Mpho Raboeane

We arrived to witness the work. But as the visits unfolded, the gaze kept returning to us. What exactly had we come to see? What needed to be verified? Whose confidence was the itinerary meant to secure?

The questions became harder to avoid because the work did not begin with us, and its meaning could not be contained by our reporting categories. The partners knew the ground, the histories and the stakes. We arrived with the grant.

Across the Free State, Western Cape, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga, we encountered changes that could easily be mistaken for ordinary administration. A room had been secured. An organisation had strengthened its systems. A partner could finally point to a place of its own from which to work, loosening the constant anxiety of transience produced by insecure tenure.

None of this is incidental. Permanence is political when communities and their institutions have been made to live provisionally.

In Mpumalanga, a nearly completed multipurpose centre will bring an advice office and paralegal services, after-school programmes and a library, driving licence-readiness support, a satellite point for commissioners of oaths and a computer skills centre under one roof. Seen through a project lens, these are deliverables. Seen from the ground, they raise a different question: why must one community institution gather together the functions that public systems have fragmented, withdrawn or made difficult to reach?

The centre is not simply evidence that funding has worked. It is evidence of how people organise life in the gaps between institutions.

Community advice offices repeatedly appeared as something like the central nervous system of this organising. Around them sit mutual aid, food security and sovereignty, water scarcity, access to social protection, education, gender-based violence and femicide, disability awareness, youth unemployment and pathways into work. The grant did not invent this intelligence. It gave existing relationships more room, reach and material form.

That distinction matters.

One of the partners is developing a relationship with Services SETA (Sector Education and Training Authorities) to create training and employment pathways for around twenty women fieldworkers, their “sisterhood alumni”, whose prospects might otherwise have ended when a project closed in July. There is something uncomfortable in the phrase “when a project closed”. Philanthropy is very good at making endings look administrative. A contract reaches its end date. A budget line closes. A report is submitted. But the people whose labour carried the work remain. So do their obligations, their relationships, their aspirations and their need for a livelihood.

Grantmaking governs through time as much as through money. It decides when work begins, when it becomes legible and when it is deemed complete. Communities live in another time. Their crises do not keep to funding cycles, and neither do their relationships.

This sharpened something for me about freedom.

We often speak about freedom as an idea: the freedom to imagine, to choose, to believe that another world is possible. But freedom is also particular. It has a location. It requires material conditions. And when it is real, it is felt.

Amartya Sen’s account of development as substantive freedom is useful here. What matters is not only what resources people receive, but what those resources actually enable them to be and do. A grant can pay for activity without expanding the range of choices available to people. It can produce outputs while leaving the underlying conditions of life largely untouched.

The question I keep coming back to is therefore not simply, “What did the grant fund?” But rather, “What became possible because of it?”

A secure space creates continuity. An organisation with stronger systems can negotiate differently. A trained fieldworker can carry a livelihood beyond a project. A community institution can make an otherwise fragmented state more navigable. Relationships between organisations can allow knowledge and practice to travel. These things may sound modest from the vantage point of a funder. On the ground, they can alter the room people have to move.

Freedom has an infrastructure.

This is also where the visits turned the gaze back towards LFI. We still have habits of the funder that are difficult to dislodge. We define the problem. We fix the timetable. We decide what counts as evidence. We retain the authority to judge whether transformation has occurred. Even a flexible grant can leave that deeper arrangement intact. We may loosen the conditions without relinquishing the position from which those conditions are set. This is where the language of decolonial grantmaking becomes uncomfortable.

Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang’s Decolonization Is Not a Metaphor refuses the ease with which decolonisation can become a generous synonym for inclusion, participation or doing development better. Their insistence on the repatriation of indigenous land and life is deliberately difficult. It prevents us from congratulating ourselves too quickly.

For philanthropy, the warning is direct. We cannot call a practice decolonial simply because it is participatory, compassionate or less restrictive. The question is whether authority moves.

Money can become medicine when it repairs relationships, creates room for organising and renews the possibility of sovereignty. It can also remain a means of supervision, even when the language surrounding it is progressive.

The difference is not captured by the size of the grant or even by how flexible it is. It lies in who gets to name what matters, whose knowledge is treated as authoritative, who interprets what happened, whose learning travels and whether a partner can refuse the terms on offer.

This, for me, is where the LFI proposition becomes interesting. I don’t think LFI should be understood simply as a fund that gives more flexible money to organisations that conventional philanthropy has overlooked. That is necessary, but it is not sufficient.

The more ambitious proposition is that capital can make room for people to judge, choose and act on their own terms:

Room to respond to what was not anticipated in the proposal. Room to build an institution rather than endlessly deliver a project. Room to retain people after a funding cycle ends. Room to experiment, fail, adapt and try again. Room for relationships that cannot be reduced to outputs. And, importantly, room for communities to decide what is worth building in the first place.

That means thinking about grantmaking less as purchasing predetermined outcomes and more as underwriting possibility. It also means accepting that possibility carries risk.

The second round of visits left me less certain about our answers and clearer about the question. Our task is not to become better architects of other people’s liberation. Nor is it to romanticise communities or pretend that outside expertise has no place. It is to know when our expertise should support, when it should step back, and when the people closest to the work know something we cannot know from a boardroom or a proposal.

We saw a room secured. A centre rising. A livelihood extended beyond the life of a project. Practices shared between organisations. Community institutions becoming better able to hold life. These are not the whole story. But they are evidence of something important: people making more room for themselves to act.

My faith, ultimately, is in that capacity. Not the thin idea that people can overcome structural conditions through individual will, but the much more material proposition that people can exercise agency when the conditions around them allow it to become consequential. Perhaps that is what the ground is teaching us.

The harder work is ours: to surrender the authority to decide in advance what freedom must look like, and to accept that the ground may be teaching us not how to lead, but how to follow. And perhaps the most radical discipline for LFI is to become comfortable with the fact that we may not be the ones who know what comes next.

NGOs, social enterprises and community-based initiatives working in sustainable agriculture, climate action, women empowerment, youth development, education, health and economic empowerment should explore new funding opportunities offering support from US$50,000. Many funders back initiatives advancing justice, community-led development, youth employment, health innovation, climate resilience and social inclusion.

Strong applications depend on a clear problem statement, measurable impact, realistic budgets and close alignment with donor priorities. Look beyond chasing grants—develop investable projects that deliver lasting impact.

View opportunities here.

This section brings together voices from our recent Youth and Faith Hub gathering — young activists and faith leaders reflecting on the personal stories, objects, and convictions that shape their work for justice. These reflections remind us that solidarity work is never separate from who we are.

Click here to read more on their honest, moving accounts of what it meant to gather, learn, and grow together

This podcast episode brings together the voices of community members, researchers and activists as they reflect on what South Africans are experiencing every day—from unemployment and failing services to the growing disconnect between citizens and government. While the conversations reveal deep frustration, they also highlight the power of listening, shared experiences and evidence to better understand communities’ realities. Ultimately, the episode is a hopeful reminder that meaningful change begins when people come together, make their voices heard and stay engaged long after election day.

Listen to podcasts here.

How can listening to rural women in Zimbabwe (and everywhere) help shape a safer, healthier world? How do the experiences of women who survived the devastation of a cyclone improve understanding of climate change? How might games build knowledge and solidarity in the movement for climate justice?

These are some of the questions that arose as ACT Ubumbano and the Women’s Network for Environment and Climate Action (WONECA) explored ways to bring the voices of women in Chimanimani district, Zimbabwe, into activities to promote feminist climate justice in Southern Africa.

WONECA worked intensely for three years with women in one of the districts worst affected communities by Cyclone Idai, which also caused devastation across Mozambique, Malawi and Madagascar. After the emergency response was over and in the aftermath of COVID, WONECA women’s groups continued to track the ongoing impacts of the cyclone. Through focus group discussions and civic education, they explored not only the loss and harm women suffered but the ways in which they were marginalised in decisions about relief and recovery efforts. They documented how this led to girls and women’s needs being overlooked. They also recorded stories of girls and women being discriminated against and even abused by people who controlled access to aid and resources for rehabilitation. As women shared their experiences, WONECA documented their ideas and insights for a gender-sensitive and inclusive approach to climate crisis preparedness, response and mitigation.  What would be done differently, they asked, if climate disasters were seen through a feminist lens?

This process revealed how communities make sense of changes and challenges. It unearthed a wealth of information about the adaptive capacities of communities using indigenous knowledge systems. It showed how this knowledge played a huge role in the local response to Cyclone Idai but was not recognised. The bare truth was that women were left out of planning because of patriarchy. WONECA wanted to globalise local expertise and to bring women together in solidarity through their different experiences of a worldwide climate crisis. Instead of the top-down approach of policy-making, they wanted to show how work on the ground is critical to realising the lofty targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. They wanted to demystify the terminology and deconstruct the statistics used by elites to lock women out of decision-making.

WONECA Director Juliet Gudhlanga had written up the lessons, described the activities and highlighted the women’s stories. She and ACT Ubumbano agreed this was not material for a training manual, a handbook or a ‘toolkit’. It needed to be turned into a set of activities that would get people listening, learning and collaborating. And so emerged – well it is still emerging – the Feminist Climate Justice Compendium. This will be a box set of games focused on moving from climate crisis to a safer world. It brings knowledge and stories from women of Chimanimani into activities exploring environmental and gender justice.

ACT Ubumbano is in the process of hosting materials-testing workshops with a cross-section of potential users of the Compendium. The purpose is to ensure the content and activities are relevant, clear and easy to use, and enjoyable. Two half-day workshops have been held in Johannesburg and Durban. Community based organisations, cultural workers and students from the environmental, gender and economic justice sectors gave valuable feedback on the content and presentation. See some of the feedback below:

‘Some of the topics are heavy and it is great to be able to approach them in a light way, through games.’

 ‘The activities make complex ideas clear enough so you could even discuss them with children.’

 ‘It is helpful to be able to discuss climate justice issues together. Every activity started a conversation.’ 

 ‘We had such fun, laughing about our different interpretations of terms.’

 ‘It really made me think about how you can know something and battle to express it.’

This is being used to make the games as meaningful and accessible as possible to a diverse audience.

The Green Girls Platform (GGP) video project gives a glimpse of the transformative impact of supporting young women and girls to lead environmental action and climate justice initiatives in Malawi.

For years, GGP has worked with girls and young women aged 8 to 35, creating safe spaces that equip them with the knowledge, skills, and opportunities to champion sustainable development, environmental protection, and climate resilience in their communities. This documentary project was created to capture that journey, celebrating achievements while sharing lessons, innovations, and approaches that can inspire others across Malawi and beyond.

The team pitched six stories that showed how girls and young women were turning painful experiences of extreme weather events and climate change into opportunities for resilience, leadership, and hope.  The stories covered projects from including young women in the renewable energy sector to addressing the psycho-social impacts of the climate crisis and transforming farming practices.

Working with a national media company, GGP documented these stories across multiple locations in Malawi.. They captured firsthand accounts of the experiences of Girls and young women being displaced by floods, seeing deforestation degrade their environment and battling against waste and pollution. They showed how, they were challenging old ways of doing things and adapting to climate crisis, with GGP’s support.  adapt to new conditions.

The project created six short videos, on specific but connected themes:

• EnergiseHer: Opening pathways for young women to pursue careers in the renewable energy sector.
• Green Innovators and Entrepreneurs: Showcasing young women-led businesses that recycle waste, create eco-friendly products, and reduce deforestation through sustainable enterprises.
• E-STEM for Climate Action: Demonstrating how environmental education is integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics to inspire youth to take climate action across Malawi.
• Girls for Climate Action: Showcasing how girls are equipped with climate knowledge, leadership, and practical skills to design and implement locally led climate action initiatives in their communities.
• Eco-Anxiety: Exploring how creating safe spaces for girls to meet, spark joy and  to share their lived experiences  following the disastrous floods of 2024 and 2025, and transform climate anxiety into climate action.
• The Farmers Business Game: Exploring an approach to transfer knowledge and skills for sustainable agriculture through activities that simulate real challenges without the risks.

Highlights from the series were edited into a 30-minute documentary that sets local initiatives in the context of the multiple challenges facing Malawi and GGP’s gender-transformative approach to addressing them. Girls and young women face the brunt of the climate crisis due to the uneven burden of food production, family care and natural resource management. GGP’s approach acknowledges their role in climate change adaptation. Showcasing this role also strengthens advocacy for gender-inclusive environmental policies. It challenges traditional narratives  that exclude women from energy and other sectors of the economy. It helps build networks of solidarity and amplifies their contributions to environmental sustainability on local, national, and global platforms.

The task of building a democratic society cannot be left to those who already wield political and economic power. Instead, there are many who respond to the challenge by working with the communities from which we come to demand accountability, and to exercise our agency in fighting for a better world. Sometime, it feels like our efforts are not enough, and we are not effective in how we go about our activism.

The ACT Ubumbano Solidarity Hub is a space for participants to explore the relationship between organising practice and democratic possibility. We will ask ourselves: How does my organising practice reflect the democratic ideal we aspire to?

You can apply here to participate in the 2026 Solidarity Hub taking place in Johannesburg from 12th to 15th October.

Unfortunately there is limited space and resources, and we will review all applications based on geography, gender and age demographics, and a balance between new and previous participants. Those from beyond Southern Africa are welcome to apply if they are prepared to cover their own costs.

The deadline for applications is 12h00 SA time on Thursday 30 July 2026.