Africa Dialogues

Civil society organization

Name of Practitioner:

Africa Dialogues

Website:

www.nelsonmandela.org

Contact Information:

60 Cleveland Road
Claremont, Cape Town
Cape Town, South Africa
Phone: +27792453409
Email: kenmutuma@gmail.com

Practitioner’s aims, programs of activities and fields of expertise:

Africa Dialogue works in line the philosophy of its founder towards encouraging dialogue and building transformative leadership. On behalf of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, in 2009, it implemented the Programme to Promote Social Cohesion.

For the purposes of this programme, the Foundation adopted a working definition of social cohesion as “that which galvanizes a collective or a group of people around a common set of values, based on mutual respect, tolerance, freedom from fear, social solidarity and respect for human dignity”.

Towards the goal of building social cohesion, the progamme has adopted the Community Capacity Enhancement (CCE) methodology, a framework that has previously been adopted by UNDP in creating transformation at the community and institutional level. The CCE methodological framework recognizes the tacit capacity inherent among communities and aims, in light of this understanding, at bringing about transformative change through step cyclical action steps, each utilizing specific tools. Through each of these steps, and the application of the appropriate tools, communities during conversations, identify, explore and address their concerns within an environment of trust, respect and mutual learning that results in new perspectives.

Thus community conversations are the central vehicle towards the attainment of goal of social change and form the fulcrum from which all other components of the NMF SC programme

Resources and Publications available:

Case Studies: Promotion of Social Cohesion among South African Communities Nyanga: The case of belonging Nkomazi: Migrant flows in the frontier provinces