September 21 is the United Nations International Day of Peace. This year, the theme was “Invest in Peace: For Everyone, Everywhere, Every Day, honouring the ‘everyday architects of peace’—people driving local action, laying the groundwork for stability, and building a lasting peace from the ground up.”
Our We Will Lead Africa team chose September 21, 2026, to release a 7th volume, showcasing everyday African leadership stories on Refugees, Peacebuilding and Security. As we concluded in the book, the process of curating the volume was sobering for our editorial trio of former African refugees. We recalled memories long hidden and resurfaced our own commitment to staying on the course of doing our part, no matter how small, to call for the centering of the human rights of all peoples, even and especially those that are involuntarily displaced and seeking refuge. This is a commitment we have already made as a human collective, through the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and that West Africans had lived by and passed down as far back as the 13th century via a constitution called The Manden Charter. The Manden Charter is one of the oldest constitutions in the world that called for such values and ideals as social peace in diversity, the inviolability of human beings, education, food security and the abolition of slavery by raid. As a human community, we continue to strive for these ideals today which are all too often forgotten, leading to a continuous vicious cycle of human and planetary devastation.
We are beyond inspired by the stories of the amazing humans in the book—from those still residing and leading from the refugee camps they now call home years after their displacement, to those in urban centers and the diaspora continuing to work for the betterment of African refugees and all seeking refuge around the world. It was a reminder of a critical parable that occurs around Africa about how small, consistent and united actions can make big change:
- When ants unite their mouths, they can carry an elephant (Burkina Faso)
- Two ants do not fail to pull one grasshopper (Tanzania/Uganda)
This inspired the title of one of the essays in the book by my co-editor and life partner Adelana: Ants Pulling: The Practice of Continued Awakening to Realise Potential.
It reminded me of the criticality of what I have called Resonance stories, the life stories that deeply connect us to identity and purpose, galvanizing leaders to purpose-driven action.
It also moved us as a collective to launch an accompanying manifesto with the book. The manifesto is titled REFUGE-E, inspired by our co-editor Njamba Koffi’s memoir: REFUGE-E, The Journey Much Desired. As Njamba describes it, the title is meant to pull out and focus on bridging “the chasm between the vulnerability of the refugee experience and the sanctuary of the ‘refuge’ that host communities can provide” (p.211). And as we note in the book, the “REFUGE-E Manifesto is a tool for ensuring that policies, action plans, and interventions are inclusive and build on the successes achieved by contributors to We Will Lead Africa, Volume Seven: Refugees, Peacekeeping, Security in their work with refugees” (p.212).
The manifesto outlines 3 core themes: Equality, Cooperation and Dignity, and seven principles that emerged from the lessons learned from the storytellers in the volume. We saw again and again that successful interventions from their work integrated a systems change lens (including shifting system power imbalances, cultivating empowerment over charity, demanding self-determination), advocating for economic justice, utilizing the untapped potential of refugees, supporting host communities and designing conflict resolution processes. In other words, refugee leaders understand the criticality of investing in peacebuilding for everyone, and establishing the mutuality required for shared human flourishing. We see around the world today how hate and polarization is sowed by pitting host communities against immigrants and refugees and other marginalized communities. This is driven by self-interest and does not reflect our universal human rights commitments. The manifesto simply calls us back to our human rights minimum aspirations and provides guidance, for refugees, by refugees for facilitating positive change.
I invite you to read the volume – free to read if you have kindle unlimited or get it today on Kindle/Amazon) and most importantly, help us share and spread this manifesto (free resources available for download at: We Will Lead Africa). It is a manifesto of refuge for everyone and would serve anyone working with vulnerable populations/human service sectors, emerging African leaders, policymakers, advocates and educators.
I also leave you with these provocations that have been working through me these past few months as we curated the volume:
- What ‘colony of ants’ are you a part of and what are you pulling towards?
- What will you do to invest in peace today?
- What hidden histories do you need to learn about/from? [Manden Charter was eye-opening for me!]