ACT Ubumbano Team on the move 

The first quarter of the year has been very busy for the ACT Ubumbano team. We convened a meeting of Ubumbano Voice Project facilitators, and will be expanding the reach of this work to new communities. We also convened 2022’s first Learning Hub with over 20 activists and community organisations participating. The process was very effective in allowing people to share their experiences and learn from each other. We look forward to future opportunities to connect again.

The Team has also made a commitment to connect more meaningfully with partner organisations and individuals. We visited Faith to Action Network in Kenya, and spent some time with the Christian Council of Mozambique where we need to engage with greater attention to the language barriers. Partners came together in Malawi to connect with the team, and provided a good opportunity to collaborate with SAFCEI around climate change and community struggles.

Karibu Foundation – Shifting power in grantmaking

The Karibu Foundation has launched a 2.5-year pilot project in participatory grantmaking in Sub-Saharan Africa, where African activists and civil society members are currently designing and making decisions on the grantmaking process. The project, known as the “Karibu New Realities Grant,” (KNRG) aims to practically put into effect the ethos of ‘nothing about us without us’ and to continue to shift power also in Karibu’s grantmaking.

In their newsletter “Voices from the South”, there is an update on the process of building this pilot project from the African “Core Group” of the KNRG themselves. The Core Group frames the update through the experience of “Bongi ” – a fictional (but representative) civil society leader living in Southern Africa whose network is seeking funds for systemic change work.  Here they discuss the need to move decision-making power closer to the “Bongis” in Africa, but also the need to ease application processes for movements on the ground.

Click here to read more.

Call for Tenders: Brot für die Welt (Bread for the World)

Brot für die Welt calls for case studies on agroecological approaches implemented by partner organizations of Brot für die Welt in the project "Agroecological Innovation Network in Africa".

Since October 2016, Brot für die Welt has been implementing a large-scale bundled project in various African countries with funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The project contributes to increasing the food sovereignty of smallholder families in selected regions of Africa, improving their dietary diversity, strengthening their resilience and enabling the sustainable use of natural resources. Five case studies on the thematic area "Expansion of agricultural education and training programs initiated by partner organizations for organizations and smallholder farmers" and five case studies on the thematic area "Lobbying: Competent lobbying and advocacy work regarding agroecology and smallholder agriculture at national and international level" are being tendered. The case studies serve as indicators for the agroecological bundle project "Agroecological Innovation Network in Africa".

To read the full call for applications and to apply, click here.

Registration Now Open: kopano - Rollbacks, Resilience, Reinvention

kopano – Rollbacks, Resilience and Reinvention, recognizes the rollbacks experienced in our organizing and advocacy, celebrates and builds on our resilience, and explores how to reinvent our movements to make freedom a reality for all in southern Africa.

There are four ways to participate. Click here to find out more and register.

Registration closes on Wednesday, 13 April 2022. Registration and scholarship applications will be processed on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Meet the Team

Partner Profile

Yetu Infotech Collective

Being online and using the Internet are becoming increasingly important to social justice and human rights work. But the technology most of us rely on is vulnerable to censorship, surveillance, and corporate manipulation. Tech can be expensive, and when it is "free" we often pay with our privacy and personal information.

The Yetu Infotech Collective envisions a people’s internet that is user owned and controlled, de-commodified, free/affordable, safe and secure - a communications network that enables a world where all the resources required for life are produced democratically in harmony with the biosphere by each according to their ability and shared according to their needs - a world where everyone enjoys equality and dignity and are free to contribute their creativity and live in peace.

Yetu works to build the internet from below by supporting working class community initiatives to establish and maintain secure and affordable networks and provide progressive civil society organisations, and social movements in particular, with affordable and secure communication technology and capacity to maximise the benefits of information technologies while mitigating the risks. They are a user/worker controlled Non-Profit Company united by a common commitment to gender liberation, anti-racism, solidarity, participatory democracy, and environmental and economic justice.

Act Umbambano is supporting Yetu to develop the Mamela.org and Vuka.news online platforms designed to serve the information and expression needs of South Africa's marginalised majority and centre the voices of progressive CSOs

Click here to visit their website.

Ubumbano Voice