Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u5PMvo-SBY
Civil Society and its Institutions
Below is an article about how a business organization with social conscience can promote social good...
We’re Ben and Jerry. Men of Ice Cream, Men of Principle.
We are the founders of Ben & Jerry’s. We are also proud Jews. It’s part of who we are and how we’ve identified ourselves for our whole lives. As our company began to expand internationally, Israel was one of our first overseas markets. We were then, and remain today, supporters of the State of Israel.
But it’s possible to support Israel and oppose some of its policies, just as we’ve opposed policies of the U.S. government. As such, we unequivocally support the decision of the company to end business in the occupied territories, which a majority of the international community, including the United Nations, has deemed an illegal occupation.
While we no longer have any operational control of the company we founded in 1978, we’re proud of its action and believe it is on the right side of history. In our view, ending the sales of ice cream in the occupied territories is one of the most important decisions the company has made in its 43-year history. It was especially brave of the company. Even though it undoubtedly knew that the response would be swift and powerful, Ben & Jerry’s took the step to align its business and operations with its progressive values.
That we support the company’s decision is not a contradiction nor is it anti-Semitic. In fact, we believe this act can and should be seen as advancing the concepts of justice and human rights, core tenets of Judaism.
Ben & Jerry’s is a company that advocates peace. It has long called on Congress to reduce the U.S. military budget. Ben & Jerry’s opposed the Persian Gulf war of 1991. But it wasn’t just talk. One of our very first social-mission initiatives, in 1988, was to introduce the Peace Pop. It was part of an effort to promote the idea of redirecting 1 percent of national defense budgets around the world to fund peace-promoting activities. We see the company’s recent action as part of a similar trajectory — not as anti-Israel, but as part of a long history of being pro-peace.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/opin ... 778d3e6de3
We’re Ben and Jerry. Men of Ice Cream, Men of Principle.
We are the founders of Ben & Jerry’s. We are also proud Jews. It’s part of who we are and how we’ve identified ourselves for our whole lives. As our company began to expand internationally, Israel was one of our first overseas markets. We were then, and remain today, supporters of the State of Israel.
But it’s possible to support Israel and oppose some of its policies, just as we’ve opposed policies of the U.S. government. As such, we unequivocally support the decision of the company to end business in the occupied territories, which a majority of the international community, including the United Nations, has deemed an illegal occupation.
While we no longer have any operational control of the company we founded in 1978, we’re proud of its action and believe it is on the right side of history. In our view, ending the sales of ice cream in the occupied territories is one of the most important decisions the company has made in its 43-year history. It was especially brave of the company. Even though it undoubtedly knew that the response would be swift and powerful, Ben & Jerry’s took the step to align its business and operations with its progressive values.
That we support the company’s decision is not a contradiction nor is it anti-Semitic. In fact, we believe this act can and should be seen as advancing the concepts of justice and human rights, core tenets of Judaism.
Ben & Jerry’s is a company that advocates peace. It has long called on Congress to reduce the U.S. military budget. Ben & Jerry’s opposed the Persian Gulf war of 1991. But it wasn’t just talk. One of our very first social-mission initiatives, in 1988, was to introduce the Peace Pop. It was part of an effort to promote the idea of redirecting 1 percent of national defense budgets around the world to fund peace-promoting activities. We see the company’s recent action as part of a similar trajectory — not as anti-Israel, but as part of a long history of being pro-peace.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Video Quote: On Importance of Nursing, Teaching and Journalism for Civil Society
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeyvrZz5sRY
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeyvrZz5sRY
Video Quote: Role of an Active Civil Society in Unleashing Energies and Talents
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0u8QkSLQT0
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0u8QkSLQT0
Video Quote: Civil Society and the Link Between Democracy and the Public-Committed Citizen
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c40dRdxcp0Q
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c40dRdxcp0Q
The Home Stretch
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gS1Jq6OkOM
Korogocho, loosely translated as “crowded shoulder by shoulder,” is Kenya’s fourth largest informal settlement. 26 families who were living in Korogocho now have the opportunity to move into new, safe homes with help from the Commonwealth Housing Group.
AKF and USAID’s Yetu Initiative supports Kenyan community organizations, including Commonwealth Housing Group, with practical guidance on how to raise resources locally.
Learn more about AKF's work in Kenya by joining the #AKFVirtualVoyage at virtualvoyage.akfusa.org
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gS1Jq6OkOM
Korogocho, loosely translated as “crowded shoulder by shoulder,” is Kenya’s fourth largest informal settlement. 26 families who were living in Korogocho now have the opportunity to move into new, safe homes with help from the Commonwealth Housing Group.
AKF and USAID’s Yetu Initiative supports Kenyan community organizations, including Commonwealth Housing Group, with practical guidance on how to raise resources locally.
Learn more about AKF's work in Kenya by joining the #AKFVirtualVoyage at virtualvoyage.akfusa.org
Ancient History Shows How We Can Create a More Equal World
The article below alludes to the role of civil societies in the pre-historic times to create more equal and sustainable urbanized communities in the past which can be emulated for future.
Most of human history is irreparably lost to us. Our species, Homo sapiens, has existed for at least 200,000 years, but we have next to no idea what was happening for the majority of that time. In northern Spain, for instance, at the cave of Altamira, paintings and engravings were created over a period of at least 10,000 years, between around 25,000 and 15,000 B.C. Presumably, a lot of dramatic events occurred during that period. We have no way of knowing what most of them were. This is of little consequence to most people, since most people rarely think about the broad sweep of human history anyway. They don’t have much reason to. Insofar as the question comes up at all, it’s usually when reflecting on why the world seems to be in such a mess and why human beings so often treat each other badly — the reasons for war, greed, exploitation and indifference to others’ suffering. Were we always like that, or did something, at some point, go terribly wrong?
One of the first people to ask this question in the modern era was the Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in an essay on the origins of social inequality that he submitted to a competition in 1754. Once upon a time, he wrote, we were hunter-gatherers, living in a state of childlike innocence, as equals. These bands of foragers could be egalitarian because they were isolated from one another, and their material needs were simple. According to Rousseau, it was only after the agricultural revolution and the rise of cities that this happy condition came to an end. Urban living meant the appearance of written literature, science and philosophy, but at the same time, almost everything bad in human life: patriarchy, standing armies, mass executions and annoying bureaucrats demanding that we spend much of our lives filling out forms.
Rousseau lost the essay competition, but the story he told went on to become a dominant narrative of human history, laying the foundations upon which contemporary “big history” writers — such as Jared Diamond, Francis Fukuyama and Yuval Noah Harari — built their accounts of how our societies evolved. These writers often talk about inequality as the natural result of living in larger groups with a surplus of resources. For example, Mr. Harari writes in “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” that, after the advent of agriculture, rulers and elites sprang up “everywhere … living off the peasants’ surplus food and leaving them with only a bare subsistence.”
For a long time, the archaeological evidence — from Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica and elsewhere — did appear to confirm this. If you put enough people in one place, the evidence seemed to show, they would start dividing themselves into social classes. You could see inequality emerge in the archaeological record with the appearance of temples and palaces, presided over by rulers and their elite kinsmen, and storehouses and workshops, run by administrators and overseers. Civilization seemed to come as a package: It meant misery and suffering for those who would inevitably be reduced to serfs, slaves or debtors, but it also allowed for the possibility of art, technology, and science.
That makes wistful pessimism about the human condition seem like common sense: Yes, living in a truly egalitarian society might be possible if you’re a Pygmy or a Kalahari Bushman. But if you want to live in a city like New York, London or Shanghai — if you want all the good things that come with concentrations of people and resources — then you have to accept the bad things, too. For generations, such assumptions have formed part of our origin story. The history we learn in school has made us more willing to tolerate a world in which some can turn their wealth into power over others, while others are told their needs are not important and their lives have no intrinsic worth. As a result, we are more likely to believe that inequality is just an inescapable consequence of living in large, complex, urban, technologically sophisticated societies.
We want to offer an entirely different account of human history. We believe that much of what has been discovered in the last few decades, by archaeologists and others in kindred disciplines, cuts against the conventional wisdom propounded by modern “big history” writers. ​​What this new evidence shows is that a surprising number of the world’s earliest cities were organized along robustly egalitarian lines. In some regions, we now know, urban populations governed themselves for centuries without any indication of the temples and palaces that would later emerge; in others, temples and palaces never emerged at all, and there is simply no evidence of a class of administrators or any other sort of ruling stratum. It would seem that the mere fact of urban life does not, necessarily, imply any particular form of political organization, and never did. Far from resigning us to inequality, the new picture that is now emerging of humanity’s deep past may open our eyes to egalitarian possibilities we otherwise would have never considered.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/opin ... 778d3e6de3
The article below alludes to the role of civil societies in the pre-historic times to create more equal and sustainable urbanized communities in the past which can be emulated for future.
Most of human history is irreparably lost to us. Our species, Homo sapiens, has existed for at least 200,000 years, but we have next to no idea what was happening for the majority of that time. In northern Spain, for instance, at the cave of Altamira, paintings and engravings were created over a period of at least 10,000 years, between around 25,000 and 15,000 B.C. Presumably, a lot of dramatic events occurred during that period. We have no way of knowing what most of them were. This is of little consequence to most people, since most people rarely think about the broad sweep of human history anyway. They don’t have much reason to. Insofar as the question comes up at all, it’s usually when reflecting on why the world seems to be in such a mess and why human beings so often treat each other badly — the reasons for war, greed, exploitation and indifference to others’ suffering. Were we always like that, or did something, at some point, go terribly wrong?
One of the first people to ask this question in the modern era was the Swiss-French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in an essay on the origins of social inequality that he submitted to a competition in 1754. Once upon a time, he wrote, we were hunter-gatherers, living in a state of childlike innocence, as equals. These bands of foragers could be egalitarian because they were isolated from one another, and their material needs were simple. According to Rousseau, it was only after the agricultural revolution and the rise of cities that this happy condition came to an end. Urban living meant the appearance of written literature, science and philosophy, but at the same time, almost everything bad in human life: patriarchy, standing armies, mass executions and annoying bureaucrats demanding that we spend much of our lives filling out forms.
Rousseau lost the essay competition, but the story he told went on to become a dominant narrative of human history, laying the foundations upon which contemporary “big history” writers — such as Jared Diamond, Francis Fukuyama and Yuval Noah Harari — built their accounts of how our societies evolved. These writers often talk about inequality as the natural result of living in larger groups with a surplus of resources. For example, Mr. Harari writes in “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” that, after the advent of agriculture, rulers and elites sprang up “everywhere … living off the peasants’ surplus food and leaving them with only a bare subsistence.”
For a long time, the archaeological evidence — from Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica and elsewhere — did appear to confirm this. If you put enough people in one place, the evidence seemed to show, they would start dividing themselves into social classes. You could see inequality emerge in the archaeological record with the appearance of temples and palaces, presided over by rulers and their elite kinsmen, and storehouses and workshops, run by administrators and overseers. Civilization seemed to come as a package: It meant misery and suffering for those who would inevitably be reduced to serfs, slaves or debtors, but it also allowed for the possibility of art, technology, and science.
That makes wistful pessimism about the human condition seem like common sense: Yes, living in a truly egalitarian society might be possible if you’re a Pygmy or a Kalahari Bushman. But if you want to live in a city like New York, London or Shanghai — if you want all the good things that come with concentrations of people and resources — then you have to accept the bad things, too. For generations, such assumptions have formed part of our origin story. The history we learn in school has made us more willing to tolerate a world in which some can turn their wealth into power over others, while others are told their needs are not important and their lives have no intrinsic worth. As a result, we are more likely to believe that inequality is just an inescapable consequence of living in large, complex, urban, technologically sophisticated societies.
We want to offer an entirely different account of human history. We believe that much of what has been discovered in the last few decades, by archaeologists and others in kindred disciplines, cuts against the conventional wisdom propounded by modern “big history” writers. ​​What this new evidence shows is that a surprising number of the world’s earliest cities were organized along robustly egalitarian lines. In some regions, we now know, urban populations governed themselves for centuries without any indication of the temples and palaces that would later emerge; in others, temples and palaces never emerged at all, and there is simply no evidence of a class of administrators or any other sort of ruling stratum. It would seem that the mere fact of urban life does not, necessarily, imply any particular form of political organization, and never did. Far from resigning us to inequality, the new picture that is now emerging of humanity’s deep past may open our eyes to egalitarian possibilities we otherwise would have never considered.
More....
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/opin ... 778d3e6de3
Video Quote: Civil Society - Volunteerism and Ethics
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdP9r6vOYE
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pdP9r6vOYE
The Worth of an Angry God
How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and spread.
A god who knows everything, is everywhere, and wields impossible power, is a potent fantasy. Allegiance to it animates the lives of billions worldwide. But this “Big God,” as psychologists and anthropologists refer to it, wasn’t dreamt from scratch but pieced together, over thousands of years, paralleling humanity’s move from small- to large-scale societies. One burning question researchers want to answer is: Did humans need belief in a God-like being—someone who can punish every immorality we might commit—to have the big societies we have today, where we live relatively peaceably among strangers we could easily exploit?
Harvey Whitehouse, the director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, doesn’t think so. “Complex societies,” he and his colleagues declared in a March Nature paper, “precede moralizing gods throughout world history.” They relied on a massive historical database, called Seshat, which over a decade attracted contributions from over a hundred scholars. With the database “finally ready for analysis,” Whitehouse and his colleagues wrote in The Conversation, “we are poised to test a long list of theories about global history,” particularly “whether morally concerned deities drove the rise of complex societies,” some hallmarks of which are more economic integration and division of labor, more political hierarchy, the emergence of classes, and dependence on more complex technology and pre-specialists. Whitehouse concluded that those deities did no such driving. As he told Nautilus in a 2014 interview, as societies became more agricultural, what researchers see “in the archeological record is increasing frequency of collective rituals. This changes things psychologically and leads to more doctrinal kinds of religious systems, which are more recognizable when we look at world religions today.”
Joseph Henrich, chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, sees it differently. He contends that moralizing gods spurred societal complexity because belief in moralizing gods leads to success in intergroup competition. It increased trust and cooperation among a growing population of relative strangers, he said, and buttressed traits like bravery in warfare. “The word ‘moralizing’ is not a useful term,” though, he added. “People use it casually, because people are interested in morality, but the theory specifies this very specific set of things that increase your success in intergroup competition. Most people want to call greater cooperation, helping strangers, things like that, moral. That’s just a Western preoccupation.”
I caught up with Henrich earlier this month to discuss the anthropological chicken-and-egg problem of whether gods or complex societies came first. He was gracious in defending his position that gods were the bonds that allowed societies to gain strength and grow.
More and interview/discussion:
https://nautil.us/issue/109/excavation/ ... -angry-god
How supernatural beliefs allowed societies to bond and spread.
A god who knows everything, is everywhere, and wields impossible power, is a potent fantasy. Allegiance to it animates the lives of billions worldwide. But this “Big God,” as psychologists and anthropologists refer to it, wasn’t dreamt from scratch but pieced together, over thousands of years, paralleling humanity’s move from small- to large-scale societies. One burning question researchers want to answer is: Did humans need belief in a God-like being—someone who can punish every immorality we might commit—to have the big societies we have today, where we live relatively peaceably among strangers we could easily exploit?
Harvey Whitehouse, the director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, doesn’t think so. “Complex societies,” he and his colleagues declared in a March Nature paper, “precede moralizing gods throughout world history.” They relied on a massive historical database, called Seshat, which over a decade attracted contributions from over a hundred scholars. With the database “finally ready for analysis,” Whitehouse and his colleagues wrote in The Conversation, “we are poised to test a long list of theories about global history,” particularly “whether morally concerned deities drove the rise of complex societies,” some hallmarks of which are more economic integration and division of labor, more political hierarchy, the emergence of classes, and dependence on more complex technology and pre-specialists. Whitehouse concluded that those deities did no such driving. As he told Nautilus in a 2014 interview, as societies became more agricultural, what researchers see “in the archeological record is increasing frequency of collective rituals. This changes things psychologically and leads to more doctrinal kinds of religious systems, which are more recognizable when we look at world religions today.”
Joseph Henrich, chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, sees it differently. He contends that moralizing gods spurred societal complexity because belief in moralizing gods leads to success in intergroup competition. It increased trust and cooperation among a growing population of relative strangers, he said, and buttressed traits like bravery in warfare. “The word ‘moralizing’ is not a useful term,” though, he added. “People use it casually, because people are interested in morality, but the theory specifies this very specific set of things that increase your success in intergroup competition. Most people want to call greater cooperation, helping strangers, things like that, moral. That’s just a Western preoccupation.”
I caught up with Henrich earlier this month to discuss the anthropological chicken-and-egg problem of whether gods or complex societies came first. He was gracious in defending his position that gods were the bonds that allowed societies to gain strength and grow.
More and interview/discussion:
https://nautil.us/issue/109/excavation/ ... -angry-god
Video Quote: Bottom-up Verses Top-down Approaches to Development
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teTGSnQ91CI
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teTGSnQ91CI
The article below highlights the role civil society can play in bringing about social change in society.
Billionaire’s Star Rises as She Takes Bold Stance on Racism in Brazil
Luiza Trajano turned a small family store into a retail giant. Now, a company policy limiting its executive training program to Black applicants is drawing praise, outrage and much soul-searching.
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — It was a casual conversation that led Luiza Trajano, one of Brazil’s wealthiest women, to ponder her country’s racism, to recognize her part in it — and to do something about it.
A few years back, she said, she had heard a young, accomplished Black businesswoman mention that she never attended happy hours with colleagues unless her boss explicitly asked her to join. Years of feeling the rejection that many Black Brazilians experience in predominantly white settings had taught her to seek clear invitations, the woman explained.
Ms. Trajano, who is white, felt a pang of sadness. Then an uncomfortable thought crossed her mind.
“At my birthday parties, there aren’t any Black women,” Ms. Trajano remembered thinking. “That’s structural racism that, in my case, is not born out of rejection, but out of failing to seek them out.”
That moment of introspection for Ms. Trajano, who had turned a small family business into a retail behemoth, helped plant the seeds for a bold corporate affirmative action initiative, which has drawn praise, outrage and plenty of soul searching in Brazil.
For the past two years, the public company, called Magazine Luiza, or Magalu, has limited its executive trainee program for recent college graduates — a pipeline to well-paying, senior roles — to Black applicants.
The announcement, in September 2020, generated a deluge of news coverage and commentary. Much of it was critical.
The hashtag #MagaluRacista — which means racist Magalu — trended on Twitter for days. A lawmaker close to Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s conservative president, urged federal prosecutors to open an investigation into the company, arguing that the program violated constitutional protections.
But Magazine Luiza called it a necessary and overdue step to diversify its senior ranks and to atone for the brutal legacy of racism in Brazil, where slavery was not abolished until 1888.
Ms. Trajano emerged as the most visible and vocal defender of her company’s policy.
“Beyond the economic and social aspects, slavery left a very strong emotional mark, which is a society of colonizers and the colonized,” Ms. Trajano, 70, said. “Many people have never felt that this is their country.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Billionaire’s Star Rises as She Takes Bold Stance on Racism in Brazil
Luiza Trajano turned a small family store into a retail giant. Now, a company policy limiting its executive training program to Black applicants is drawing praise, outrage and much soul-searching.
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — It was a casual conversation that led Luiza Trajano, one of Brazil’s wealthiest women, to ponder her country’s racism, to recognize her part in it — and to do something about it.
A few years back, she said, she had heard a young, accomplished Black businesswoman mention that she never attended happy hours with colleagues unless her boss explicitly asked her to join. Years of feeling the rejection that many Black Brazilians experience in predominantly white settings had taught her to seek clear invitations, the woman explained.
Ms. Trajano, who is white, felt a pang of sadness. Then an uncomfortable thought crossed her mind.
“At my birthday parties, there aren’t any Black women,” Ms. Trajano remembered thinking. “That’s structural racism that, in my case, is not born out of rejection, but out of failing to seek them out.”
That moment of introspection for Ms. Trajano, who had turned a small family business into a retail behemoth, helped plant the seeds for a bold corporate affirmative action initiative, which has drawn praise, outrage and plenty of soul searching in Brazil.
For the past two years, the public company, called Magazine Luiza, or Magalu, has limited its executive trainee program for recent college graduates — a pipeline to well-paying, senior roles — to Black applicants.
The announcement, in September 2020, generated a deluge of news coverage and commentary. Much of it was critical.
The hashtag #MagaluRacista — which means racist Magalu — trended on Twitter for days. A lawmaker close to Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s conservative president, urged federal prosecutors to open an investigation into the company, arguing that the program violated constitutional protections.
But Magazine Luiza called it a necessary and overdue step to diversify its senior ranks and to atone for the brutal legacy of racism in Brazil, where slavery was not abolished until 1888.
Ms. Trajano emerged as the most visible and vocal defender of her company’s policy.
“Beyond the economic and social aspects, slavery left a very strong emotional mark, which is a society of colonizers and the colonized,” Ms. Trajano, 70, said. “Many people have never felt that this is their country.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/worl ... 778d3e6de3
The article below highlights the role civil society can play in bringing about political and structural change in society.
‘Democracy Is Life’: The Grass-Roots Movement Taking On Sudan’s Generals
Hundreds of loosely connected “resistance committees” are organizing nonviolent protests, tracking the injured and dead and demanding a government led by civilians.
KHARTOUM, Sudan — In a bare, dusty field in a neighborhood north of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, about a hundred people — gray-haired men in white robes and turbans, young women in jeans and T-shirts, mothers with their children in tow — gathered on a recent evening to discuss what they see as their nation’s most pressing need: democracy.
For more than six hours, over sweet milky tea and doughnuts, they debated how to dislodge the military from its grip on power, cemented on Oct. 25 when a military coup suddenly put an end to Sudan’s two-year-old transition to democratic rule.
Across this vast nation of more than 43 million in northeast Africa, hundreds of similar groups, known as resistance committees, are convening regularly to plan protests, draw up political manifestoes and discuss issues like economic policy and even trash pickup.
They are committed to nonviolence, though they have paid a high price. On a makeshift stage in the dusty field, in the Kafouri neighborhood, 16 photographs were on display — one woman and 15 men, “martyrs” from the neighborhood. They are among 79 people who have been killed in the protests since Oct. 25, according to a doctors’ group.
“People have been killed, injured and detained so that we stop organizing and protesting,” said Reem Sinada, 34, a veterinary medicine lecturer at the University of Khartoum, one of the local organizers. “But we won’t.”
The neighborhood resistance committees are led mostly by young organizers, and they make a point of meeting in the open — in tea shops and under trees — rejecting the closed-room negotiations and top-down, male-centered leadership that have defined Sudanese politics for decades.
The movement does not have a single leader, relying instead on a decentralized structure in which individuals and communities organize their own events. They announce protest dates and demands on social media, in pamphlets and through graffiti and murals scrawled on walls. A media committee shares plans through a unified Twitter handle, but individual committees also manage their own social media accounts.
“The military wish they were dealing with a few political parties and elites, and not this large network of people all over the country,” said Muzan Alneel, a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/worl ... 778d3e6de3
‘Democracy Is Life’: The Grass-Roots Movement Taking On Sudan’s Generals
Hundreds of loosely connected “resistance committees” are organizing nonviolent protests, tracking the injured and dead and demanding a government led by civilians.
KHARTOUM, Sudan — In a bare, dusty field in a neighborhood north of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, about a hundred people — gray-haired men in white robes and turbans, young women in jeans and T-shirts, mothers with their children in tow — gathered on a recent evening to discuss what they see as their nation’s most pressing need: democracy.
For more than six hours, over sweet milky tea and doughnuts, they debated how to dislodge the military from its grip on power, cemented on Oct. 25 when a military coup suddenly put an end to Sudan’s two-year-old transition to democratic rule.
Across this vast nation of more than 43 million in northeast Africa, hundreds of similar groups, known as resistance committees, are convening regularly to plan protests, draw up political manifestoes and discuss issues like economic policy and even trash pickup.
They are committed to nonviolence, though they have paid a high price. On a makeshift stage in the dusty field, in the Kafouri neighborhood, 16 photographs were on display — one woman and 15 men, “martyrs” from the neighborhood. They are among 79 people who have been killed in the protests since Oct. 25, according to a doctors’ group.
“People have been killed, injured and detained so that we stop organizing and protesting,” said Reem Sinada, 34, a veterinary medicine lecturer at the University of Khartoum, one of the local organizers. “But we won’t.”
The neighborhood resistance committees are led mostly by young organizers, and they make a point of meeting in the open — in tea shops and under trees — rejecting the closed-room negotiations and top-down, male-centered leadership that have defined Sudanese politics for decades.
The movement does not have a single leader, relying instead on a decentralized structure in which individuals and communities organize their own events. They announce protest dates and demands on social media, in pamphlets and through graffiti and murals scrawled on walls. A media committee shares plans through a unified Twitter handle, but individual committees also manage their own social media accounts.
“The military wish they were dealing with a few political parties and elites, and not this large network of people all over the country,” said Muzan Alneel, a nonresident fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/worl ... 778d3e6de3
Re: Civil Society and its Institutions
Video Quote: Strong Civil Society and Pluralism as Pre-conditions for Development
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suqFiZDw0U
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-suqFiZDw0U
Re: Civil Society and its Institutions
Chand Raat of Sha’ban 1443 – 3rd March 2022: “The Concept of Civil Society”
BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON MARCH 2, 2022
By: Sadruddin Noorani, Chicago, USA
What is civil society? This phrase was uncommon in Western discourse before the 1980s, and so it may still be unfamiliar to many people. In simple terms, civil society refers to “additional efforts,” distinct from those made by the government and business sectors. As such, civil society refers to the collective voluntary actions around shared interests, purposes, and values. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors, and institutional forms, such as: registered charities, NGOs or non-governmental organizations, professional associations, community groups, foundations, charitable trusts, faith-based organizations, and self-help groups, all of which work for the betterment of the people and societies in which they live.
Civil Society primarily constitutes actions formalized by people for the benefit of people. Often governments are fragile by themselves, and people take matters into their own hands to benefit their underprivileged population. Decisions made by governments are often driven by politicians and do not necessarily benefit people.
Aga Khan lV (49th Imam of the Ismaili Muslim community), in a speech given at the Royal Society, London on 2nd February 1992 said: “… civil society is more than the unitary state. Rather, civil society is properly recognized to be a pluralist collection of the groups, associations, and localities in which we actually spend our lives… Development is ultimately about people, about enabling them to participate fully in the process and to make informed choices and decisions on their futures. I believe this requires a creative and supportive partnership between government, private enterprise, and the voluntary sector; …. And the voluntary sector can serve to bring people together to meet an enormous range of social needs.“
In the same speech he continued: “To create a pluralistic civil society, private institutions must be established that meet the needs of their constituent groups. The state cannot do it all. To be successful, these private institutions must meet two conditions: their members must have a sense of common purpose; and those members must be organized so as to achieve that purpose.“
In previous articles I have pointed to the Imam’s vision on pluralism, which encourages diverse people with creative ideas to achieve common goals; and his vision on the Islamic understanding of knowledge, which he promotes through initiatives such as the establishment of universities and centers of excellence, to transform, develop and enrich societies. These and other efforts of Imamat institutions and similar efforts by other institutions, professionals, volunteers, and communities are efforts that are non-governmental and non-business orientated. For this reason, they are generally termed non-profit organizations or not-for-profit organizations. These additional efforts in any society make it a civil society.
In his keynote address at the Canadian Leadership Conference, Quebec, Canada, on 19th May 2004, referring to a UN report, Mawlana Hazar Imam said that “Our long presence on the ground gives us an insight that confirms the UN’s assessment – that a democracy cannot function reasonably without civil-society institutions and respect for pluralism.“
The expression, “civil society,” refers to additional private initiatives and efforts, such as Imamat institutions (akdn.org) and other humanitarian welfare organizations, over and above governmental and business community’s efforts, to strengthen society and support welfare of its people.
Islam is a universal religion, with humanistic values, and ethical principles, such as: communal solidarity; charity; generosity and volunteerism; personal and institutional ethical behavior; accountability and integrity; and respect and tolerance. These and such values and principles contribute to the building and enrichment of any society. All Imamat initiatives manifested in the form of various apex institutions such as AKF, AKFED, AKU and AKTC may be viewed as an effort to create strong civil societies around the world. In his keynote address at the Canadian Leadership Conference, Quebec, Canada, on 19th May 2004, Mawlana Hazar Imam said:
“The engagement of the Imamat in development is guided by Islamic ethics, which bridge faith and society. It is on this premise that I established the Aga Khan Development Network. This network of agencies has been active in many areas of Asia and Africa to improve the quality of life of some of the poorest and most diverse populations in the world.“
Highlighting Canada as a prime example of a strong civil society, Mawlana Hazar Imam said: “Canada has successfully constructed a public sphere predicated on the ethic of respect for human dignity. It recognizes and builds on difference, enables a spirit of compromise and consensus in public and legislative policies, and marks out a healthy space for the role of civil society as a sound – indeed, essential – bulwark for democratic processes.“
Aga Khan’s vision of architecture and pluralism actualized the idea of civil society, which serves to strengthen and enrich society and its people. In his concluding remarks at the Winners’ Seminar of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Aleppo, Syria, 7th November 2001, he said: “The essence of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture is to examine, analyze, understand, and try to influence the dynamic of physical change in Islamic societies. The dynamic is not limited to cities, and it is not limited to professions. Its focus is the totality of civil society, as we know it.”
An excellent example of what civil society can do is reflected in the selection of the Gando Village primary school in Burkina Faso, which was constructed at a cost of less than U.S. $30,000. It was one of the seven recipients of the 2004 Aga Khan Award for Architecture; the Master Jury selected this project for “its elegant architectonic clarity, achieved with the humblest of means and materials and for its transformative value”. It also remarked that, “the result is a structure of grace, warmth and sophistication, in sympathy with the local climate and culture”.
Not only did the architect design the school and raise funds locally to build it, but he also secured government support to train local people in building techniques that used local materials. He drew on the strong tradition of community solidarity to engage all villagers in the construction. The way the community organized itself set an example for two neighboring villages, which subsequently built their own schools as a cooperative effort. What a wonderful example of private initiatives, which involved diverse groups of people to improve their own lives and the lives of future generations.
We hope that this vision of Mawlana Hazar Imam about civil society, which is premised on the ethical values of Islam, will encourage, and motivate all of us to offer our voluntary services, by participating with the diverse groups and people of our society, to strengthen our communities and nations in which we are living. Would this not be an admirable way to actually participate in the vision of our Imam in practice?
Recommended reading: Selected Speeches & Interviews on “WHERE HOPE TAKES ROOT” Democracy and Pluralism in an Interdependent World – 2008. By His Highness The Aga Khan lV
Share this via:
https://ismailimail.blog/2022/03/02/cha ... l-society/
BY ISMAILIMAIL POSTED ON MARCH 2, 2022
By: Sadruddin Noorani, Chicago, USA
What is civil society? This phrase was uncommon in Western discourse before the 1980s, and so it may still be unfamiliar to many people. In simple terms, civil society refers to “additional efforts,” distinct from those made by the government and business sectors. As such, civil society refers to the collective voluntary actions around shared interests, purposes, and values. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors, and institutional forms, such as: registered charities, NGOs or non-governmental organizations, professional associations, community groups, foundations, charitable trusts, faith-based organizations, and self-help groups, all of which work for the betterment of the people and societies in which they live.
Civil Society primarily constitutes actions formalized by people for the benefit of people. Often governments are fragile by themselves, and people take matters into their own hands to benefit their underprivileged population. Decisions made by governments are often driven by politicians and do not necessarily benefit people.
Aga Khan lV (49th Imam of the Ismaili Muslim community), in a speech given at the Royal Society, London on 2nd February 1992 said: “… civil society is more than the unitary state. Rather, civil society is properly recognized to be a pluralist collection of the groups, associations, and localities in which we actually spend our lives… Development is ultimately about people, about enabling them to participate fully in the process and to make informed choices and decisions on their futures. I believe this requires a creative and supportive partnership between government, private enterprise, and the voluntary sector; …. And the voluntary sector can serve to bring people together to meet an enormous range of social needs.“
In the same speech he continued: “To create a pluralistic civil society, private institutions must be established that meet the needs of their constituent groups. The state cannot do it all. To be successful, these private institutions must meet two conditions: their members must have a sense of common purpose; and those members must be organized so as to achieve that purpose.“
In previous articles I have pointed to the Imam’s vision on pluralism, which encourages diverse people with creative ideas to achieve common goals; and his vision on the Islamic understanding of knowledge, which he promotes through initiatives such as the establishment of universities and centers of excellence, to transform, develop and enrich societies. These and other efforts of Imamat institutions and similar efforts by other institutions, professionals, volunteers, and communities are efforts that are non-governmental and non-business orientated. For this reason, they are generally termed non-profit organizations or not-for-profit organizations. These additional efforts in any society make it a civil society.
In his keynote address at the Canadian Leadership Conference, Quebec, Canada, on 19th May 2004, referring to a UN report, Mawlana Hazar Imam said that “Our long presence on the ground gives us an insight that confirms the UN’s assessment – that a democracy cannot function reasonably without civil-society institutions and respect for pluralism.“
The expression, “civil society,” refers to additional private initiatives and efforts, such as Imamat institutions (akdn.org) and other humanitarian welfare organizations, over and above governmental and business community’s efforts, to strengthen society and support welfare of its people.
Islam is a universal religion, with humanistic values, and ethical principles, such as: communal solidarity; charity; generosity and volunteerism; personal and institutional ethical behavior; accountability and integrity; and respect and tolerance. These and such values and principles contribute to the building and enrichment of any society. All Imamat initiatives manifested in the form of various apex institutions such as AKF, AKFED, AKU and AKTC may be viewed as an effort to create strong civil societies around the world. In his keynote address at the Canadian Leadership Conference, Quebec, Canada, on 19th May 2004, Mawlana Hazar Imam said:
“The engagement of the Imamat in development is guided by Islamic ethics, which bridge faith and society. It is on this premise that I established the Aga Khan Development Network. This network of agencies has been active in many areas of Asia and Africa to improve the quality of life of some of the poorest and most diverse populations in the world.“
Highlighting Canada as a prime example of a strong civil society, Mawlana Hazar Imam said: “Canada has successfully constructed a public sphere predicated on the ethic of respect for human dignity. It recognizes and builds on difference, enables a spirit of compromise and consensus in public and legislative policies, and marks out a healthy space for the role of civil society as a sound – indeed, essential – bulwark for democratic processes.“
Aga Khan’s vision of architecture and pluralism actualized the idea of civil society, which serves to strengthen and enrich society and its people. In his concluding remarks at the Winners’ Seminar of The Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Aleppo, Syria, 7th November 2001, he said: “The essence of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture is to examine, analyze, understand, and try to influence the dynamic of physical change in Islamic societies. The dynamic is not limited to cities, and it is not limited to professions. Its focus is the totality of civil society, as we know it.”
An excellent example of what civil society can do is reflected in the selection of the Gando Village primary school in Burkina Faso, which was constructed at a cost of less than U.S. $30,000. It was one of the seven recipients of the 2004 Aga Khan Award for Architecture; the Master Jury selected this project for “its elegant architectonic clarity, achieved with the humblest of means and materials and for its transformative value”. It also remarked that, “the result is a structure of grace, warmth and sophistication, in sympathy with the local climate and culture”.
Not only did the architect design the school and raise funds locally to build it, but he also secured government support to train local people in building techniques that used local materials. He drew on the strong tradition of community solidarity to engage all villagers in the construction. The way the community organized itself set an example for two neighboring villages, which subsequently built their own schools as a cooperative effort. What a wonderful example of private initiatives, which involved diverse groups of people to improve their own lives and the lives of future generations.
We hope that this vision of Mawlana Hazar Imam about civil society, which is premised on the ethical values of Islam, will encourage, and motivate all of us to offer our voluntary services, by participating with the diverse groups and people of our society, to strengthen our communities and nations in which we are living. Would this not be an admirable way to actually participate in the vision of our Imam in practice?
Recommended reading: Selected Speeches & Interviews on “WHERE HOPE TAKES ROOT” Democracy and Pluralism in an Interdependent World – 2008. By His Highness The Aga Khan lV
Share this via:
https://ismailimail.blog/2022/03/02/cha ... l-society/
Video Quote: Civil Society and Ethics
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prmOKGRRZIY
Transcript of a #conversation between His Highness the #AgaKhan and #Synergos (@Synergos) Founder Peggy Dulany (@peggydulany) at the Synergos University for a Night Event, London, UK, 22 October 2012.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prmOKGRRZIY
Transcript of a #conversation between His Highness the #AgaKhan and #Synergos (@Synergos) Founder Peggy Dulany (@peggydulany) at the Synergos University for a Night Event, London, UK, 22 October 2012.
Forging a spirit of generosity
“I volunteer because it is a chance to be part of something bigger than myself,” says Roza Amanbekova, a senior Communications and Media student from the University of Central Asia (UCA). “It is discovering the world and making it better.”
This article is part of The Ismaili’s Enhancing Civil Society series, in which we highlight stories about members of the Jamat who contribute to private initiatives for the public good.
Universities are known for making a positive contribution to their neighbourhood. They act as a hub of employment, knowledge creation, and general upliftment of the local area. The University of Central Asia (UCA) aims to go a step further by offering its students the autonomy to launch their own projects intended to bring positive change to the local community.
This autonomy has led to various creative initiatives at UCA’s Naryn campus, including Razakar.
Razakar is a community service student organisation, operating since 2018. The term comes from the Persian language, Riza meaning “free will” and Kar meaning “work” or “deed.” Together it translates as “volunteer.” Razakar’s mission aligns with UCA’s broader objective to promote social and economic development in the mountainous communities of Central Asia.
“When at UCA, I learned about Razakar, and I was very impressed by the work they do,” recalls Nuriya Mullo-Abdolova, a junior Communications and Media student who joined the initiative two years ago. “With the help of small but very fruitful actions, they improve the life of Naryn’s people by working with the students, fundraising, and other forms of support.”
Since 2018, Razakar’s student volunteers, who come from across Central and South Asia, have been serving the local community in education, the environment, social development, and life skills.
Volunteers deliver a 3-hour skills development camp on effective communication to students from different schools in Naryn.
PHOTO: UCA
The academic arm of the volunteering group works largely on educational services. Students have organised mathematics tournaments for high school students, in order to identify talented students from Naryn, and they also offer a weekly English Language Learning Programme to local schools to promote participation in the global knowledge society. Some of these students were later admitted to UCA.
All Razakar volunteers — but especially those from its environment department — have dedicated many hours towards community clean ups and to collect trash and thousands of plastic bottles from areas close to the campus, the Naryn river, the local botanic garden, and other locations in the town. They also help to raise awareness among the local community about the environmental crisis our planet is facing, and the simple and practical steps humans can take to better protect the environment, such as sorting trash and recycling.
In addition, a regular clothing drive has become something of a tradition for Razakar. Organised twice a year, once during each semester among the campus community, donated clothes are offered to a local Crisis Centre that Razakar volunteers have partnered with and often visit. UCA’s many other clubs and student initiatives are invited to collaborate on such activities to multiply the results.
Members of the Life Skills department have organised workshops and training sessions for local youth on effective communication, mental health, self-development, empathy, creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving. The activities are often supervised by the University Counsellor. Such sessions are especially important in today’s world, although are sometimes missing from high school curriculums.
The Covid-19 pandemic has created challenges for Razakar, as it did for the rest of the world. For almost a year, students were away from campus and their planned projects were put on hold. With the re-opening of the campus, however, volunteers are back, serving both remotely and in-person in a safe way.
“Fun and fulfilling activities that the Razakar team organises are appreciated by the local community,” says Irina Onipchuk, a former Manager of Community Outreach at UCA’s Naryn campus. “They impact people’s quality of life for real.”
Razakar’s student volunteers, who come from across Central and South Asia, serve the local community in the areas of education, the environment, social development, and life skills.
PHOTO: UCA
More photos at:
https://the.ismaili/global/news/communi ... generosity
‘Juntos!’: Strengthening Mozambican civil society
Since 2014, AKF and ”la Caixa” Foundation have been trailblazing a learning platform to increase cohesiveness and resilience amongst communities in Mozambique
A vibrant and resilient civil society is the foundation of a healthy and prosperous nation. By engaging people with common interests and collective activity, societies can improve their quality of life, driving necessary and sustainable progress through their communities.
Building on this ethos, Aga Khan Foundation and the ”la Caixa” Foundation have been forming and empowering Juntos! – an innovative learning and knowledge sharing platform for local civil society organisations (CSOs) for the last eight years.
During this time, Juntos! – meaning ‘Together!’ in Portuguese – has helped 25 CSOs support over 700,00 people in Mozambique to better understand and respond to development challenges across education, women’s empowerment, human rights, access to information, early childhood development, health, economic development and more.
How does it work?
Juntos! provides a space for local CSOs to share their project experiences and lessons learned; collaboratively improve organisational effectiveness, reach and funding; and coordinate to reduce overlap in programming to ensure gaps in services are addressed and filled. Local CSOs can also access, create and deliver cost-effective and engaging training courses that reach their members in an innovative way, build knowledge and skills, and improve organisational sustainability. This is done primarily through a blended learning approach, which combines digital and face-to-face teaching.
“I am able to train myself and others thanks to Juntos! I have worked on some proposals and my presentation skills have improved a lot. It has transformed me professionally.”
Juntos! partner CSO member
When Juntos! started in 2014, the first phase included just eight partner organisations getting involved as ‘learners’. AKF created and delivered three blended learning courses on effective presentations, storytelling and monitoring and evaluation. This transformed learning within the partner organisations, unlocking the potential to build the platform further and expand with more partners. The second phase in 2016 saw the number of organisations partaking more than double to 20. This second phase also saw the transition of CSOs from being ‘learners’ to ‘providers’ of blended learning, with more courses available in financial management, communication and collaboration.
To ensure the platform was flexible, adaptive to and relevant for Mozambican civil society, AKF conducted human-centered design workshops – engineered, contextualised and tailored to Mozambican society and their needs – between phases of the project to discuss the future of the platform, challenges faced by civil society, and innovations opened by new technologies.
“In the last three years with platform Juntos! we realised that when we join forces with partners, we become more powerful, and we can make our information reach distant places such as rural communities which are very far away from us, but we are able to reach.”
Participant in Juntos! supported training
In 2018, Juntos! entered its third phase with 25 partner CSOs who transitioned from ‘providers’ to ‘creators’ of courses and content. Juntos! partners were trained to write and develop training materials for bilingual courses and were even trained to film, edit and finalise blended learning courses by AKF. This phase saw a shift towards local ownership of content creation and delivery. This process inspired the creation of The Learning Hub, a new platform designed by AKF’s development practitioners and partners where others can grow their skills and knowledge.
Meet the CSOs which Juntos! supports
25 Mozambican CSOs small and large have partnered with Juntos! to reach and serve their communities more effectively and efficiently. These CSOs, in turn, provide support for over 700,000 people. Some examples of the CSOs Juntos! supports include:
EcoSIDA
EcoSIDA’s mission is to mobilise the business community in Mozambique to play an important role in increasing social responsibility in the fight against HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in the workplace. EcoSIDA is made up of 23 member companies.
The Civil Society Support Facility Foundation (MASC)
MASC works to improve governance and accountability to Mozambican citizens, strengthening and diversifying the involvement of Civil Society Organizations in Mozambican monitoring and advocacy on governance. The MASC Foundation has 12 employees.
TV Surdo
TV Surdo is a television platform dedicated to the production and publication of news content in inclusive language and sign language. TV Surdo is dedicated to changing the lives of people with disabilities and making Mozambican society more sensitive to issues of inclusion.
Rede da Criança (The Children’s Network)
The Children’s Network aims to improve the impact of the activities of organisations that work with children in difficult situations. They do this by coordinating resource mobilisation efforts to support children’s socio-educational activities, public awareness, and children’s rights.
Explore the full list of CSO partners here.
What’s next?
We are excited to be delivering phase four of Juntos! over the next two years. Introduced in January 2022, this phase is empowering partners to take ownership of the direction of the platform through a steering committee, where they can strategise the platform’s future and continue to grow it for the needs of Mozambican civil society. Partner CSOs will continue to share project results, lessons learned and best practices whilst working together with government and private sector entities.
Phase four will encourage local CSOs to find and implement innovative solutions to better serve communities and increase organisational effectiveness and sustainability. With an aim to solidify previous learnings, AKF and ”la Caixa” will encourage partner organisations to holistically create and deliver content, whilst managing the platform from start to finish – working towards transitioning the future of Juntos! to an independent and self-functioning platform.
This pivotal phase aims to elevate Juntos! to a leading civil society platform in Mozambique, adding value for its member organisations, and connecting public, private and civil society to coordinate integral action for the needs of society.
Many of the Juntos! blended learning courses can be found on The Learning Hub, a new platform designed by AKF’s development practitioners and partners where others can grow their skills and knowledge.
Explore The Learning Hub https://akflearninghub.org/
Juntos! has been implemented, maintained, and jointly funded since 2014 by ”la Caixa” Foundation and the Aga Khan Foundation.
”la Caixa” Foundation is a leading foundation in Spain with a mission to build better and fairer societies by providing opportunities to people most in need. Focusing strategically on social, cultural, educational and research programmes in global health, job creation, humanitarian action and emergency relief, ”la Caixa” helps combat inequalities across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
https://www.akf.org.uk/juntos-strengthe ... 25c8c5fc8d
A vibrant and resilient civil society is the foundation of a healthy and prosperous nation. By engaging people with common interests and collective activity, societies can improve their quality of life, driving necessary and sustainable progress through their communities.
Building on this ethos, Aga Khan Foundation and the ”la Caixa” Foundation have been forming and empowering Juntos! – an innovative learning and knowledge sharing platform for local civil society organisations (CSOs) for the last eight years.
During this time, Juntos! – meaning ‘Together!’ in Portuguese – has helped 25 CSOs support over 700,00 people in Mozambique to better understand and respond to development challenges across education, women’s empowerment, human rights, access to information, early childhood development, health, economic development and more.
How does it work?
Juntos! provides a space for local CSOs to share their project experiences and lessons learned; collaboratively improve organisational effectiveness, reach and funding; and coordinate to reduce overlap in programming to ensure gaps in services are addressed and filled. Local CSOs can also access, create and deliver cost-effective and engaging training courses that reach their members in an innovative way, build knowledge and skills, and improve organisational sustainability. This is done primarily through a blended learning approach, which combines digital and face-to-face teaching.
“I am able to train myself and others thanks to Juntos! I have worked on some proposals and my presentation skills have improved a lot. It has transformed me professionally.”
Juntos! partner CSO member
When Juntos! started in 2014, the first phase included just eight partner organisations getting involved as ‘learners’. AKF created and delivered three blended learning courses on effective presentations, storytelling and monitoring and evaluation. This transformed learning within the partner organisations, unlocking the potential to build the platform further and expand with more partners. The second phase in 2016 saw the number of organisations partaking more than double to 20. This second phase also saw the transition of CSOs from being ‘learners’ to ‘providers’ of blended learning, with more courses available in financial management, communication and collaboration.
To ensure the platform was flexible, adaptive to and relevant for Mozambican civil society, AKF conducted human-centered design workshops – engineered, contextualised and tailored to Mozambican society and their needs – between phases of the project to discuss the future of the platform, challenges faced by civil society, and innovations opened by new technologies.
“In the last three years with platform Juntos! we realised that when we join forces with partners, we become more powerful, and we can make our information reach distant places such as rural communities which are very far away from us, but we are able to reach.”
Participant in Juntos! supported training
In 2018, Juntos! entered its third phase with 25 partner CSOs who transitioned from ‘providers’ to ‘creators’ of courses and content. Juntos! partners were trained to write and develop training materials for bilingual courses and were even trained to film, edit and finalise blended learning courses by AKF. This phase saw a shift towards local ownership of content creation and delivery. This process inspired the creation of The Learning Hub, a new platform designed by AKF’s development practitioners and partners where others can grow their skills and knowledge.
Meet the CSOs which Juntos! supports
25 Mozambican CSOs small and large have partnered with Juntos! to reach and serve their communities more effectively and efficiently. These CSOs, in turn, provide support for over 700,000 people. Some examples of the CSOs Juntos! supports include:
EcoSIDA
EcoSIDA’s mission is to mobilise the business community in Mozambique to play an important role in increasing social responsibility in the fight against HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria in the workplace. EcoSIDA is made up of 23 member companies.
The Civil Society Support Facility Foundation (MASC)
MASC works to improve governance and accountability to Mozambican citizens, strengthening and diversifying the involvement of Civil Society Organizations in Mozambican monitoring and advocacy on governance. The MASC Foundation has 12 employees.
TV Surdo
TV Surdo is a television platform dedicated to the production and publication of news content in inclusive language and sign language. TV Surdo is dedicated to changing the lives of people with disabilities and making Mozambican society more sensitive to issues of inclusion.
Rede da Criança (The Children’s Network)
The Children’s Network aims to improve the impact of the activities of organisations that work with children in difficult situations. They do this by coordinating resource mobilisation efforts to support children’s socio-educational activities, public awareness, and children’s rights.
Explore the full list of CSO partners here.
What’s next?
We are excited to be delivering phase four of Juntos! over the next two years. Introduced in January 2022, this phase is empowering partners to take ownership of the direction of the platform through a steering committee, where they can strategise the platform’s future and continue to grow it for the needs of Mozambican civil society. Partner CSOs will continue to share project results, lessons learned and best practices whilst working together with government and private sector entities.
Phase four will encourage local CSOs to find and implement innovative solutions to better serve communities and increase organisational effectiveness and sustainability. With an aim to solidify previous learnings, AKF and ”la Caixa” will encourage partner organisations to holistically create and deliver content, whilst managing the platform from start to finish – working towards transitioning the future of Juntos! to an independent and self-functioning platform.
This pivotal phase aims to elevate Juntos! to a leading civil society platform in Mozambique, adding value for its member organisations, and connecting public, private and civil society to coordinate integral action for the needs of society.
Many of the Juntos! blended learning courses can be found on The Learning Hub, a new platform designed by AKF’s development practitioners and partners where others can grow their skills and knowledge.
Explore The Learning Hub https://akflearninghub.org/
Juntos! has been implemented, maintained, and jointly funded since 2014 by ”la Caixa” Foundation and the Aga Khan Foundation.
”la Caixa” Foundation is a leading foundation in Spain with a mission to build better and fairer societies by providing opportunities to people most in need. Focusing strategically on social, cultural, educational and research programmes in global health, job creation, humanitarian action and emergency relief, ”la Caixa” helps combat inequalities across Africa, Asia and Latin America.
https://www.akf.org.uk/juntos-strengthe ... 25c8c5fc8d
Gilgit Baltistan’s Goodwill Movement
Interview with Gilgit Baltistan’s Goodwill Movement
The Gilgit-Baltistan’s Goodwill Movement GB GWM) is an organisation working on community and skills-based development for persons with disabilities in Gilgit-Baltistan.
This recently registered organisation is being run by persons with disabilities, primarily students keen to showcase their work on a national, regional, and international stage. Today, we are joined by Ghulam Muhammad Baig, CEO of GB GWM, Farhan Baig, President and Abrar Ahmed, General Secretary.
What is your organisation about, where did you get the motivation for this, and what are your targets for the future?
GM Baig: Well, first of all, let me say that this idea was highly inspired by His Highness the Aga Khan’s speech in Aiglemont in 2017, where poverty alleviation was mentioned. His Highness’ work in all areas, whether through Aga Khan University hospitals or Diamond Jubilee schools, is a game-changer for Northern Areas and Hunza, but the most significant thing I think we need to realize is that poverty has been reduced. If you think of Hunza, it was just a village, but with Mawla’s blessing, it has the potential to become an economic hub. When you have a leader changing so many lives, as an individual, you feel responsible towards your family or communities in whatever capacity you can deliver. I think this is the drive we all share in GB GWM and we want to work on community development over the next few years.
Briefly, our objectives are :
- To raise public awareness of the disabled communities’ plight in Gilgit, provide aid and support to the disabled/differently-abled community and give them a voice in Gilgit Baltistan.
- To establish a platform for the volunteering youth of Gilgit Baltistan to speak about and work for the differently-abled community.
- To improve the social life for disabled residents in Gilgit through various projects.
- To promote our ideas and ideals about disability inclusion that we have for Gilgit Baltistan to the public.
- To mobilize the public to urge the concerned authorities to address disability inclusion within Gilgit and work to uplift the educational and employability status of disabled persons.
Our current project is the Goodwill Skills Development Centre, wherein teams in GB GWM teaches disabled people the skills needed for future employment or further education, like IT, English, Music, Tailoring, and Mobile Repairing.
Could you share more about the projects?
Farhan: First, let me briefly state the projects we have been involved in since 2021 and then focus on the skills development center, as Ghulam mentioned a earlier. Since 2021, we have been doing short-term projects such as supporting a little girl in Ghizer with food and medicine costs, supporting the disabled community in Ghizer, Hunza, and Nagar, and hosting and organising meetings with the disabled communities plus webinars.
But we found that there is still pending work, even if we donate £1000 to individuals or a community. I do not want to comment on the political side, but an economy is affected by political circumstances. Regardless, GB GWM thought, why not invest in persons with disabilities so that they can earn a living themselves. Due to COVID-19, I believe everything has rapidly moved online. People can earn from home with the help of websites like Fiver and Upwork. However, there are many challenges that we need to address before we need think of this, which is in the long term.
What are the challenges you need to overcome to make this happen, and do you still face difficulties?
Abrar: I think Farhan and Ghulam might want to leave things on a positive note, but yes, there is. I know that we have tried to collaborate with various Jamati Boards and Institutions to no avail but we will continue in our endeavours and hope to begin a collaborative effort in the near future.
To briefly outline the issues we internally face regarding the center, we:
- don’t have a hostel facility for students. Generally, special persons aren’t accommodated in any hotel or youth hostel in Gilgit Baltistan.
- don’t have a transport facility for students yet Gilgit is a big city and is the central economic hub.
- don’t have enough money to afford student stipends at the moment.
GM Baig/Farhan: Yeah, we agree; we are very thankful and appreciate His Highness’ vision. However, we also have a number of Jamati donors who have supported our mission and our cause. Without contributions from these Jamati members, we would not have been able to make the progress we have.
How can the Jamat contact you for more information?
Ghulam: I would suggest anyone to visit our website: https://gbgoodwillmovement.com
https://the.ismaili/uk/community/interv ... l-movement
The Gilgit-Baltistan’s Goodwill Movement GB GWM) is an organisation working on community and skills-based development for persons with disabilities in Gilgit-Baltistan.
This recently registered organisation is being run by persons with disabilities, primarily students keen to showcase their work on a national, regional, and international stage. Today, we are joined by Ghulam Muhammad Baig, CEO of GB GWM, Farhan Baig, President and Abrar Ahmed, General Secretary.
What is your organisation about, where did you get the motivation for this, and what are your targets for the future?
GM Baig: Well, first of all, let me say that this idea was highly inspired by His Highness the Aga Khan’s speech in Aiglemont in 2017, where poverty alleviation was mentioned. His Highness’ work in all areas, whether through Aga Khan University hospitals or Diamond Jubilee schools, is a game-changer for Northern Areas and Hunza, but the most significant thing I think we need to realize is that poverty has been reduced. If you think of Hunza, it was just a village, but with Mawla’s blessing, it has the potential to become an economic hub. When you have a leader changing so many lives, as an individual, you feel responsible towards your family or communities in whatever capacity you can deliver. I think this is the drive we all share in GB GWM and we want to work on community development over the next few years.
Briefly, our objectives are :
- To raise public awareness of the disabled communities’ plight in Gilgit, provide aid and support to the disabled/differently-abled community and give them a voice in Gilgit Baltistan.
- To establish a platform for the volunteering youth of Gilgit Baltistan to speak about and work for the differently-abled community.
- To improve the social life for disabled residents in Gilgit through various projects.
- To promote our ideas and ideals about disability inclusion that we have for Gilgit Baltistan to the public.
- To mobilize the public to urge the concerned authorities to address disability inclusion within Gilgit and work to uplift the educational and employability status of disabled persons.
Our current project is the Goodwill Skills Development Centre, wherein teams in GB GWM teaches disabled people the skills needed for future employment or further education, like IT, English, Music, Tailoring, and Mobile Repairing.
Could you share more about the projects?
Farhan: First, let me briefly state the projects we have been involved in since 2021 and then focus on the skills development center, as Ghulam mentioned a earlier. Since 2021, we have been doing short-term projects such as supporting a little girl in Ghizer with food and medicine costs, supporting the disabled community in Ghizer, Hunza, and Nagar, and hosting and organising meetings with the disabled communities plus webinars.
But we found that there is still pending work, even if we donate £1000 to individuals or a community. I do not want to comment on the political side, but an economy is affected by political circumstances. Regardless, GB GWM thought, why not invest in persons with disabilities so that they can earn a living themselves. Due to COVID-19, I believe everything has rapidly moved online. People can earn from home with the help of websites like Fiver and Upwork. However, there are many challenges that we need to address before we need think of this, which is in the long term.
What are the challenges you need to overcome to make this happen, and do you still face difficulties?
Abrar: I think Farhan and Ghulam might want to leave things on a positive note, but yes, there is. I know that we have tried to collaborate with various Jamati Boards and Institutions to no avail but we will continue in our endeavours and hope to begin a collaborative effort in the near future.
To briefly outline the issues we internally face regarding the center, we:
- don’t have a hostel facility for students. Generally, special persons aren’t accommodated in any hotel or youth hostel in Gilgit Baltistan.
- don’t have a transport facility for students yet Gilgit is a big city and is the central economic hub.
- don’t have enough money to afford student stipends at the moment.
GM Baig/Farhan: Yeah, we agree; we are very thankful and appreciate His Highness’ vision. However, we also have a number of Jamati donors who have supported our mission and our cause. Without contributions from these Jamati members, we would not have been able to make the progress we have.
How can the Jamat contact you for more information?
Ghulam: I would suggest anyone to visit our website: https://gbgoodwillmovement.com
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