http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/494/pok_group_tmb.jpgPillars of Kibera is a theatre-for-social-change group based in Kibera, Nairobi. Comprised of 25 passionate young people, this theatre group creates their own performance pieces using dance, drama, music and poetry to address the social issues faced by Kibera residents. is made up of photographs from the group’s rehearsals and performances, along with interviews from group members about Pillars of Kibera discussing how it brings change to the community and how it has changed themselves.

http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/494/angola_tmb.jpgAs communities in Angola’s municipality of Matala and Quipungo face up to demolitions as part of the government’s ‘Operation Combat and Demolition of Shacks and Anarchic Constructions in the Municipality of Lubango’, civil society work by local groups has proven crucial in enabling families to prepare adequately and begin to organise, writes Sylvia Croese.

In conversation with Pambazuka News, Executive Director Franck Kamunga of the Kinshasa-based Droits Humains Sans Frontières discusses the struggle for justice for murdered civil society activists in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) and the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Kenya is awakening with the realisation of a new constitution. Jill Cottrell Ghai and Yash Pal Ghai warn that Kenyan society must not now allow the silence of complacency to take hold and obstruct the path to democratic and transparent governance. The commitment of the nation’s civil society organisations and movements able to secure the universal implementation of the constitution will ensure its survival, and the upholding of the rights and responsibilities it enshrines for the benefit of Kenyans, write the authors.

Zambia’s new draft constitution, created by the National Constitution Conference, discriminates against members of the LGBT community, depriving them of their rights to live freely and equitably, writes Mwila Agatha Zaza. The inclusion of unspecified Christian values into the constitution, vaguely defined laws on family and a woman’s right to marital freedom, and a prohibition of abortion except under already defined circumstances means this new constitution does little to progress sexual equality in Zambia, Zaza argues.

Let’s give credit for the overwhelming decision for ‘Yes’ where it belongs – to ordinary Kenyans of all walks of life, writes Ngunjiri Wambugu.

Trinidadians are becoming increasingly alarmed by the murders and a flourishing trade in cocaine and guns, writes Raoul Pantin.

Responses to the results of Kenya’s referendum, Haitian musician Wyclef Jean’s decision to run for president and the dangers of Bill Gates and his foundation dabbling in Africa’s development are among the topics discussed in this week’s roundup of the African blogosphere, brought to you by Sokari Ekine.

It is 65 years this August since the US dropped atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of unarmed Japanese civilians, writes Horace Campbell. Although US history books say that thousands of servicemen were saved as a result of those two bombings, the reality, says Campbell, was different.

The UN is rapidly becoming a breeding ground for corruption and impunity, writes Rasna Warah. Warah, a former UN staff member, investigates how voices raised against wrongdoings in the organisation are hastily muted, and often met with severe reprisals.

The referendum result ‘puts beyond doubt the wishes of Kenyans to bring about fundamental social and political changes’, writes Yash Ghai. Although the new constitution sets both a framework and a timetable for its implementation, Ghai says it’s crucial that Kenyans are not sidetracked by talk of ‘reconciliation through further negotiations on “contentious issues”’ from elites ‘determined to sabotage reform agendas’. ‘The whole point of a referendum is to see which side has greater support, and to bring the debate to closure,’ says Ghai.

As the Pakistani people face up to the effects of terrible flooding, Yash Tandon expresses solidarity and stresses that if nature is cruel, a civilisation which puts ‘profits before humanity, and military security before food security’ is surely crueller.

As ‘Africa’s top kleptocrats … gathered at their annual summit’ in Kampala, US Attorney General Eric Holder and US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Johnnie Carson told those assembled that the US Justice Department has established the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI) to recover criminally acquired funds, writes Alemayehu G. Mariam. Corruption and the misappropriation of funds have a devastating impact, Mariam stresses, and in developing an initiative to combat elite impunity, it seems that ‘President Obama … has finally found the silver bullet to deal with Africa’s corrupt thugs.’

For all it cost. For all we've lost. For all who persisted, decade upon decade, in the face of every defeat. For the invisible heroes of four generations, who brought it to fruition. For those taken by the struggle, whose spirits we carry with us. For those who laboured for this and did not live to see it realised. For the bereaved, displaced, dispossessed, raped, whose blood and suffering have watered this moment. If victory means anything, it must mean the beginning of restitution…

Maude Barlow, former UN advisor on water, ‘Alternative Nobel’ prize winner and founder of the Blue Planet Project, has condemned the Botswana government’s failure to allow Bushmen to access water. Barlow’s remarks come a week after the United Nations declared water a fundamental human right, and two weeks after a Botswana High Court judge ruled that the Kalahari Bushmen cannot access a water borehole on their lands.

Africa is a continent on the rise and its story needs to be told: "Africa is open for business and ready to grow," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told the ninth annual U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Forum -- also known as the AGOA Forum.

Civil society have demanded that leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) take action to prevent state-sponsored violence during the next elections in Zimbabwe. The call by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition comes ahead of the SADC Summit in Namibia from August 15 – 17, where Zimbabwe’s current political stalemate is set to be debated. The situation fell off the agenda at last month’s African Union (AU) summit in Uganda, despite the stalemate that has blocked any real change in the country.

South Africa's stop-start war on corruption claimed its biggest success yesterday as the country's former leading policeman was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Jackie Selebi was told by a judge that he was "an embarrassment to all right-thinking citizens" as he was sent down on corruption charges.

The French government through the French Development Agency is sponsoring the execution of development projects totalling 200 million Euros throughout the West African Nation of Ghana. The projects, which are mainly on the provision of potable water, electricity and sanitation, are currently being executed in the Brong Ahafo, Ashanti, Northern and Volta Regions.

Indications emerged that erstwhile number two man in Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, would on Sunday formally declare his presidential ambition for the 2011 presidential elections in the country. An invitation supposedly signed Atiku's spokesperson, Shehu Garba states that the former vice president under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo administration would make public, his plans to return to the government house, but this time around, as the President.