Ubuntu Hub Cities - African Defenders

UGANDA

African Defenders (also known as the Pan-African Human Rights Defenders Network) is dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights defenders (HRDs) across the African continent. Launched in 2019, the Ubuntu Hub Cities Initiative is an African-based temporary relocation mechanism for HRDs at risk, including writers, scholars, lawyers, journalists, trade union workers, artists and activists. The initiative enables HRDs who have been subject to threats, violence, and extreme pressure as a consequence of their human rights work to temporarily relocate. Relocation allows them to be safe while enabling them to continue their work. Through their diverse local partnerships, relocation also provides an opportunity for HRDs at risk to learn and share experiences, so that they can have a positive impact on the host community and return home with enhanced capacities to protect and promote human rights. The initiative tackles issues of cultural displacement, stigmatisation, language-barriers, and integration, providing a durable option that combines safety, rest and respite, and opportunities for continued activism.

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Gen-Z for Change

USA

Gen-Z for Change (GZ4C) is a collective of Gen-Z activists that leverage the power of social media to educate their generation, encourage and mobilize civic participation, shift the political debate, and enact change. They’re the place where the creator economy and progressive politics intersect on social media. Since their launch in 2020, they have become the dominant force targeted towards young people for organizing online the progressive movement. With over 1.7+ million followers on their social media platforms, over 153 million+ views, and a coalition of creators with hundreds of millions of combined followers, they know that their content is reaching the widest audience possible AND driving young people to take action. They’ve supported a variety of progressive campaigns, from union solidarity and fighting abortion bans to holding social media companies accountable for their role in spreading disinformation. Their leaders have been on the forefront of digital organizing, raising over $2m+ for abortion funds around the country and discussing the future of democracy with President Obama. Through our 2022 electoral work, they launched effective creator activations that generated a total of over 26 million+ views and supported many crucial campaigns with various celebrities and lawmakers.

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CERITA Caravan 

UNITED KINGDOM

The organisation works on a project-to-project basis in the field of social cohesion, peacebuilding, and conflict transformation and prevention. CERITA Caravan is a social cohesion and anti-polarization project powered through social media to amplify citizen voices through storytelling. Its main goal is to inspire influencers, stakeholders, and community members with a passion for building positive intercultural and intercommunity relations and equip them with storytelling and dialogue skills to do so. The CERITA Caravan method engages and empowers political, civic, social, religious, and cultural spheres by creating opportunities to engage and explore the ways in which different cultures, religious beliefs, worldviews, and identities interact. Their participants are mostly 18-40 year old urban influencers, but they have also worked with youth, CSOs and foundations, as well as the public and private sectors.

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Advocating for inclusive governance of refugees and asylum seekers in the greater Durban metropolitan, Kwazulu natal province, South Africa - DEMOCRACY DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (DDP)

SOUTH AFRICA

The organization supports the meaningful participation of all citizens, civil society, marginalized populations (asylum seekers, refugees, women, people living with disabilities, and youth, etc), and political parties in consolidating democracy in South Africa. The project seeks to advocate for inclusive governance where refugees and asylum seekers are recognized and included in the local governance structures in the various communities where they live in the greater Durban Metropolitan. The goal of the project is to facilitate African migrants' participation in local governance processes in the selected townships in the greater Durban Metropolitan, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. The project targets refugees and asylum seekers living in the greater Durban metropolitan, where there are several local governance structures known as ward committees whose main objective is to provide community members to engage with their elected political representative about their challenges and aspirations.

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