Angola Projects

Current Projects

Conflict Resolution Centers

The project builds on SFCG's experience in Angola, and aims to promote the role of youth in the Angolan society and increase the confidence of youth leaders to engage in their communities to foster change. The project seeks to build the capacity of youth to identify key issues in society and learn how to address them by carrying out concrete activities in response to these key issues. [more]

Leadership Manual for Youth Associations

In order to enhance the effectiveness of conflict resolution trainings, SFCG in Angola prepared a Leadership Manual for Youth Associations. The manual provides guidance for youth leaders on how to organize other young people to work for their community. The manual contains a detailed description of agendas, activities and necessary materials for each session.

Click here to download the manual [pdf] (Portuguese)

Advocacy Manual for Youth Associations

The Advocacy Manual for Youth Associations provides guidance on how to organize and facilitate advocacy training for the youth. The objective of the training is to educate the participants on advocacy, the Common Ground approach as well as on organizing of advocacy efforts in their community. It includes notes for the facilitators along with the description of recommended activities.

Click here to download the manual [pdf] (Portuguese)

The Team

SFCG is pleased to bring THE TEAM, A Equipe, a football-themed television series, in Angola following its success in Cote d’Ivoire and Kenya, using the TV programme as an entry point for dialogue on sensitive themes of governance, participation, and transparency.
This production centres on an imagined Angolan football club. The telenovella explores governance issues through the interactions between the players, captains, coaches, officials and through the players’ personal lives. The storylines models different approaches to collaborative problem solving, metaphorically addressing the tensions in Angola’s decentralisation process, including the role of leaders and authority figures in a democratic environment, the importance of transparency and consultation between leaders and constituents, and the importance of constructive advocacy.

The core metaphor is simple: if characters do not learn to play together, they will not score goals. Through the course of the series, characters learn that cooperative behaviour is essential both to winning at football and in life. Storylines feature footballers, families and friends, who overcome significant problems both on and off the football pitch to achieve shared goals. Programmes feature positive role models and promote understanding and tolerance. They demonstrate that adversarial approaches and suspicion are rarely the best approach to solving problems.

By exploring the lives and stories of the players, their families, and their communities, the story is a vehicle for transmitting factual information about decentralization and democratic consolidation in a highly creative and entertaining format as the players and their families interact with authorities and discuss their opinions of democracy, decentralization, and other issues. Characters from the television show are empathetic and easily identifiable, representing a wide variety of regional, linguistic, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Cabinda

Cabinda is an oil-rich province characterized by tensions between the local government and citizens over the revenues from oil companies that are not reaching the general population.

SFCG works with divided actors including government, civil society, and communities across Cabinda province with a focus on three municipalities: Cabinda, Cacongo and Buco Zau.  SFCG’s strategy is to support sustainable peace and national reconciliation by working with Cabindans to transform their society away from a culture of violence to one characterized by coexistence, security, social justice, and popular participation.

Since the project’s inception, SFCG has conducted a series of conflict transformation and problem solving workshops to cultivate the attitudes and skills necessary for local leaders and the population to engage collectively in the construction of a peaceful society. Following these activities, SFCG hopes to bring together local administration, civil society, and other community leaders in order to identify and act on concrete problems in their communities. SFCG’s engagement culminates in peace festivals that link the actors together in celebration of their achievements.

SFCG will also use its weekly radio programme, O Jogo (The Game) adapted for a Cabindan audience to multiply the effects of direct engagement; reconciling divides; reinforcing local cohesion; and empowering Cabindans to understand the political, social and economic situation around them. The program focuses on telling the story of a fictional soccer team, exploring the relationships between players with radically different pasts, and encouraging reconciliation. The moral being: if they cannot cooperate, they cannot win. Broadcasting for O Jogo will begin in conjunction with Angola’s hosting of the African Cup of Nations, to capitalize on the excitement and heightened interest in Football that this major event will encourage.

Preparing the Angolan Media for the 2008/2009 Elections (COMPLETED)

SFCG works with the National Election Commission (CNE) and Angolan National Syndicate of Journalists (SNJA) to promote responsible, representative media coverage to support participatory, peaceful elections in Angola. The project fits within a wider vision to transform Angolan society over the long term from a culture of violence to one characterized by coexistence, security, social justice, and popular participation.

Primary activities include establishing an advisory committee that meets for the duration of the project, conducting a national level workshop and training-of-trainers, conducting provincial workshops for the media, and producing national and provincial level radio programming that provides information and facilitates constructive dialogue around the elections process. Recently, SFCG organized a conference for civil society and government representatives to identify key issues regarding the constitutional reform process and possible mechanisms of collaboration between civil society and the population.

SFCG is also using its radio programme Andangola to encourage dialogue between political leaders and civil society advocates on governance issues in general and the constitutional reform process in particular and its program Bazi Madie focused on youth and civic education.

Recently, SFCG released the second edition of “Responsible Electoral Coverage in Angola: Manual for Journalists” directed at and distributed to Angolan journalists, providing them with a grounding in Angola’s election law, the electoral code of conduct, conflict sensitive reporting in the lead up to elections, and useful tips for reporting on Election Day.

Click here to download the manual [pdf]

School Parliament

The School Parliament, builds on the model introduced by SFCG in Burundi in 2005, and adapted to the Angolan context in 2009, creates an opportunity for civic engagement afforded by the elections process over the next two to three years. Youth are particularly susceptible to manipulation, and also have unreasonably high expectations for what politicians will deliver.  They have not yet developed the skills or experience to analyze candidates’ promises and determine what is realistic and what is empty campaign rhetoric. After the excitement of the elections, they risk to become frustrated and disillusioned when the government cannot meet their expectations of opportunities and development.

To respond to the manipulation and frustration of youth, exacerbated by their unreasonably high expectations of what government will deliver, the School Parliament through a series of interactive activities engaging youth in civic education and leadership activities, create a holistic activity supporting youth development in Luanda.

SFCG works with youth in Angola across 50 secondary school students drawn from the 10 municipalities that make up Luanda province to promote greater and more positive youth engagement in determining Angola’s future. 

Student Deputies meet monthly to debate current issues and make policy decisions, providing first-hand experience in the difficult process of governing and responding to constituent priorities. These two components are linked together through the weekly radio programme Baza Madie, which spotlights different emerging themes in the projects, sharing them with young people of diverse backgrounds across Luanda through the voices of their peers.

Recently, SFCG surveyed the level of awareness among students of school parliament activities and structures. The study reinforced the importance of engaging youth in civic education. Students were unanimous in believing that it would be interesting to participate in School Parliament as a means to voice their opinions. Most students believe that School Parliament activities allow them to gain more knowledge about citizenship, participation and leadership.

Since the project started, SFCG has organized School Parliament preparatory meetings for students in five target schools, convened a school parliament forum, and held parliament commission sessions. SFCG is using its weekly radio programme Baza Madie to provide information on democracy, governance, and participation to a broader youth audience beyond the student participants in Luanda.

School Parliament students were featured during a live broadcast on TV Zimbo, the second biggest Angolan TV channel, viewed by million of people.

Media Projects

Angola Solta a Tua Voz (Angola Lift Up Your Voice)
"Angola Solta a Tua Voz" (Angola Lift Up Your Voice) is the title song and the name of the new CD that SFCG produced in Angola. The CD features the most popular musicians from across the musical and geographical landscape of Angola. Each song is a duet between musicians who normally would not perform together -- merging generations of popular Angolan musicians -- blending different styles of music from different areas of the country -- and symbolically marking the beginning of a new era in Angola characterized by inclusion, participation, and unity. [more]

Outreach Projects

Civil Society Empowerment
SFCG works with local civil society partner groups across eight provinces to build their capacity to design, implement, and monitor local projects, which bring communities together in search of creative solutions to common problems. Members of these groups are drawn from traditional and local leaders, local NGOs and associations, clergy, and local government officials. [more]

Supporting Peaceful Elections Education
SFCG's elections strategy in Angola endeavors to increase citizens' knowledge of their rights and responsibilities within a democratic framework and promote greater participation in the upcoming elections in 2008 and 2009. The strategy hinges on participatory training modules organized across the country that educate citizens on local leadership, their rights as voters, as well as the ins and outs of the electoral processes. [more]

Peace and Security
SFCG works with the Angolan military, police, ex-combatants, and the Civil Defense Forces (local militias), to help them develop the capacity to be a source of security for communities and active promoters of social justice in Angola. SFCG recently published an innovative new conflict-resolution training manual designed for security forces to be used in post-conflict Angola and beyond. [more]

Radio Projects – Studio N'Jango

SFCG established a professional radio in Angola, Studio N'Jango, in early 2005 and produces programmes that are distributed to partner radio stations in Luanda and rural provinces. Through the Studio's radio programming and journalist outreach, SFCG multiplies the impact of its community outreach work by making its message available to wider audiences, including those without regular information access due to illiteracy or geographical isolation.

Journalism Training
Studio N'Jango offers training sessions focused on topics such as Intended Outcome Programming, interviewing techniques, reporting in conflict zones, and using civil society as sources for information. [more]

SFCG-IFES election journalism manual released ahead of Angola’s historic elections

In August 2008, SFCG and its partner IFES released “Responsible Electoral Coverage in Angola: Manual for Journalists.” The manual is part of SFCG’s training and capacity building efforts to promote journalism to contribute to the reduction of violence during the current 2008-2009 elections period. The manual, available in Portuguese, is directed at and distributed to Angolan journalists, providing them with a grounding in Angola’s election law, the electoral code of conduct, conflict sensitive reporting in the lead up to elections, and useful tips for reporting on Election Day. The manual utilizes SFCG and IFES’s vast experience in providing participative trainings for journalists to cover elections in Angola and throughout the world.

Click here to download the manual [pdf]

Radio Programming

• Baza Madie (local youth slang for "Let's Go!") is a thirty-minute magazine programme produced by and for Angolan youth between the ages of 15 and 25. [more]

• N'syeto ("Our land" in Kikongo) is a cultural programme that explores the rich traditions of Angola, aiming to promote culture as a source of common ground. [more]

• O Jogo ("The Game") is a radio soap opera about football (soccer) players from seemingly opposing backgrounds whose common interests bring them together. [more]