Register for the Baobab session: Organizing in Hostile Contexts

Baobab Sessions is a new series of collective learning spaces convened by ISDAO, offering an opportunity for activists and organizers to reflect together, exchange knowledge, and share experiences. The sessions are intentionally designed as interactive spaces, inviting participants to engage actively in dialogue, discussion, and collective learning.

Why Baobab?

We are inspired by the communal sharing of knowledge that typically happens in the shade of our trees. The Baobab tree, native to many countries in West Africa, symbolises for us the ritual of coming together as a community and the value of learning from our different individual experiences. We therefore hope to inspire all who attend these sessions to actively participate, as if we were sitting together in the cooling shade of the Baobab Tree.

This first session focuses on the question of how to organize in hostile contexts.

Across West Africa, LGBTQI and feminist movements are organising in increasingly challenging environments. The adoption and enforcement of restrictive laws, the shrinking of the civic space, and rising threats to activists, organisations, and communities are reshaping how collective action is carried out. These conditions demand intentional reflection on how movements organise, protect one another, and sustain long-term struggles for justice and rights.

This gathering will enable activists to collectively examine how current legal and social dynamics are affecting movement organising in the region, and to reflect on movement-led strategic responses that prioritise protection, resilience, and sustained activism. Through shared experiences and collective reflection, participants will explore how movements can adapt to these shifts while maintaining solidarity and collective action.

Who should attend

• Activists, organisers, and movement leaders working in feminist and queer movements in West Africa
• Community organisers and advocates navigating restrictive or hostile contexts
• Allies interested in movement protection, resilience, and collective strategy

What to expect

• An interactive activist-led space for knowledge exchange and collective reflection
• Shared analysis of how unfavourable laws and policies are reshaping movement organising
• Identification of practical priorities for protecting organisations, activists, and communities

Date: Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Time: 1 p.m. GMT (Accra, Dakar) / 2 p.m. WAT (Lagos, Cotonou)

Platform: Zoom

French-English simultaneous interpretation available