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The African Women Writers Symposium 2011, like the 2010 programme, is funded by the Department of Arts and Culture, as part of iits mandate to promote the arts and culture in South Africa as it relates to the continent and the world. The department works with various agencies, the media, and civil society organisations to ensure the success of the event. The 2011 African WOmen Writers Symposium DAC is being hosted in partnership with Mnet and University of Witwatersrand (School of Languages and Literature).

OBJECTIVES: To provide a space for African women writers to engage in a dialogue about African women's writing and that of the African diaspora

- To engage in a dialogue about African women's condition To promote African women's writing and writing about African women.
- To highlight the challenges of women on the African continent and in the African Diaspora; To participate in the African Decade for Women 2010-2020 as initiated by the African Union.
- To encourage the emergence of a Pan African women's voice and continent-wide projects to strengthen women's role in the literary arts and the literary economy; To showcase African women writers in performance; To promote African women's writing to a South African readership and audience To raise consciousness and awareness of African women authors and their successes.
- To encourage youth to write about their lives and to enter the creative economy through writing.