About African Sisters for Information, Knowledge and Empowerment (ASIKE)

ASIKE – A name with a symbolic meaning

In Oromo culture, the siiqqee is a traditional tool of women’s Empowerment.

A Siiqqee is a carved stick traditionally given to women of the Oromo peoples of Ethiopia on the day of their wedding, a tradition that has mostly disappeared today. It symbolized the importance of their role in the household. As this symbol, it clearly embodied the respect due a wife and mother. If or when a married woman ever had difficulties with her husband, she could take this Siiqqee and walk out into the village streets. Other women, upon seeing her, would take their own Siiqqees and join her at a rallying place. There they would wait until the men in the village came to find them and the issue was resolved. Thus siiqqee is a symbolic regulator of a healthy and balanced relationship of power between female and male Oromo for as long as they live. Siiqqee is involved with all the activities of life, not of death. In this way, the term Siiqqee can only embody the respect owed women.

It is the ideal symbol for the work undertaken by African Sisters for Information, Knowledge and Empowerment or ASIKE.

African Sisters for Information, Knowledge and Empowerment (ASIKE), grew out of a unified objective to empower women of African descent in metro-Atlanta. ASIKE was established in March of 2005 with a mission to redefine the image of the African woman by empowering women of African descent through education, information, advocacy and sisterhood.

Uniting people from:

Barbados
Burundi
Cameroon
Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast)
Democratic Republic of Congo
Gabon
Ghana
Guinea (Conakry)
Kenya
Liberia
Nigeria
Rwanda
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Togo
Uganda
United States of America
US Virgin Island
Zambia
Zimbabwe
…and more