PE AMANDLA FORUM
Amandla Forum was formed in 2012 by a group of activists and volunteers who resonate easy with issues of social justice and economic emancipation. In their individual right these activists are involve in popular struggles of the working people in South Africa. Amandla Forum operates in the townships of Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape.
Port Elizabeth or The Bay (Zulu: Bhayi; Xhosa: iBhayi; Afrikaans: Die Baai ) is one of the largest cities in South Africa, situated in the Eastern Cape Province, 770 km east of Cape Town. The city, often shortened to PE and nicknamed “The Friendly City” or “The Windy City”, stretches for 16 km along Algoa Bay, and is one of the major seaports in South Africa. Port Elizabeth is one ofthe largest cities on the African continent, just further south than Cape Town.
In 2001, the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality was formed as an administrative area covering Port Elizabeth, the neighbouring towns of Uitenhage and Despatch, and the surrounding agricultural areas. Nelson Mandela Bay is a major seaport and automotive manufacturing centre.
Nelson Mandela area has a population of just over a million people. Of this population close to 40% is unemployed. Almost 20% of the people have no formal houses, there is still a significant number of people without flushing toilets about 15% of the population. Nelson Mandela Bay has over 300 000 households and of these more than 40% are headed by females. Unemployment is high among young people at 48% with only a third of the population with Grade 12 certificates.
Amandla Forum participates in various campaigns to condemn the scourge and oppressions against the people. To enhance our work we have since identified Renewable Energy as not only a campaign to undertake for awareness of our people, but we elected to zoom into that space as a practical partner with various relevant state departments. Amandla Forum has joined the national campaign to force government to create one million climate jobs. This is a national campaign that believe that with government support for peoples driven economic initiatives that uses renewable energy it is possible to create a million jobs for unemployed South Africans.
Amandla Forum runs weekly reading groups of youngsters around Port Elizabeth townships. These reading groups meet once a week with the aim of enhancing the culture of reading and writing among young people. The reading groups are situated within Amandla Forum Resource and Information Centre (RIC) which has a variety of books donated to it.
Recently Amandla Forum has organised young people in conjunction with the Nelson Mandela University (NMU) to undertake a research project on “Township Economies”. This is a funded project that seeks to investigate and understand the nature of economy in the Port Elizabeth poor communities. The research hopes to build a body of knowledge that could be used to support creation of peoples driven and owned township economy. It is hoped that this would guide the unemployed on how they could organise themselves and embark on light manufacturing renewable energy driven industry.
Amandla Forum is instituting itself as Non-Profit Organisation (NPO) and is in a process of registering with the Department Social Development. We have has a strategic planning session and have adopted a strategic thrust with a number of campaigns to focus on for the future.
