Aya Chebbi is a phenomenon. An aid worker, feminist and blogger, the Tunisian Colonel Major’s daughter has a string of accomplishments that would make more seasoned humanitarians blush.
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Still just 30, the irrepressible Chebbi is co-founder of The Voice of Women Initiative (VOW-I) to empower women to use digital media, launched the Afrika Youth Movement which now has over 10,000 members and is also director of the World Peace Initiative Foundation among many other responsibilities.
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Her humanitarian work began while a university student when she volunteered at hospitals and at an organisation advocating for children’s rights. She graduated in 2011, the same year as Tunisia’s revolution, which saw the end of the rule of long-serving Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. By that time, she was a veteran peacenik, helping the Red Crescent and other groups.
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Around the same time, she volunteered for over a month at Ras Jdir refugee camp on the Tunisian-Libyan border, which was run by the Tunisian army prior to the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, taking over.
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“That was really a turning point for me, to move my work into peace building and pan-Africanism. I saw migrants from all over Africa who used to work in Libya, and it really opened my eyes to exploring my African identity,” said Chebbi, who as a child lived in about eight Tunisian cities, her father’s military career requiring the family to relocate every two years, from the country’s coastal north to the mountain and desert interior.
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“That really contributed to who I am today because I had friends from all over Tunisia. I lived like a nomad, which helped me understand culture, diversity, and integration,” said Chebbi, who currently divides her time between Tunis and Nairobi. “I've seen the disparities and inequalities in Tunisian society. I saw the diversity of Tunisia that I wouldn’t have seen if I just lived in the capital or a single city.”
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BLOGGER, MENTOR
\nAn English and International Relations graduate, she began her blog ‘Proudly Tunisian’ in English in 2011 in response to what she describes as Western media’s failure to adequately report what was happening throughout Tunisia’s democratic transition.
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“My motto is always own your narrative and occupy,” said Chebbi. “In 2011 and 2012, I was troubled by the idea that people outside Tunisia didn’t understand why Tunisians rose up to demand their rights.”
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The popularity of her blog led her to co-found VOW-I along with fellow feminists, Konda Delphine from Cameroon and Rose Wachuka from Kenya.
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“I was really struck by their opinions, and felt they should put that online for people to see their perspectives,” she continued. “They started blogging and loved it. We came together to create a platform for girls to learn how to blog, how to amplify their voice, share it, elevate it. We started the VOW-I as a blogging collective, with no resources.”
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The project was formalised in 2013, opening applications for correspondents across the world. Over 500 women applied, with 35 selected for the following year to receive training in reporting, blogging, storytelling and multimedia tools such as photography and vlogging.
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The platform published about 200 stories and organised feminist spaces at various platforms including Global Media Forum in Germany, World Conference on Youth in Sri Lanka and International Day of the Girl Child in Cameroon.
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“Many of them have not only used blogging to voice their own stories, but also to empower other women,” said Chebbi, who was named one of Africa’s most Outstanding Young Women Leaders in 2013. “They’ve been moving to different areas, helping unprivileged women who don't necessarily speak English, and don’t have internet access to get their stories online.”
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These women use the platform to highlight issues from a feminist perspective that otherwise may be overlooked by conventional media. “VOW-I provides a means for women who are experiencing all these issues to be heard.”
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EMPOWERING YOUTH
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She founded Afrika Youth Movement in 2012 as a Facebook group to bring together civil activists. Today, the group has over 10,000 members from 40 African countries.
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“I built this movement for youth to support each other, to learn from each other's struggles and experiences, and to collaborate on how can we collectively advance Africa,” said Chebbi.
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The Movement held its first major gathering in March 2017 in Nairobi, which was attended by 80 youth-led collectives from 19 countries.
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“We connect, empower and mobilize youth around issues that matter to them. These range from governance and accountability to gender equality and security, all sorts of issues.”
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The Movement launched youth hubs in seven countries in 2017 and plans to create a further 15 in 2018.
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“In these hubs, youth are trained in non-violent political organisation,” Chebbi explained. “They’re starting to think about what their countries should look like. It’s really about getting youth to be at the forefront of leading change in their countries.”
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Another Chebbi initiative was to found four renowned regional projects – Amani Fellowship, Amandla Fellowship, Heya Fellowship for Women and MENA Salam Fellowship – as part of her role as Programs Director at the World Peace Initiative Foundation, which aim to help humanitarians deal with the stresses and anxieties their work creates.
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“It’s about achieving inner peace. During the Revolution, I had to choose between peace and violence almost every day for six months, because Ben Ali left the country in total chaos,” said Chebbi. “Youth radicalisation was on the rise, and I was exposed to that – my cousin was radicalised by Daesh in 2013.
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“Why did some friends get into violence and I did not? My saviour was meditation. I would find really that calm moment in the middle of the chaos, and I thought this would be a really powerful tool for activists inclined to burnout, depression or despair.”
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She organised about 15 retreats that trained over 300 young people from some 40 countries to become peace agents and also introduced mindfulness practices to over 5,000 people in 10 countries in the Middle East and Africa including Morocco, Jordan and Nigeria. In recognition of her leadership in the foundation, she was appointed as Executive Director for the Peace Revolution Summit.
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In 2012, she was a Fulbright scholar at Georgia Southern University and in 2015 a Mo Ibrahim Foundation Scholar as part of her masters’ degree in African Studies at the University of London. A sought-after speaker, she has addressed conferences and institutions in several continents, including the United States’ Congress, the United Nations and TEDx.
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“My mission is to radicalise youth into leading social change. I'm reclaiming the word “radicalise” because it's very much connected to terrorism,” said Chebbi. “This generation has to document female leadership, because we women are leading movements, leading change. For too long and too often, women have been erased from history. My message to the world is to look out for female leaders, because we are here, we exist and we're already doing it.”
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