Meet the #connecthubs Cape Town Cohort!

This November, we are inviting young leaders, influencers and decision-makers from social and creative hubs to attend the connect.hubs training program in Cape Town and Harare, designed to build and sustain their skills, knowledge and network.

For the Cape Town cohort, we’re incredibly excited about these outstanding Creative and Social Economy hubs representing a cross-section of creativity and social impact across the Southern Africa region. They come from South Africa, Mauritius, Botswana, Namibia and Mozambique.

connect.hubs is an initiative to support the social and creative hubs in Southern Africa that drive the creative economies and create social impact in the region. Creative and social hubs support diverse communities of artists, entrepreneurs, activists and culture producers in physical or virtual spaces. Examples are makerspaces, music studios, fablabs, collectives, online networks, co-working spaces, incubators, and more.

#connecthubs is a project by British Council #SouthernAfricaArts British Council Zimbabwe and Hivos Southern Africa with training led by NESTA, and support from Electric South , Enthuse Afrika and Young Blood Africa.

🔥 Congratulations to the 24 selected hubs for the Cape Town cohort. The featured hubs and their managers are:

Art Meets – is a fluid and organic hub that was started to create content reflecting parallel narratives in the art industry. It grew out of a need to create space, opportunity and collaboration across generations through content production and exhibition making.

Azania Rizing Productions – their main objective is to establish a safe space that inspires young people by telling stories about Afrika and the Afrikan Diaspora at large. This includes teaching about Afrika’s legacy in world heritage to revive political consciousness and honour the struggle of Afrik’s aforemothers and fathers.

Black Filmmakers Film Festival – seeks to connect and showcase artists of colour across the city, country and continent, through a series of events and workshops. These events are not limited to film and media fans alone, but aim to include an audience who has yet to be exposed to film screenings, workshops and festivals.

Breaking Bread – is an art space using food to bring people together. Food is a shared ground uniting literature, sound, performance and visual art to create a community of artists, towards building an alternative infrastructure.

Cape Town Community Television Collective – a non-profit, community-based television station aimed at the greater Cape Town metropolitan area. CTV is committed to providing community access to the powerful medium of television as a tool to promote human rights, social justice and community cultural development.

Connecta Hub – is a free co-working space and unifying agency that includes social media influencers, graphic designers, copy writers, web developers and programmers, writers and musicians. They offer the financial and technical backing needed by young freelance creatives to be competitive in a corporate world that often doesn’t take them seriously.

Craft+Graft – a multi-functional space dedicated to supporting the emerging creative class of Cape Town through its gallery and events space. Craft+Graft aims to support underserved artists and creatives by providing opportunities to show their work and host events that support the artist’s development.

Digital Girl Africa – aims to close the digital gender gap in Africa by transferring various digital skills to women at any level of employment and business or to those seeking new opportunities.

Emergent Business and Coding Academy – is a social enterprise that offers unemployed youth the space and opportunity to develop their entrepreneurial ideas into viable initiatives.

Eyethu Art Space – was the first commercial art gallery in Soweto. Emerging and eminent artists are given a platform to showcase their art, and strives to shift perspectives about contemporary art in this area.

Fugly art gallery – due to launch in December, the art gallery is a space set in a township shack where local fine artists can showcase their work and get to sell to tourists and other locals.

Global Shapers Windhoek –brings together young people who are willing to share their time and efforts in social projects to enhance and brighten the lives of the communities in and around Windhoek.

HOLAAfrica – is a space to give information on sex and sexuality whilst also acting as a space to archive the stories of African queer women and gender non-conforming persons.

illusion xiix – an agricultural hub that shares new skills in farming and connects young adults. Based on a a piece of land in Winterveld, one of their initiatives is to work with preschool children to develop urban fun farms.

Inxwala – an alternative space for makers to create, network and seek collaboration.

Love Generation Hub – is a hub for young people with an entrepreneurial spirit. They target, but are not exclusive to, young people of colour in Cape Town and help them build businesses.

OURS – a co-working space for creative entrepreneurs and a space to showcase their works. These showcases include : exhibitions ; photo shoots ; brand activations ; screenings ; workshops ; talks ; classes ; markets ; pop up events; corporate social investment programs etc.

Porteurs d’Images – is an association which aims to develop and promote Mauritian cinema, as well as Indian Ocean cinemas. The association brings together Mauritian filmmakers and everyone involved in filmmaking around one annual major event: Île Courts — International Short Films Festival of Mauritius.

Slow Sunday Social Market – is both a creative hub and a networking space in which student and local businesses are able to trade their goods and showcase their art in Grahamstown.

Spoken Sessions – gives people a platform to express their art. It is geared at being a safe space but also trying to encourage artists to be paid for what they do. The art scene in Pretoria is not that strong yet so we are filling this gap with monthly showcases and open mic nights.

The African Consciousness Institute – works to bolster the success, self-knowledge and wellbeing of Africans, both at home and in the diaspora. We use arts and culture to inspire and celebrate African contributions.

The ATOM Collective – brings people together through audiovisual showcases and its welcoming community. They create spaces that foster authentic interpersonal connection amongst diverse individuals.

Tshimologong Makerspace – seeks to promote and enable access to innovation through collaborative making, training, up skilling and experimentation/purposeful play. Some of the practical engagements housed in the space include Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies.

WONA – a digital and physical platform to promote and develop the arts and celebrate the culture of Mozambique.

We are happy to announce that this training program is only the start of the exciting connect.hubs project! There will be upcoming opportunities for creative or social impact hubs across southern Africa to engage with other hubs, access resources and even compete for project funding.

Please follow the #connecthubs #GoConnectComeCreate hashtags and the connect.hubs social media pages: Medium, Facebook & Twitter to stay updated on future opportunities.