A nonprofit for Africana Spirituality and Knowledge Reparations
Unụchi Foundation was founded on August 1, 2023, as an information, education, and advocacy nonprofit organization centered on the empowerment and healing of Africana peoples through Ọbịa and other Africana Knowledge Traditions (AKT).
The Foundation’s work is grounded in Ndi Igbo culture with emphasis on Ogu Afo, the traditional Igbo calendar; and mirrors the work of the Ọbịa, the expatriate Dibịa or Priest-Healer-Sage.
We are a foundation for Africana Spirituality; committed to the positive exploration, exposition, and preservation of Africana Spirituality. Established as an Afro-Atlantic Reparations Resource, the Foundation forms part of the larger Reparations Movement with a commitment to Knowledge Reparations. Unụchi Foundation is focused on addressing the epistemicide caused by slavery, colonialism, and the continued demonization of Africana cultures.
Knowledge Reparation
The repairing of harms caused by the dismissal, erasure, appropriation, or exclusion of African knowledge and systems of knowledge from formal institutions. It is the process of reclaiming, restoring, and correcting historical narratives, knowledge systems, and cultural memory that have been disrupted or marginalized due to slavery, colonialism,
and systemic discrimination.
Knowledge Reparation includes:
- Restoring suppressed or erased knowledge (e.g., indigenous scientific, ecological, legal, or cultural knowledge that was invalidated or destroyed).
- Returning control over knowledge to the communities from which it originated, including sovereignty over how it is used, shared, or interpreted.
- Compensating for past harms caused by knowledge extraction or exploitation (e.g., anthropological data gathered without consent).
- Rebalancing systems of knowledge production so that marginalized groups have power, representation, and authorship in research, education, and cultural narratives.
- Revising institutions (like museums, archives, universities) to acknowledge and remedy historical biases in how knowledge was collected, preserved, and taught.
The Work of Knowledge Reparation is focused on actively promoting accurate, nuanced representations of African history, cultures, and contributions within education and media, countering the negative stereotypes and erasures imposed by colonial narratives. Knowledge Reparation involves creating opportunities for community-led truth-telling, public education, and changing curricula to reflect historical truths about enslavement, colonialism, and African civilizations. Knowledge Reparation is supporting African-led initiatives to preserve, restore, and transmit indigenous knowledge, languages, and cultural heritage; it is demanding the return of stolen cultural artifacts and documentary heritage as a key part of healing and restoring cultural integrity. Knowledge Reparation means establishing spaces such as museums, archives, festivals, and scholarly forums where African and diasporic perspectives are centered, thus contributing to the repair of historical injustices and the psychological, cultural, and intellectual consequences that resulted from these histories.
Grounded in local reparations and the preservation of intangible heritage, correcting historical, structural, or systemic inequalities in who gets to produce, access, and benefit from knowledge is indispensable to reparatory justice for Africa and its diaspora.
Knowledge Reparation, as a fundamental part of the broader movement for reparatory justice, is about correcting the record and empowering African and diasporic communities to define and share their own histories and futures.
Mission
To Empower and Heal people through Ọbịa.
Vision
To Create a world in which Africana peoples Know themselves.
Motto
Advancing Knowledge Reparations.
Slogan
Respelling Obeah.
What we are committed to.
Who We Are
Promise Keepers. We are keeping a promise to share research that tells the truth about Obeah [Ọbịa]. Ọbịa is a West African system of knowledge that has been outlawed and stigmatized in Jamaica and other parts of the Anglophone Caribbean. Unụchi Foundation partners with continental and island practitioners, leaders and institutions to foster knowledge exchange events and programs that help provide factual information about traditional Africana healing cultures and systems of knowledge. These partnerships are acts of Knowledge Reparation.
Our Ọbịa Works free people. Our Works free people to live and worship as they see fit. Our Works free people to greater self-confidence through self-knowledge. Our Works free people to positively participate in the human community. One fundamental feature of knowledge exchange is attention to Time. We invite Africanas to use IgboKal, a version of Ọgụ Afọ Igbò (Igbo Count of Days/Calendar) as a means of reckoning time. The use of IgboKal provides for ease of understanding Ọbịa, leading to a more earth centered and balanced existence.
We are Unụ-Chi/oonu-key. We are your-key to understanding the foundations of Africana Ọbịa. Unụchi Foundation wants you to Know. We promise you will be greater for it. We are Promise Keepers.
Our History
Unụchi Foundation’s genesis lies in the epistemicide created by European slavery and colonization. This systematic killing of African Knowledges through criminalization, negative portrayals and stigmatization has created the urgent need for a counter narrative affirming Africanas and their positive contributions to humanity. As a graduate student seeking answers to the question “what is obeah”? we made a promise to honor the command of returning to practitioners, a coherent and factual rendering of “obeah” that would help Jamaicans understand themselves. After honoring this promise informally for some time, in August 2023 we established Unụchi Foundation. We aim to become internationally known as a gnosis-driven, ritually competent and spiritually diverse world-bridging community; working Ọbịa for individual, communal and national transformation. We will be an institution recognized for its pivotal role in creating access to ancient African wisdom traditions thereby engendering a new vision of Africa as foundational, modern and relevant.
Founding Workers
The stewards of this Work.
Claudette A. Anderson, Ph.D.
President
Claudette A. Anderson received her Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies in Cognitive Ethno-medicine and Religion from Emory University in 2010. Her dissertation, Gnostic Obia from Chukwu Abiama to Jah Rastafari: A Theology of the JamAfrican Obia Catholic Church, uses a cognitive lens to argue for Ọbịa/obeah as a cognitive science. Her research focuses on African-derived religions in the Anglophone Caribbean as well as Africana indigenous systems of knowledge and oracular traditions. An advocate for Knowledge Reparations, her current work involves the modernization and exposition of Ọgụ Afọ / Igbo Calendar, a cultural technology and epistemological abacus. Her work as a public intellectual is dedicated to addressing the negation of Africana spiritualities and to protecting Africana knowledge systems against prejudice and criminalization. She has a strong background in community service and is an initiate in the Mystery Systems of FA.
Carol L Miller, Okomfo Fofie
Cultural Director
Nana is founder of Sankofie Jamaica, a shrine house honoring native and Afro-Jamaican spiritual traditions. With the Motto, “We have a claim to many and many will claim us”, Sankofie works at raising our ‘spiritual’ consciousness and improving our knowledge of the ways of life of our African ancestors and deities who came, and the Jamaican indigenous people who received them. Okomfo Fofie’s Jamaican spiritual lineage includes a “Scientist” grandfather and Revival grandmother, and her journeys in Akan, Yoruba, Edo and Congolese spiritual traditions have blessed her with remembering, recovery and grounding. Nana uses her voice to share knowledge housed in Afro-Jamaican musical traditions. A published poet, skilled herbalist, wise counselor and libation expert; this child of Portland proudly declares herself “a child of the ancestors of this land, here in present time to serve.”
Chiziterem D. Uwaga
Financial Director
Chiziterem Uwaga is a business consultant with expertise in startup operations, product marketing and management in addition to engineering design. He is founder of Dumele, a consortium of African entrepreneurs and innovators that aims to create and scale AI solutions for social and economic development. Harnessing the power of AI in financial services, Chiziterem navigates the intricate matrix of African cultural heritage and monetary science to effect scalable growth. Of Igbo origin, his expertise in AI and digital technology is complemented by his fascination with the connections between spirit and science, leading to a focus on African language models and knowledge reparations. In his spare time, Chiziterem practices martial arts and refines the techno-mystic-alchemist version of himself.