foundations & Mothering Under Crisis

02

Widening The Frame

03

Brave Spaces

04

Tandaza Mkeka Podcast

Research &

Publications

Countering Anti-Gender Narratives: Design Framework & Template

Meza Yetu Collective

RNW Media

Newsletter