ACTIVISTS IN RESIDENCE

Activists from ten African countries are meeting in Arusha in a pilot initiative of Africans Rising and the Training Centre for Development Cooperation (TCDC) with support from the Fund for Global Human Rights (FGHR) to create space for documentation by Activists, of their experiences and lessons learned. 

The one month programme will benefit the activists in residence (AiR) through their interaction, deepen the understanding of their local struggles using other Activists’ lenses as well as inspire them to identify ways of further strengthening their movements.

Activists will also have an opportunity for skills acquisition, be encouraged to transfer such skills in their countries – using social media platforms and other appropriate means and have a rare opportunity for rest and recuperation, especially for those who have faced repression or those who have given years of dedicated service and might be on the verge of burnout.  

Participants of the programme who come from Morocco, Liberia, Senegal, DRCongo, UK, Benin, Burundi, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, will also benefit from discussions with well known African figures such as Jay Naidoo, former  General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and a Minister in President Mandela’s term of office and Mshai Mwangola, a Kenyan 'orator', actor, director and storyteller whose work draws on performance traditions.

Africans Rising is a nascent, rapidly growing, self-identifying collective of social movements, NGOs, peoples and popular social justice efforts, intellectuals, artists, sports people, cultural activists and others, across the continent and Diaspora.  People who have given input to the development of the movement agree that African unity reflected by greater social, political and economic integration is critical for Africa and its peoples, nations and nationalities – a united civil society should be the vanguard of such a movement for justice, peace and dignity.

 Activists with Jay Naidoo (3^rd from left) and holding signed copies of his new book Change.