Cultural Consultant who works on Rekindling cultural identity & bridging cultures with compelling Black history, African cultures & Igbo heritage.
Who is Yvonne?
Yvonne Chioma Mbanefo
Chioma (pronounced Chee-yaw-mah)
Mbanefo (Pronounced Mm-bah-neigh-foh)
Yvonne Chioma Mbanefo is a multidisciplinary cultural consultant and historian who specializes in digital media, cultural heritage, and education.
She uses Igbo, African and Black cultural and historical storytelling to frame history and help people understand modern global interactions.
Yvonne works with media and corporate companies to ensure accurate representation and diversity in their projects.
She has worked on a variety of projects including an award-winning feature film set in 18th century Igboland, a production at the National Theatre London and a SOAS University of London and Cambridge University project on decolonizing the archives.
Yvonne is the author of the best-selling Igbo dictionary for children and was invited to deliver a TED Global talk about preserving African languages in 2017.
Case Studies
Equiano.Stories
(Award winning Feature Film)
Equiano.stories is a biopic feature film about Olaudah Equiano, a self-emancipated slave who wrote "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano." The film is presented as a self-recorded first-person account on Instagram Stories, using video, images & text. The story portrays the strength, resistance & tenacity of Africans during the Middle Passage to the New World.
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Black History Curriculum Design (Social Lessons)
The project created educational content for social media, pairing bite-sized Black history lessons with highlights from the Equiano film. These instant lessons, designed by scholars, provide historical & cultural context to specific parts of the film, allowing young people to learn various parts of black history and culture while they watch.
Re:Entanglements
(A Decolonization project)
The Re:Entanglements project examined colonial collections assembled by Northcote W. Thomas in Nigeria & Sierra Leone, 1909-1915. Seeking to understand the historical context & present significance of these archives, the project aims to explore their meaning for communities today & their latent possibilities.
Community Engagement
Equiano.Stories & Black History at The Breakfast Club
Yvonne Mbanefo & Dr. Kim L. Dulaney Speak On ‘Equiano Stories’, Black History, DuSable Museum and Social Learning at The Breakfast Club, an American syndicated radio show based in New York City.
Combatting the decline of African languages, at TED Global 2017
At TEDGlobal 2017, Yvonne was invited by TED Conferences to talk about the decline of African languages and the power of stories for language and culture preservation.