Vision Africa

Vision Africa works against gender-based and sexualised violence and for sustainable peace in the mining town of Kadoma, about 200 kilometres southwest of Harare. Its focus areas include civic education, as well as sexual and reproductive health for young people.

Currently

Check out our news page for the latest on this partnership.

YIELD – Youth led Engagement with Leadership and Development Trust

The youth organisation YIELD campaigns for political education and women’s rights in Bulawayo in southwestern Zimbabwe.

Since June 2021, two projects supported by fepa have been implemented: Several Zoom workshops on political participation and a conference for women addressing gender-based violence and discrimination in the workplace. The report with insights into these projects can be found here.

YIELD works, among other things, with podcasts to make the voices of young people heard and at the same time to reach a broad public for the concerns of Zimbabwe’s youth.

• The podcast produced by YIELD are available on the Memeza podcast platform
• Video productions, for example from the women’s conference, can be viewed at this link.

Currently

Check out our news page for the latest on this partnership.

The fepa Board of Directors

The Board of Directors directs and promotes fepa’s activities, formulates the strategic objectives and annual goals in accordance with a list of duties.

fepa board members work on a voluntary basis. We disclose any vested interests here in accordance with ZEWO Standard 5.

Are you interested in becoming a member? Feel free to send us an e-mail.

Susanne Zurbuchen

Horgen

Susanne Zurbuchen has been a member of the fepa board since the eighties, and has been co-president since 2022. Her commitment to Africa goes back to her student years. A study trip to Tanzania with a stay in one of the Ujamaa villages made her wish to live there for a longer period. Sent by Mission 21, she stayed in rural Tanzania from 1978 to 1981in close contact with the local women, whose energy and autonomy she admires. She takes a keen interest in the path of the states of East and Southern Africa out of colonial dependencies. As a Secondary School teacher of English and history, Susanne has brought Africa, its history and its resilience, closer to her students. She is also interested in languages, literature and culture in general. She still practices Swahili by reading and discussing novels with other lovers of this language.

Helena Zweifel

Zürich

Ethnologist, former Managin Director of Medicus Mundi
Co-President since 2022, Board Member since 2014

Helena Zweifel is a specialist and consultant on development issues, especially in the health sector. She worked for the SDC in India.

Katharina Morello

Horgen

Pastor and writer
Board member since 2021

Katharina Morello lived with her family in Zimbabwe from 2001 to 2002. Since then, she undertook various project and research trips in South Africa and Zimbabwe, resulting in books and short stories.

Katharina Morello is also involved in the autonomous school of Zürich and is president of its supporting association Bildung für Alle (Education for All).

Barbara Müller

Basel

From 1990 to 2015, Barbara served as the executive director of fepa, and since 2015, she has been a member of the board. However, her heart has long been devoted to Africa. Since the 1970s, she has been an activist for southern Africa. She believes in Africa’s future and its young, dynamic population and wants to help overcome the still-colonial relationships with our part of the world. The friendships she has formed through this engagement are especially important to her. For a long time, she has followed the political and social developments in Zimbabwe with great interest. Additionally, she is fascinated by African literature and art. Despite her commitments, she always finds time to enjoy outdoor activities, whether it’s walking, swimming, or cycling.

Contact Barbara via e-mail

Mickness Mshana-Aeschlimann

Bern

Mickness was born and raised in Tanzania and has been living in Switzerland since 2016. She joined the board of fepa in 2021, following the start of her fundraising career in 2019, when she helped fepa raise funds for an economic project supporting rural women in Zimbabwe. This experience highlighted her ability to raise funds for causes she is passionate about, particularly in Africa. Since then, she has been a dedicated and passionate fundraising consultant, specializing in empowering non-profit organizations across Africa, Europe, and North America. With a blend of strategic thinking and a heart for impactful causes, she thrives on turning fundraising visions into reality. When she’s not busy raising funds, you can find her reading, video-calling her family in Tanzania, teaching Swahili to her multilingual son, or enjoying karaoke with her husband and friends.

Get in touch with Mickness via LinkedIn or her Website.

Rita Kesselring

St. Gallen

Rita Kesselring has been a board member since 2012, having interned with fepa a few years earlier. Her connection to fepa began during her studies in social anthropology at the universities of Zurich and Cape Town, where she focused on South Africa for her thesis. Ever since, she combines her academic work with her commitment to fepa. After earning her PhD from the University of Basel, for which she spent two years of research on apartheid victims in South Africa, she moved to Zambia to write her habilitation thesis on life in a new mining town. Throughout her career, she has been dedicated to highlighting the connections between Southern Africa and Switzerland, both during the apartheid era and today, as Switzerland is a major hub for commodity trading. Since 2022, she has served as a professor at the University of St. Gallen. Her years in Southern Africa have also been a personal journey, confronting issues of privilege and commonality. Rita likes to read widely, to run, preferably in forests, and to swim in lakes across the globe.

Contact Rita via LinkedIn

Roger Morgenthaler

Bern

Roger Morgenthaler has been a board member of fepa since 2018. During his studies in Environmental Engineering, he spent four months in 2016 with fepa’s partner organization, Participatory Organic Research & Extension Training Trust (Poret) in Zimbabwe, where he collaborated with local farmers to develop low-budget drip irrigation systems. Upon returning to Switzerland, Roger connected with fepa, initially serving as a consultant on agroecology before becoming a board member. During an extensive journey through Central and South America, Roger gained valuable insights into the challenges faced by countries in the Global South, which continue to shape his commitment to fepa’s mission. Professionally, Roger specializes in environmental construction supervision and soil management oversight. He is also an active volunteer leader for nature conservation projects with WWF Bern. Roger lives in Bern, where he enjoys spending his free time with his family or cycling.

Christian Noetzli

Zürich

Christian has been on the board of fepa since 2021. He has had a deep connection with the Southern Hemisphere for decades, whether through his work in the environmental and natural sciences (in Colombia, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Côte d’Ivoire, and Ghana) or through his commitment to education, where he raises awareness among students about the impact of colonialism and post-colonialism in Africa and Europe. Various visits with friends and acquaintances in southern Africa and other parts of the world keep him informed about the challenges and developments of different nations as they navigate the 21st century. In many places, he witnessed more “renewal” and “hope” among young people than he had expected – qualities and trends that fepa has long been committed to fostering and supporting. Amidst all this engagement, he still finds time for hiking in the mountains, climbing, or cycling trips to remote corners of Switzerland.

Silvia Schönenberger

Bern

Silvia joined fepa as an intern in 2009 and has been an active member of the board since 2012. Since her youth, her heart has beating for Southern Africa. After studying ethnology, she worked in the fields of migration, human rights and in particular indigenous rights, in research, in administration and in non-governmental organisations. During several extended stays abroad, she gained unforgettable experiences and was able to look beyond her own horizon. She was able to realise her passion for documentary films with a Master’s study programme in Chile. She also enjoys photography and loves travelling with family and friends. A visit to the partner organisations in Zimbabwe made her realise how empowering it is to support civil society engagement on the ground, where so much heart and soul is invested. Supporting people in their initiatives for a better life and social justice motivates her commitment to fepa. 

SDG Agenda 2030

fepa is committed to and within the framework of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda2030; SDG). These goals do not only concern the South, where we contribute to the achievement of various goals through our partnership projects. In Switzerland, too, there are important levers for sustainable development at the global level: in climate protection, we must not continue our hit-and-run. And in matters of tax avoidance and investment policy, our domestic, economic and location policies must analyse the impact on sustainability – taking into account that people in the global South have rights that must determine our actions.

Information on Swiss civil society perspectives and commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals can be found here:

• alliancesud
• Plattform Agenda 2030
• Konzernverantwortungsinitiative (fepa-Archiv)

The role of civil society

The Sustainable Development Goals envisage an active role for civil society. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine how sustainable development would be possible without the participation of civil society. It is all the more worrying when the space for civil society engagement is restricted. That is why fepa is committed to civil society in the countries where we are active.

Responsible communication on international cooperation

fepa moves ahead

Under the umbrella of Alliance Sud, a manifesto of Swiss aid organisations for “responsible communication of international cooperation” was created in 2020. fepa is also concerned with the question of how we fulfil our responsibility in communication, as formulated in the manifesto: “Responsibility for the people who improve their livelihoods thanks to cooperation, and for those who show solidarity”. Our communication should contribute to a better understanding, more solidarity as well as to the “decolonisation of aid”.

On 9 September, around 40 Africa experts discussed excerpts from fepa’s newsletters at the first “Critical Reflection Day” at the Centre for African Studies Basel.

The discussion showed that communication about cooperation is complex and can produce misunderstandings. It sharpened our understanding of colonial traditions of representation and that communication about “aid” ultimately depends on how these aid structures are shaped: Every inequality in the partner relationship also leads to problems in communication. We cannot and must not whitewash these inequalities. “Responsible communication” therefore also requires “responsible partnership” at eye level. You can find our reflection on the feedback below.

That is why the office is currently working on the following tasks:

• As an engaged, flexible and courageous organisation, we are moving forward experimentally and testing new, decolonised forms of communication. In this way, we ourselves contribute to the learning process around the Manifesto. We set ourselves the goal of exceeding the requirements of the “Manifesto”.
• We rely on critical engagement and co-determination by our partners for our communication and finance corresponding activities on the part of the partners.
• We are expanding the platforms where our partners and generally people from the Global South speak and write directly.
• We develop an integrated strategy for partnership project work, which includes communication.
• We enable partners to engage in the aid decolonisation debate.
• We sensitise our readers, members, supporters and donors to engage with their ideas, positioning and to listen even more to voices from the South.
• We define our roles more precisely. When fepa presents itself as an “expert”: for what? And what does this mean for the partners and beneficiaries?

Workshop Critical reflection day…

We submitted a number of fepa journal articles to a review by academic audience with the questions how we portray partners and relationships – in light of the importance to communicate responsibly and not least, to contribute to the decolonization of ‘aid’. You can read more about that background in the transcript. below.

7 groups discussed 4 text samples, representing different formats (Textsorten). The feedback was very critical and highlighting a range of issues where changes in approach are advisable. Sometimes the critique in the workshop suffered from a lack of contextual knowledge: the choice of single texts did not allow to see how they played together with other parts of the communication. But I, as the director of fepa, am convinced: the verdict must be taken seriously and changes applied.

The fepa-Mitteilungsblatt has a history rooted in how this genre of publications grew – and it will profit from a reform in some of its parts. Many of the shortcomings are not a problem of fepa, rather of the genre. It was fascinating to see how much is wrong with international cooperation communication, when you look at it from an abstract and academic viewpoint.

Here are some conclusions for fepa:

• First voice given to partners as authors: interviews were criticized for remaining in the donor/recipient set up; choice of extracts from statements were criticized for inability to overcome colonial representations – this will need resources at our partner’s end. And we must accept that some things are out of control, when people represent themselves.
• Editing must become a partnered approach – this will need resources at our parnter’s end.
• More of a journalist approach needed? – The genre is more PR with documentation and some first voice. Could a stronger outsider journalism approach, change representation and allow for more critical assessments?
• Multimedia approach to be adopted, so that background information, context, or even the way people talk and act can be transported – or discussion made visible.
• Representation of ‘recipients’ as ‘poor’ remains a big challenge. How to make them active? More and longer portraits? Life-stories? But should everyone be made a public story?
• Some statements by fepa director in editorials show ‘speaking for’ rather than just giving space to speak in own, direct voice.
• We are portraying fepa, especially in the communication leaning towards fundraising, as ‘we are the experts’ – but it creates power imbalances and makes people look passive. Is this a challenge when working with grassroots people: that they are ‘experts’ for what – how do we really portray them as subjects in a solidarity relation?
• In general it is very difficult to bring us, as ‘donors’ in the global North into the equation – unless we are brutally honest and transparent. Maybe we should not pretend that we are equal. Some participants suggested that we be more explicit about ‘collaboration’ between people with different roles and powers, and expertise, rather than aspiring to a partnership of equals.
• How can our partners speak truth to our power? There was a deep uneasiness within the academics about this. This is complicated by the reality that almost any ‘development-project’ set-up has a tendency to disempower partners in the south in a substantial way, unless they have unlimited and direct access to the funding partners in the north. Must we be prepared to adopt a position of ‘fund generously’ as a solution.
• Should we drop the editorial – together with the fundraising letter it is simply too much talking about our being good? Even though responses by readers show that the editorial is important to them. This shows the challenge how do we build trust in fepa – trust that we need for fundraising efficiently? How can we communicate so that this trust is easily extended to our partners? Should we hand over the editorial to a partner in the south?
• Apply a more robust approach at translation, circulation, copy rights etc.

Workshop Introduction by Marcel Dreier, Transcript

If today we as fepa challenge ourselves, each day, to think about how we can decolonize, this is part of our very own history and reason for existence. But it is also because we understand that the international cooperation, including our own, is rooted in colonial histories and discourses.

Our constitution says that we are actively playing a part in informing our members and audience about the politics of development and the situation and context in which our partners are active. Even though we are small as an organisation, we are still talking to some two thousand people or more in Switzerland who believe that we are a credible source of information and a good example of international cooperation practice. Many see us as ‘experts’. With this influence comes responsibility.

As experts we know that we must decolonize international relations and cooperation. And this debate is gaining some traction recently. One example is the Kampala Initiative.

)) That initiative aims to decolonize health cooperation, decolonize the critique of aid, and to decolonize the promotion of solidarity. It goes beyond the health sector, and asks: ‘How do we achieve real cooperation and solidarity within and beyond aid?’. Another example is  the report on a global consultation held in 2020 with 158 activisits from around the global. This report is published by peace direct under the title “Time to Decolonise Aid”. It states that ‘some of the language used in the aid system reinforces discriminatory and racist perceptions of non-White populations’ and it challenges to acknowledge structural racism and the hegemony of Western values in international cooperation, and recommends to do something against it. One of the recommendations is to mind our language.

For such initiatives ‘decolonization’ is not ‘disengagement’. I also believe that the relations that we have with people in the global south are essential to build our humanity, our one world. So this session is not meant to be a fundamental critique of the idea of global cooperation – but wants to look at how we communicate about our relations, how we portray our partners in these relations and whether we mind our language in view of colonial histories and discourses.

A group of larger Swiss INGOs in 2020 presented a ‘manifesto for responsible communication on international communication.’ This manifesto steers clear of the word ‘decolonize’. fepa takes the manifesto as our starting point, and minimum requirement, for our communication. Actually, I feel, also because we are not really par of ‘the industry’, but driven by grassroots here, that we should aim to try to be voice in this debate, a debate about decolonizing and working towards, unlocking international communication from colonialism. So we felt that we should submit our own communication to your critique here, even though the communication of others have a much greater influence. I am grateful that you are willing to spend some time and appreciative of your feedback.

Are you willing to participate in our debates? Please get in touch with Marcel Dreier (marcel.dreier@fepafrika.ch).

Who we are

Since 1963, fepa – the Fund for Development and Partnership in Africa – has been committed to improving living conditions in southern Africa, particularly in Zimbabwe. fepa:

• funds and supports local initiatives.

• promotes youth empowerment and gender equality.

Our History

Board of Directors

Team

ZEWO

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