Fahamu

Fahamu is a not-for-profit organisation committed to serving the needs of organisations and social movements that inspire progressive social change and promote and protect human rights. It has played a pioneering role in using new information and communication technologies to support capacity building and networking between civil society and human rights organisations. Fahamu has offices in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Senegal and Kenya. Fahamu's core tools to build capacity and engage civil and human rights organisations are the publication of Pambazuka News (on-line news and interaction on social justice and development), on-line distance learning courses on human rights and social justice and the application of new technologies such as SMS for information dissemination, lobbying and interaction purposes.

Fahamu was established in the United Kingdom in 1997. Fahamu Ltd was registered and incorporated as a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee in 2001 (no. 4241054). Fahamu Ltd is registered in Kenya as F15/2006. Fahamu Trust was registered as a charity in the UK (no. 1100304) in July 2003, with the following objectives: ‘the advancement of education of the public world wide by the publication of electronic newsletters, courses and disseminating of information on human rights’. Fahamu SA is registered as a trust in South Africa IT 37201. To enable supporters in the USA to contribute to Fahamu’s work, Fahamu was established in 2005 as a Global Support Fund of the Tides Foundation, a duly registered public charity, exempt from US Federal income taxation under Sections 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code.

Fahamu was founded, as the Oxford Learning Space, in the year 1997 by Firoze Manji, one of the many exiled Kenyan multiparty democracy and social justice activists of the early 90s, as a response that sought to address social justice and civil freedoms issues with a particular focus on the African continent. The Oxford Learning Space Ltd as an organization initially operated from Manji’s home at the time.

Pambazuka News, a newsletter distributed every week by email, was launched in 2000. Pambazuka provided a platform for discussion and exchange of information on social justice in Africa. Pambazuka was meeting the information need, where it provided alternative media that informed concerned citizens and civil society organisations, which at the time had limited access to the Internet.

Pambazuka News would come to be recognised as a platform that carries editorial, analysis and opinion pieces, as well as summaries of websites and opinion pieces on human rights, conflict, refugees, gender and culture in Africa. Most of Pambazuka’s writing has come from within Africa.

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