The Cool Stuff we do
Drama Queens Ghana advocacy strategy, since its incorporation in 2017, has been creative initiatives spanning a wide range of activities including Speakeasies, Film Productions, Workshops, Music, Poetry, Digital Journal, Graphic Novel Productions and Social media campaigns (Twitter/Facebook).
Speakeasy
Drama Queens Speakeasies are recurrent spaces we curate where we engage in conversations. Each Speakeasy involves the curation of resources: literature, audiovisual, and performance art around which the conversations can be grounded in and by feminist and pan-Africanist principles. Our Speakeasies have spanned conversations on reproductive justice, civic action, body autonomy, abortion access and rights, and representation in the media
Theatre
In 2018, we staged Ghana’s first theater production centered on the realities of queer lives in Africa dubbed “Just Like Us”, surviving multiple threats of legal injunctions, to stage a riveting and moving body of political work as a public statement in recognition of the LGBT community in Ghana and across Africa and to represent their very human emotions as an assertion of the humanity they are denied by our societies. We have since successfully staged “Until Someone Wakes Up” (2019), “An African Man” (2020), “Ashikishan” (2021), “Liberating Pleasures” (2022) and “Monsoons” (2022).
Workshops
A core part of the work at Drama Queens is making resources available to more people in digestible formats. Our workshops allow us to curate resources and present them in accessible formats. We currently offer 3 workshop streams; Let’s Talk Consent, Women of Independence, and Artistic Activism workshops. We revel in the opportunity to curate our content to suit the requirements of each audience.
The Queer Film Festival
In 2018 and in 2019, we held the Queer University Film Workshop for queer storytellers and filmmakers from African countries to acquire the necessary creative skills to depict the narrative of the lives of queer people living on the continent from an authentic and informed perspective. The one week intensive workshops covered a wide area of training in the use of basic and advanced software for film, appropriate representation, human rights abuses and persons living with disabilities.
As a climax to the year’s Queer University Film Workshop in 2019, we held Ghana’s first ever Queer Film Festival (QuFF), reprising it in 2022 and 2024, in the face of a surge of homophobia in Ghana following the introduction of the Proper Sexual Human Rights and Ghanian Family Values Bill.
Our next edition is in 2026.
Collaborations
Collaborations are an important part of Drama Queens work, whether with organisations or individuals. We welcome the opportunity to engage in cross-learning with as many varied Feminist practitioners as possible. Some past collaborations include “Leave Prints”, a climate justice outdooring initiative with LGBT+ Rights Ghana and a speakeasy workshop on reproductive justice with representatives of Women’s Health Ghana. Collaborations may also look like consultations where we leverage our experience with the queer community and with organising to develop safeguarding manuals and policies such as with W’AHU Magazine, or to curate safe spaces like our programs with Afrodite and Friends, the Free Forever Collective, and others.
Community Engagements
A feminist value we hold dear is intentional organizing and mutual benefit. It’s important that as many people…
Let’s Talk Consent
Our Lets Talk Consent workshop is a series of sex education sessions that we continue to expand creatively to educate on topics like rape culture in our effort to foster a consent culture in our Ghanaian communities. In 2024, we diversified this into the Consent Drive-Through program, where we take the gospel of boundaries and body autonomy into the everyday streets of Accra, from car washes to nightlife hotspots in Jamestown, our team and volunteers spark mini-conversations on sex education with willing strangers.
Women of Independence
Our Women Of Independence workshops began in 2022, offering an alternative angle to the Independence Story of Ghana. It charts the efforts of Women whose Financial, Intellectual and Physical contributions aided in the Ghanaian independence story. The Women of Independence Workshops are held primarily in Ghanaian basic schools serving as an introductory session into Women’s Engagement in Politics, Erasure, Women in Leadership, as well as Representative historical Documentation.
Artistic Activism
Our artistic activism workshops have evolved into the Eban Collective (2024), a soft cohort program which provides resources and skills to queer youth