Mech Consult provided strategic communications and publicity for the Reparations and Racial Healing Summit for the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Foundation (ATJLF). The summit leveraged existing initiatives and brought on board strategic conversations and explored the possibility of harnessing various interests and aspirations across the globe on the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It offered an avenue for defining and agreeing on areas of collective advocacy and introduced new approaches for racial communal healing and critical reflections to address various harms suffered.

Mech Consult developed and delivered a comprehensive communications and media strategy to inform local and international audiences of the need for reparations and racial healing to restore the dignity of Africans including the diaspora community.

This included developing a series of media engagements to create awareness and educate people about the positive impact of the summit through human-led stories on media platforms (radio and TV) with international reach. Mech Consult also collaborated with the Head of the President of Ghana’s Press Corp to disseminate stories about the summit to media platforms across the continent.

The summit was co-hosted by the AU Commission, the Africa Transitional Justice Legacy Fund (ATJLF), the Africa-American Institute (AAI) and Global Black, with funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. It was part of a time-bound multi-year programme that will support the development of a unified and comprehensive strategy and advocacy agenda on reparatory justice and also present an opportunity to holistically discuss and reflect on strategies for reparations and racial healing as a result of the Trans- Atlantic slave trade, slavery and colonialism.

The Summit ended with the Accra Declaration to chart path for global reparations for people of African descent. With a focus on the legacies of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, colonialism, and ongoing harms, the Declaration called on the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent to convene a global summit on the issue of reparations and reformation of global systems and structures and the return of stolen artifacts.