The Inaugural Mwamko Fellowship Kicks-Off

Mwamko is glad and honoured to announce the start of the inaugural Mwamko fellowship, which kicked-off on 12th September, 2024, under the theme Can You Imagine the Size of Freedom?

This fellowship is a testament to the growth and evolution of Mwamko as a Pan-African popular pedagogy collective that serves movements and people’s organisations across the African continent and her diaspora. The 2024 fellowship brings together 17 fellows working on and organising around diverse themes such as Pan-Africanism, decolonial discourse and praxis, gender justice, solidarity economy, environmental rights and popular education under the umbrella of the Toussaint Louverture Cohort.

The Mwamko fellows will build community and broaden their understanding around the key themes highlighted above over the next five months. We at Mwamko believe that they will be better equipped to conduct analysis, build bigger communities, and further the Unfinished African Liberation Struggle by the end of this duration.

Love and freedom,

The team at Mwamko.

Pan
Africanism

In November 2023, Mwamko and Husika partnered to organize a public lecture and debate on Pan-Africanism and social movements in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo(DRC). The public debate brought together comrades from various movements in Kenya and DRC for discussions around historical and present currents of Pan-Africanism, the impact of global economic systems in the neo-colonies, and the frames of organizing that the current juncture demands of social movements across the African continent.

Conversation

Where is the African Revolution?

Locating the Left in Our Times

On 28 July 2022, Mwamko partnered with Ukombozi Library to host a conversation titled Where is the African revolution? – Locating the Left in Our Times in nairobi, Kenya. The conversation between Alieu Bah and Sungu Oyoo was held in memory of Grandmaster Masese, an organizer and player of the Obokano, a traditional stringed musical instrument of the Kisii people from Kenya’s Western highlands

The three hour long conversation touched on the history of the African Left, fragmentation of the African struggle through generational divides and ideological schisms, the role of language and tradition in cultivating

revolutionary processes, impediments to organizing faced by the current generation of activists, among others. The second part of the conversation was more forward looking, examining social movements and progressive left left formations today, Pan-Africansim from below (unity of people vs unity of nations) as a reference point for African unity, and strategic priorities for the Left in Africa.

This first public event associated with Mwamko really was a pointer of the organizations trajectory given that it was attended by Comrades from across Africa and the world, both physically and online.

Solidarity Economy in the age of Globalised Neo-colonialism

In June 2023, Mwamko and Cooperation Jackson hosted a public lecture and conversation themed ’Solidarity Economy in the age of Globalised Neo-Colonialism’. This lecture by Kali Akuno touches on the alternatives to capitalism and the many ways to build a new world, specifically on how to situate leftist economic alternatives within today’s dominant economic structures. The wider conversation, meanwhile, enabled sharing and interrogation of diverse examples of ongoing efforts for economic organising from some of the marginalised communities that Cooperation Jackson works with in the US, and their relation to similar efforts in Africa.

Kali Akuno is co-founder and co-director of Cooperation Jackson, a network of worker cooperatives and community-led programs that sustain and grow a democratic, just and sustainable economy in Jackson, Mississipi. Among these programs is the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Land Trust, which allows community members to collectively steward the land and creates opportunities for affordable property ownership.

You can watch the recording of Kali Akuno’s lecture here

Groundings with Stella Nyanzi

Mwamko hosted Ugandan academic, politician, poet and dissident Stella Nyanzi in Kisumu for a grounding session organized in collaboration with Kisumu Peace and Justice Centre on 19th September 2022. The session featured poetry reading, and discussions on a wide range of issues that are of importance to our movements and organizers.

These included the nature of repression in Uganda, Stella Nyanzi’s organizing and imprisonment, what solidarirt and internationalism means in our context, the nature of the Pan-African struggle today, the role of the writers and artists in uplifting social consciousness, and other issues.

What We Stand For

Lay Him Down on a High Mountain

The Political Legacy of Robert Mongaliso Sobukwe

A public lecture by Phethani Madzivhandila

In February 2023, Mwamko organised a public lecture in conjunction with the Johannesburg-based Walter Rodney People’s Revolutionary Library. The lecture by Phethani Madzivhandila was held at Ukombozi Library in Nairobi under the theme Lay him down on a high mountain: the political legacy of Robert Mongaliso Sobukwe.

The three hour lecture touched on Sobukwe’s life; his political engagements against the apartheid government in Azania (South Africa); the Africanist split with the African National Congress (ANC); the founding of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC); and the relevance of Sobukwe’s ideas today. This was followed by an open discussion around different African struggles in relation to the Pan-Africanist ideal.

Phethani was joined by Alieu Bah in this conversation moderated by Njoki Gachanja.

To watch the lecture, click here.

Activist in residence programme

Mwamko and MS-TCDC (Training Centre for Development Cooperation) are co-organizing and co-designing an activist-in-residence programme slated for February 2023.

Organised under the theme, Nurturing revolutionary hope: transnational solidarity and cooperation for a decolonized future, this residency programme is a month-long engagement bringing together progressive organizers, theorists, writers, artists, activists, and/or other practitioners looking for a quiet and safe space to strategize on advancing radical values and building power together across borders.

Slated for February 2023, The AiR program will utilize TCDC’s and Mwamko’s people, knowledge, facilities, and spaces to strategize and take action on their shared goals. The group may create an action plan or other relevant outcome that helps them take the next steps to advance their cause.

Applications for the residency are already closed, and selection of fellows and co-design process of the programme are currently ongoing – with Mwamko’s Alieu Bah taking lead.