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For over seven years, I have translated strategy into tangible outcomes: launching digital campaigns that reached millions, mentoring youth leaders into parliamentary seats, and managing full-cycle projects that strengthen civil society from the ground up.
My professional autonomy is a key driver of my success. As a self-reliant strategist, I am adept at taking projects from concept to completion, an ability that has been a valuable asset in launching high-impact campaigns and empowering a new generation of community leaders.
I actively engage in every aspect of the project lifecycle, from initial design to final evaluation, fostering collaboration and synergy with partner organizations and community stakeholders. My dedication to this hands-on involvement ensures I contribute effectively to building impactful and sustainable programs that empower youth leaders.
I am co-authoring a paper, "From Protest to Projects: The Depoliticization of Zimbabwean Civil Society," which investigates the accelerating and troubling trend of civil society organizations (CSOs) retreating from confrontational, rights-based advocacy toward safer, donor-driven, and project-focused activities. The study's preliminary arguments points that this shift is propelled by a vicious, self-reinforcing cycle of five interlocking factors: entrenched donor dependency, the professionalization of advocacy into a secure livelihood, a culture of fear induced by state repression, the erosion of a radical intellectual discourse, and the subsequent rise of hollow, performative activism. Drawing its conclusions from a longitudinal qualitative study, the research is grounded in three years of sustained ethnographic engagement with a cohort of 35 young Zimbabwean activists, capturing their nuanced lived experiences. Ultimately, the paper will demonstrate that the cumulative effect of these pressures creates a more compliant, risk-averse, and less effective civil society, with profound negative implications for the future of governance and human rights in Zimbabwe.
As the facilitator for the Zimbabwean component of a multi-country research initiative, I guided a vital assessment of Youth Vulnerability in Fragile and Crisis Contexts. Grounded in a feminist and participatory approach, this project was distinguished by having the research conducted by young women from two of the most vulnerable communities, positioning them as experts in their own lives. Their findings provided a critical perspective for a global report that also included cases from Ethiopia, Uganda, and Nigeria, which was launched in March 2025. My role extended beyond the report itself, focusing on ensuring the research process was an act of empowerment that stimulated the participants' agency to shape the discourse on their own rights and protection.
I design and implement comprehensive leadership programs that equip young people with the skills for effective advocacy and civic participation. My mentorship and training have directly contributed to program alumni winning 4 parliamentary and 12 local council seats.
Leveraging my PhD research and extensive on-the-ground experience, I provide strategic coaching, capacity building, and crisis support to social movements and Human Rights Defenders. I specialize in helping organizations navigate complex civic spaces, build resilience, and maximize their social impact.
I develop and execute high-impact digital advocacy campaigns that mobilize communities and shape public discourse. I led a voter education campaign that achieved over 3.8 million people, significantly boosting youth participation in national elections.
I design and implement comprehensive leadership programs that equip young people with the skills for effective advocacy and civic participation. My mentorship and training have directly contributed to program alumni winning 4 parliamentary and 12 local council seats.
Leveraging my PhD research and extensive on-the-ground experience, I provide strategic coaching, capacity building, and crisis support to social movements and Human Rights Defenders. I specialize in helping organizations navigate complex civic spaces, build resilience, and maximize their social impact.
I develop and execute high-impact digital advocacy campaigns that mobilize communities and shape public discourse. I led a voter education campaign that achieved over 3.8 million people, significantly boosting youth participation in national elections.
When I left Antananarivo this past August, if you had told me President Rajoelina’s government would be gone in two months, I would have laughed you off. The poverty was a palpable presence, not just in the capital but everywhere I visited, from the bustling streets of Tana to the cooler highlands of Antsirabe where I spent most of the days. The desperation was etched onto the faces of the young people I spoke to both alongside the events I had gone to Madagascar for, but at the eating spaces that I patroned.
In conversations with few fellow Zimbabweans I have been travelling with, we dissected the poverty that we saw along the way from the airport to Tana CBD (the irony I know), the palpable sense of abandonment and resignment that the young people who spoke with us shared. Yet, in all those discussions, we collectively overlooked a crucial truth: a generation that appears politically disconnected is often the most politically aware. We saw what looked like passivity, in retrospect we can say it was just potential energy waiting for a trigger.
My initial analysis was clouded by an academic theory that I had read of a few months prior preparing a paper on urban poverty. It was a theory linked to Oscar Lewis’s concept of a “culture of poverty”, the idea that the urban poor develop a set of psychological traits like fatalism, hopelessness, and a lack of ambition to cope with their circumstances. I saw young Malagasy who were deeply dismissive of the political class. Their online lives showed them what was possible in the world, yet they saw no pathway to connect that digital dream to their lived reality. Fatalism was evident in how they described their future; ambition felt like a foreign concept. I admit, I fundamentally misread the situation.
Political awareness is a precursor to political action, but a catalyst is always needed to bridge the two. That catalyst is rarely a grand political ideology; more often, it's a spark of raw frustration over a basic livelihood issue. In Madagascar, it was the chronic blackouts and water cuts (it wasn’t a new crisis, but it reached a tipping point.)
This brings me to a second point I misjudged: the tools of mobilisation. When we think of digital revolutions, our minds jump to the Arab Spring, to Twitter (or X, whatever) and Facebook. But the game has changed. When protests erupted in Nepal and Morocco, a different platform kept emerging: Discord.
These are not movements led by political enthusiasts or meticulously organised by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). They are born in nodes of communication where young people are simply battling through life, expressing themselves, and finding commonality in their struggle. These platforms are where emotions coalesce into action, far from the polished narratives of traditional activism.
My former boss told me seated outside our Harare office in December last year: “True liberation, like that of the 20th century, will not be earned through the work and brilliance of the college-educated middle class. It will be won by those on the street corners who seem hopeless.” I see this truth in the ghettos of Glenorah, Mbare, and Kuwadzana here in Harare, and now in hindsight I see it clearly in Madagascar and Dakar (as I have reflected last year on my return from Bangladesh)
In the coming months, a predictable script will unfold. Academics and news commentators will write extensively on what happened in Madagascar, many will claim that it was obvious all along. NGOs will host workshops in plush hotels, bundling these young people into rooms to “interrogate” them on how they did it, later writing reports on how their own programs “catalyzed” the movement. The political opposition will try to claim the victory was won in their name.
All of these versions will be, in large part, a dishonest attempt at harvesting where they did not sow.
So, what can we truly learn from the Gen Z-led protests that have now ousted leaders in Bangladesh, pushed a stubborn leader to submission in Kenya, changed leadership in Nepal, and now confused the SADC Chair to flee out of Madagascar? The first lesson is that this new phenomenon demands new methodological frameworks. Our standardized academic tools from structured interviews to formal observations are no longer fit for purpose. How do you study a movement that is more emotion than strategy? How do you create a linear, coherent story out of something that is, by its nature, chaotic, fluid, and deeply personal?
The few academic papers I have read on the Kenyan protests, for example, reveal this disconnect from the very abstract. The language is off, the characterizations are misaligned, and the narrative is forced into a neat sequence of events. When you speak to those on the frontlines, you realise these protests are fuelled by the raw emotions of a generation born in crisis, a generation that has only ever seen a better world through the filtered lens of TikTok and Instagram.
I am young, but even I feel my positionality is off when it comes to truly understanding these Gen Z movements as well. It requires a new approach perched on participatory research, led not by senior academicians, but by young researchers who understand the lingo, feel the struggle, and can navigate the digital and emotional dynamics these movements inhabit.
This brings me to my final two points.
First, a warning to leaders everywhere: Before these youths come for your government and start declaring them terrorists, address the crises they face every single day. Address the unemployment crisis, the housing crisis, and the cost-of-living crisis. Respect their way of life; do not try to govern their art and self-expression as if you are protecting a Pandora’s box. It is already open.
Second, a plea to NGOs, CSOs, and academics: Spend more time listening than talking. These young people know what they want. They do not need their thinking diluted through the abstractions of “capacity building” workshops and logical frameworks. Partner with them on their unstructured, unplanned, and unframed terms. Let us study them not for our own publications and reports, but to amplify their aspirations for a decent life. We must descend from our ivory towers, wear their hats, learn their language, and not impose our vision of the future upon them. Theirs is the only one that matters now.
Why is self-documentation so critical for social movements? And how can Participatory Action Research (PAR) help? I discussed these important questions with the TroubleMakers Podcast. As an organizer and social movement coach, I'm passionate about empowering movements to control their own narratives. Listen to our insights on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ep25: Participatory Action Research with Abel Sibanda🎙
How can research be a tool for social change rather than academic gatekeeping?
In this episode, we unpack Participatory Action Research (PAR) and explore how communities—not just institutions—can produce knowledge.
We also dive into knowledge commons, AI’s blind spots, and unconventional ways of reclaiming information, like Minecraft’s banned book library.
Listen now: https://bit.ly/4iSxzQZ
More episodes & resources: https://lnkd.in/dNPmBFQa
🔁 Share, discuss, and let’s disrupt the status quo together!
#TroubleMakersPodcast #ParticipatoryActionResearch #KnowledgeCommons
From my sleep, I could feel that I am in the airspace of a country on the move, this prompted me to wake up and strike a conversation with a young (as I had suspected) Bangladeshi man next to me, whom for most of the flight I had ignored to be honest.
"Bangladeshi?" (the nationality) I asked.
Yes, Bangladesh 2.0," (the country) he responded.
This is how the conversation about how young people, students, booted out a corrupt government and sent a 15-year Prime Minister who had just “won” an election into exile started. I could sense that the young man has been waiting to say this to someone for a long time. He works in Doha, and just like me, was going to Bangladesh for the first time since the July revolution.
"Did people at home tell you that anything has changed yet since August though?" I asked.
“In terms of the economy, not yet, (…) they told me they feel free though, free to be, free to say their minds out and free to hope.” He answered.
The conversation went on until we landed at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport; it resumed over coffee the day after and the days that followed.
Here are the five things that I learnt from what I saw, what we talked about and what I experienced during my stay in Bangladesh
On my way to where I was staying, I could see walls and bridges with art which communicated what just happened with zero ambiguity. I learnt that art has incredible power to mobilize and inform. The graffiti that I saw wasn't just visual; it was a public declaration of resistance and a way to spread awareness about the issues at stake. This "artivism" served several purposes including increasing accessibility. It democratized information. Complex political issues were translated into powerful visuals that anyone can understand, drawing in people who might have otherwise remained disengaged. Artivism transformed the urban landscape into a canvas for protest, forcing people to confront the movement's message in their daily lives. This constant visibility keeps the issues at the forefront of public consciousness. And art, in this case, evoked strong emotions and created a sense of shared identity in a country with different ethnicities. In short, “artivism” is not an addition to “activism,” it’s an integral part of it.
The success of the Bangladeshi youth in ousting a corrupt government highlights the power of organized action. We talked a lot about struggles which lasted decades in countries across the world—your Syrias and your Venezuelas. We also talked about countries where change was hijacked: Tunisia now with a dictator, Kais Saied; Egypt with El-Sisi; and Sudan, which ended up in conflict as two warlords battle for power. Women and youths who led the struggles end up becoming collateral damage. Bangladesh taught us that being organised during, and most importantly after the struggle has been won, is necessary. The initial phase of the protests, which was reactionary, morphed into a decentralized, organised movement which formulated plans and strategies. This decentralized structure allowed for flexibility and resilience, making it harder for authorities to suppress the movement. After, the citizens council, which provides a unified voice, increased the movement's influence. The few representatives in the council are accountable to the people, hence they are bound to effectively channel public opinion and advocate for specific policy positions. What I have noted is that the “revolution” is not over, young people are still engaged, and this has the potential to preserve the gains of the struggle.
I picked up that this struggle, which was triggered by the employment quotas issue, was not new. The protests have been brewing and sometimes emerging spontaneously since 2018, or even before. It took a trigger point to ignite the fuel that has been boiling for a long time. In different conversations, I was told that social and political change requires a gradual shift in public consciousness. It takes time to educate, mobilize, and build a critical mass of support. However, others highlighted the role of trigger points. My friend said, “while underlying grievances existed for years, it is one event which triggered everything, igniting widespread protests.” Additionally, I learnt that change requires sustained pressure on those in power. The Bangladeshi people demonstrated remarkable resilience, continuing their protests even in the face of arrests and killings. It's tough, but when it must be done, it must be done.
Had I not started a conversation with the passenger seated on seat K34, I could have returned home with the knowledge of what I have read in papers, which is often not representational of ordinary people's experiences. I learnt more than just about the politics of things, but the social dynamics which entrench power. I understood more about patriarchal dynamics in most sectors of Bangladesh, and I had personal connections which have the potential to last beyond all this I am writing about.
One striking thing was how people, parents, and communities supported the student protesters. A prime example being about a lawyer and TV personality turned protest organiser, Manjur Al Matin, who, after his room was teargassed by the security forces, joined the protests. Using his megaphone as a popular personality, he amplified the case that the students were highlighting, which was now beyond the employment quotas, but included the need for democracy and rule of law, etc. I had the privilege to meet Manjur during some of my work assignments, where he shared more of the same issues my in-flight friend had shared in the days that we talked. I learnt that when respected figures join a movement, they lend it credibility and broaden its appeal. Manjur's involvement helped elevate the students' concerns and frame them within a larger struggle for democracy and rule of law. It can be noted that community support provided essential resources, such as food, water, shelter (as people temporarily hid from security forces), and legal aid, enabling protesters to sustain their efforts. In the face of state repression, solidarity from parents and communities offered a degree of protection and safety for young activists.
