Black Coconut Blog

16 April 2025

Reweaving a New World: Why Black Coconut is Changing Direction

A reflection on misfires, clarity, and committing to systemic change

by Adanma Yisa

I have a history of pursuing and often misfiring when it comes to my career. For a long time, I didn’t understand that I’m a generalist. But more significantly, I misunderstood the nature of change.

At different points, I dreamed of working for an international development organisation, embedding myself in Corporate Social Responsibility, or leading diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts within institutions, positions that I believed would help me move the needle. I believed these roles would allow me to chip away at poverty, environmental degradation, racism, gender-based violence. I thought: this is how we’ll change society, and I could be a part of it from the inside of those spaces.

But over and over again, I was left unsatisfied. I found myself working inside unjust organisations, within inequitable systems that resist meaningful change. I have come to understand that these systems are not broken, they are designed this way. And no amount of inclusion work inside extractive structures will make them just.

What I’m finally realising, or maybe what I’ve always known, is that fundamental systemic change is required. And that has changed everything: how I live, how I work, what I say yes and no to, and how Black Coconut shows up in the world.

For the past two years, I’ve been sitting with this shift. It’s taken me to bold and sometimes uncomfortable places. It led me to co-found The Decoloniality Network. I turned down “lucrative opportunities" that didn't align. I reshaped my income and budget around my values. And I kept asking the same questions:

What kind of work is truly regenerative?
What does it look like to not uphold capitalism while building a business?
How can my work be in service to climate justice, degrowth, local resilience, and liberation?

Here’s what I’ve come to: I only want to do work that supports degrowth, climate justice, reduced consumption, local community empowerment, and dismantling the capitalist system. And I believe my role, and Black Coconut’s role, is to support the people and organisations already doing that work.

We will do this by creating the conditions for strategic clarity and courageous decision-making. That’s my skill set. Strategy. Facilitation. Implementation. Yes, DEI has limits, but it taught me this: change work collapses inside toxic culture, unclear planning, and leadership that isn't anchored in feminist, just values.

Black Coconut is evolving. We started as a magazine, then our focus was on DEI, and now our focus is shifting to serve the people building what’s next. We want to work with visionary changemakers and organisations that are committed to radical imagination, brave transitions, and systems-level healing.

In the coming days, I’ll be sharing the first edition of Rewoven, a newsletter by Black Coconut, filled with ideas, frameworks, and community stories focused on reweaving a just world. It’s an offering from this new chapter, and I hope you’ll join for the journey…