Magamba Network is Africa’s trailblazing creative and digital media organisation.
About us.
We’re all about using arts, digital media, civic tech & activism to inform and inspire young people to take action.
We empower young Africans to demand a society with radically participatory democracy, free media, a sustainable creative sector, and a just & green economy.
Magamba has been lauded as one of the 100 Sparks of Hope by The Elders. Our award-winning projects reach millions of young Africans every year and have won national and international awards including awards from the United Nations, the European Union and the Elders.
We run some of the most disruptive digital platforms & creative initiatives on the African continent with an online community of over 350,000 young people. We have projects in 7 different African countries in 5 different languages. We’re a network of storytellers, changemakers, techies and artists. We believe in speaking truth to power. And we do it all with lots of creativity and a good sense of humour.
Our Story
Magamba was born at a poetry slam.
Two young rebel poets, Comrade Fatso & Outspoken, met at a poetry slam in Harare back in 2007 and battled it out alongside 10 other poets. They made it to the semi-finals with a few other poets and then it was just the two of them in the final. The judges decided it was a tie. So they had to split the prize – which was a quarter chicken & chips and a book. Comrade Fatso was hungry so he took the chicken and chips while Outspoken was hungry for knowledge so he took the book. And they were both like ‘Hey, maybe we can work together?!’ And so Magamba was born. The idea was to use creative forms of activism to reach young people and get them involved in the struggle for progressive change in Zimbabwe.
At the time social media wasn’t too wide spread, so we initially used hip hop and poetry as a means to reaching young people – organising rebellious offline events like the Mashoko event that brought together different rappers, spoken word artists and musicians in a space of radically free expression. We then began to expand into other forms of popular youth culture including blogging, satire, creative hubs, festivals and the like. We kind of made it up as we went along.
Magamba has now grown from two guys running the organisation part-time from the lounge of their flat to becoming one of Africa’s leading creative and digital media organisations with 2 main programmes, 9 different projects and a team of 35 peeps. Oh and we’ve moved out of Fatso and Outspoken’s lounge too. Finally.