About Us
Magamba Network is Africa’s trailblazing creative and digital media organisation .We’re all about using arts, digital media, civic tech & activism to inspire young people to participate in building a more just and equitable continent. We aim to empower young Africans to demand radically participatory democracy 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 Zimbabweans every year and have won local and international awards including awards from the UN, the EU and the Elders.
We run some of the most disruptive digital platforms & creative initiatives on the African continent with an online community of over 400,000 young people. We have projects in 7 African countries in 5 different languages. We’re a network of storytellers, change-makers, 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
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.
Our Vision
Our Vision : A just, participatory and green Africa.
Our Mission : Using creative & digital forms of youth activism to build a more just society
Our Main Strategic Objective for 2024 – 2026: Inspiring young people to demand an Africa with participatory democracy, a thriving creative economy and a just energy transition.
Our Strategy in 3 Words:
Inform
get alternative, truthful information to young people
Incubate
Inspire
young Africans to fight for a better and more just society
Inform
get alternative, truthful information to young people
Incubate
We incubate the next generation of socially conscious artists, content creators & changemakers
Inspire
We use innovative campaigns and civic tech to inspire young Africans to fight for a better and more just society
Our Impact
ZIMBABWE
We have incubated over 50 creative & media start-ups across Zimbabwe
Our powerful campaigns have led to 8 progressive policy changes nationwide.
We have supported the growth of socially conscious urban culture in Zimbabwe by giving a platform to over 1,000 young artists
We launched the country’s first ever political satire show, Zambezi News,
that inspired a new generation of young creatives to use comedy to speak truth to power.
We have led the way in creative youth engagement by
reaching over 3 million young Zimbabweans online
AFRICA
We created Open Parly Africa, Africa’s largest youth-driven Parliament news network, operating in 5 countries
We built Africa’s first-ever Covid funds tracking platform – holding African governments to account for how they spend our money
Our campaign with local partners in Zambia opened up civic space by helping to overturn the Criminal Defamation of The President Law.
Our Africa-wide #KickTotalOutOfAFCON Campaign reached over 9 million young Africans and forced both Total Energies and CAF to respond.
