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.

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.

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.

The Ubumbano Community Voice project is a digital platform for community activists in Southern Africa to share stories of their struggles for dignity and justice. It encourages activists to write about their experiences, and helps to amplify the voices of those often not heard in society. The platform hopes to challenge mainstream narratives that often speak on behalf of communities.

Earlier this month we hosted 15  people who have been facilitating the rollout of this Voice project in Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Eswatini and South Africa to share experiences and think through strategies to scale up this work. We all made commitments to spread the reach, to involve more people in writing and telling their stories, and to find innovative ways to get the messages out.

Visit the website to read more.

The African Feminist Charter beautifully and boldly noted “We reclaim and assert the long and rich tradition of African women’s resistance to patriarchy in Africa. We henceforth claim the right to theorize for ourselves, write for ourselves, strategize for ourselves and speak for ourselves as African feminists”.

It is in this spirit that the African Women’s Development and Communication Network (FEMNET) will be hosting the 1st African Feminist Academy for Climate Justice and invites you to be part of this exciting journey of reclaiming knowledge and power for the health of our people and planet.
The Academy will bring together African women’s rights organizations, girls and young women-led organizations and feminist groups to be abreast with science, history, politics, and economics of climate change.

A weeklong workshop followed by weeks of individual work and mentorship will create opportunity for the participant to learn, interact and supported by amazing feminists from different fields, all of them on one mission, reclaiming Feminist Climate Justice. Throughout the Academy, participants will have opportunity to (re)claim and share knowledge, interrogate concepts and narratives, theorize, write, and stand resolute in their truths.

To read the full call for applications and to apply, click here. The deadline for applications is 18 March 2022.

We have created a network of women, a safe space where we support and celebrate one another. What we have learnt is that women struggles are similar. At times, we feel like we are not deserving of the spaces we find ourselves in. We have had ladies make contact outside of the group, stating that they don’t feel like they have achieved much, as there is women doing amazing work in the group. When they engage, we help them see things differently, and celebrate where they are. The platform accommodates women from all walks of life. In terms of our practice, we learnt that one needs to be willing to put in the work for their own development. The approach we use is a hand up, not a hand out.

Our dream is to run the organisation as a global movement. We plan to organise an annual conference where women who are part of our network can come together and celebrate each other. This will be ImPower’d Woman Awards, and focus on a broad range of categories. We also plan to launch ImPower’d Kidz Book Club, where we will assist each other with strategies that we can use to read to our children. Lastly, we want to write our own book where women stories will be told.

Solidarity to us is all about standing together for a common cause. Ours is that of women empowerment, and what brings us together is the books we read on a monthly basis. As we read, we also get an opportunity to tackle women issues, and also be there for one another. We are united, for our own development. Social justice speaks to equity, and ensuring that barriers that prohibit the equal exercise of rights and privileges are removed. There is a lot of opportunities that exclude woman, so we have created a network where we share opportunities amongst each other. As women, we can and we must.

Follow ImPower’d Woman Book Club on social media:

Act Church of Sweden and the Lutheran World Federation invite you to an Ecumenical Consultation on Social Contract on February 3, 2022 from 15:00 to 16:30 Geneva time. The consultation will explore the following: Social contract, the link of trust between citizens and government, is fundamental in the development of peaceful and fair societies. What nurtures (or inhibits) the development of social contracts? And how can churches facilitate the growth of these?

Click here to register