Ronald Elly Wanda

Ronald Elly Wanda is a transdisciplinary scholar interested in restorative cultural practices as well as the role indigenous knowledge systems play in the administration of justice in Africa. Educated in England at Stanmore, he read Politics at Middlesex for his undergraduate degree and Human Rights for his postgraduate at Birkbeck College. 

He holds two further postgraduate degrees in Ethics, Political Science and Public Administration from Nairobi. He is currently pursuing his doctoral studies in Political Science in South Africa. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Journalist (CIoJ) and National Union of Journalists (NUJ) in the United Kingdom as well as the British Institute in Eastern Africa (BIEA) based in Nairobi.

Having taught at various institutions within East Africa, Wanda is currently involved in the promotion of Grundtvig Africa House (GAHO) that he founded in 2015. Inspired by the work and philosophy of the Danish scholar Frederick Nikolai Grundtvig, the House applies the epistemology of Afrikology to engage in grassroots action-oriented community research and cultural training using traditional ways of knowing and methods aimed at revitalizing, generating and applying African cultural knowledge and wisdom systems for the benefit of humanity.

Wanda has also served as a researcher at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Researchand Analysis (KIPPRA) in Nairobi. Prior to this, Wanda was a research fellow and programmes director at the Marcus Garvey Pan-Afrikan Institute, where he worked very closely with Professor Dani Nabudere until his sudden death in November 2011.

Following Nabudere’s death, Wanda was appointed as the director of Afrika Study Centre to oversee the restorative and epistemological research work (begun by professor Nabudere) and in particular a five year Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation funded research programme on ‘Cross-border People to People Reconciliation Programme’ that successfully trained hundreds of cultural animators and community servants in holistic understanding of their cultures using restorative practices, whilst critically adopting transdisciplinary learning skills. Most notable, Wanda’s involvement had been in the explicit effort of consolidating Community Sites of Knowledge (CSKs) as depositories of indigenous knowledge systems. He helped create and develop learning structures and study centers across communities in East Africa aimed at creating a holistic practical learning environment in the communities on a permanent basis. This was aimed at developing cross-border peace building initiatives across East Africa through a restorative justice format with the so called “victim communities” heaviest hit by violence.

Wanda’s current research interests include; Restorative democracy in Eastern Africa; Afrikology; Community Sites of Knowledge and Indigenous knowledge systems; Epistemology, Ethics and Culture.