Flagship gathering
Ubuntu Conference
I am because we are.
ASNEN's flagship gathering for inclusive education across Africa.
The gathering
A conference shaped by belonging
Inclusion in Early Childhood Development - the 2nd Ubuntu Conference convened partners and practitioners around African models of inclusive ECD.
The series
Ubuntu Conference editions
Each edition leaves a trail of reports, relationships, and renewed commitment.
Grounded in Ubuntu
The values that shape every Ubuntu Conference.
Our values are drawn from Ubuntu, the understanding that our humanity is bound to one another. They are written as behaviours rather than aspirations, so that members, partners and funders may hold us to them.
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Utu
Dignity first
Utu is the Swahili expression of Ubuntu: humanness. We begin from the dignity of the child, not from the diagnosis. Disability describes a circumstance a person lives with. It never describes their worth, their capacity, or their claim on our respect.
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Belonging
I am because we are
Ubuntu holds that a person is a person through other people. We build circles rather than services, caregivers connected to caregivers, teachers to teachers, families to communities. Where a person has been isolated, our first act is to end the isolation.
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Harambee
Pulling together
Inclusion is not the specialist’s task, delegated and forgotten. It is the shared responsibility of families, schools, health workers, government and neighbours. We convene rather than compete, and we credit generously.
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Knowledge
Shared, not held
Expertise in disability has too often been guarded, held in clinics, in English, behind fees. We move knowledge in the opposite direction: outward, into homes and classrooms, in the languages people actually use. Demystification is an act of solidarity.
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Lived experience
Those who carry the work shape it
The mother who has raised a child with cerebral palsy for twelve years holds knowledge no training produces. We build leadership from lived experience, caregivers and persons with disabilities as facilitators, advocates and decision-makers, not as beneficiaries or case studies.
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Uwazi
Honest accounting
Ubuntu binds us to one another, and that binding requires truthfulness. We report accurately, claim only what we have done, correct ourselves publicly when we are wrong, and account transparently to members, partners and funders.
Walk with the next Ubuntu Conference
Partner, volunteer, or join as a member to help host the next gathering.