Our work
Our work
Afrikagrupperna is a non-profit, party-political and religiously independent solidarity organization with a vision of a fair world. We do not do our own development work without cooperating with our partner organizations in Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. We have worked for 40 years – first in solidarity with the struggle for freedom from the colonial powers and later with civil society organizations that fight for everyone’s right for a dignified life.
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In our operating countries, resource distribution is uneven, the population is very young, poverty is widespread, and HIV prevalence is among the highest in the world. The civil society faces major challenges.
Afrikagrupperna work mainly within three themes:
- HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR)
- Natural resources, food and trade
- Working and living conditions
All our partner organizations work somehow with all these themes and together we try to achieve a fair world.
The issue concerning the independence of Western Sahara is also important for us, as we continuously emphasize and work to support their struggle.
Regional focus
When it turned out that the issues surrounding our thematic issues was similar in all our operating countries, we choose to work regionally in southern Africa and have Johannesburg as our starting point where we also have our regional office. This is to get a different breadth to the work we are doing, and because the potential for change is greater when more civil society actors work for the same issues in the region.
We hope that the regional work method will help to create more platforms where people, especially women, from across the region can meet. Such meetings are important for individuals and groups as they can share their experiences and knowledge to later use it to create common strategies for change and impact work. Through this we want to develop our opportunities to support mobilization of people who are directly affected by working on the principle of “nothing about us or for us without us”.
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Our partner organizations are an invaluable part of our work, as they are our only source of local knowledge and information needed to determine how the work for change will be achieved. By analyzing the local knowledge gained from our partner organizations through a regional lens, we believe that the civil societies in all our countries will benefit and grow even stronger.
Solidarity
Afrikagrupperna have their roots in the Swedish solidarity movement, which still permeates and affects our work at all levels. Working from a solidarity perspective means that we see the world as a whole where everything is connected and where everyone must take a joined responsibility for the development we want to see. Political decisions in Sweden and Europe affect the development in southern Africa. The global structures often affect people’s lives in southern Africa in a negative way, as poverty there and elsewhere allows us to maintain our lifestyle. That is why we believe that it is important to address the problems we see from different directions. As we work with development cooperation in southern Africa, we also engage in information and impact work in Sweden and the EU.
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Circle of Solidarity
A new way of visualizing our solidarity work is through what we call “Circle of Solidarity”. By thinking of solidarity as a circle based on the equal value of all people, equality and respect, we try to raise issues that are relevant to all parts. The circle also illustrates that there is no “we” and “them”, but that we can work together towards common goals to achieve change. Afrikagrupperna´s ambition is to allow this circle of solidarity to become a natural part of the organization, by continuing to create relationships between members, donors, staff, global practitioners and our partner organizations.
Feminism
All work done by Afrikagrupperna should be revamped by the need to challenge and change power relations so that women can enjoy their rights and reach their full potential. We want to find and link strong women and youth movements and to ensure that there are discussions about gender equality and power relationships in all communication with our partner organizations.
Women’s rights, power and gender equality are central to structural change and is prerequisite for social justice. Therefore, women’s situation, opinions and needs are important starting points for our work. Feminism aims at eliminating all forms of discrimination against women based on sex and gender, as well as class, ethnicity, age, ability, sexual orientation, nationality, religion or other forms of social exclusion. A feminist strategy sees and challenges all forms of power and oppression and puts women’s experiences at focus.
Long-term partnership
Afrikagrupperna value long-term cooperation with organizations instead of individual projects. In order for our partner organizations to work in the best possible way, a certain measure of predictability in cooperation and financial support is required. For this reason, Afrikagrupperna provides support to organizations as a whole, with a so-called budget support. Our budget support has been able to show increased efficiency and reduction of administrative costs while providing our partner organizations with greater stability and flexibility in their work. The budget support provides an opportunity to strategically plan activities for a more sustainable and long-term outcome.
It is the organizations themselves who knows best where the money is needed and how they operate. Our choice to support organizations as a whole is also an important part of global change, because we believe that strong, independent organizations are essential for creating a strong civil society.
Afrikagrupperna in Sweden
Afrikagrupperna is a member-based organization with approximately 2 300 members. The majority of the active members are engaged in a local group, but there are also individuals involved.
We have 10 local groups, who themselves decide how their work will look like. The involvement of local groups is wide. Impact work is being carried out, participation in the campaigns of Afrikagrupperna , information and education, cultural events, gathering, solidarity actions and much more. The local groups are well established in their communities and many have a long and solid commitment within the organization.
Afrikagrupperna also have 10 support groups. Support groups are organizations, networks and groups that support the Afrikagruppernas’ activities. The common denominator is that they are all rooted in the solidarity movement. Afrikagrupperna s is also a fundraising organization and we currently have over 10,000 donors spread across the country.
The image of Africa
Afrikagrupperna is working to change the often stereotypical image of Africa that is present in Sweden today. Africa is a huge continent with 55 countries. Each with its own history and development. Nevertheless, many people still have two pictures of Africa: war and famine or safari and wildlife. Afrikagrupperna want to join and show a nuanced image of our operating countries, southern Africa and Africa as a continent. Places that is very much alive, developed and constantly changing. We want to increase the knowledge and interest about the modern Africa.
