Founded In 2015
A thought-driven development organisation, in Zimbabwe and beyond.
Founded On A Document
The Foundation was founded on Saturday, 5 September 2015 by Oscar Manduku-Habeenzu, who set down its objectives that day. Kufunga means to think, and the organisation was named for the activity rather than for a person, a place or a cause.
What was written that day was not a mission statement in the usual sense. It was a list of twelve objectives, each one describing a piece of machinery a person needs in order to think their way into a life they designed rather than inherited. The Foundation is registered, the document remains the instrument it works from, and nothing on this website has been added to it.
Oscar Manduku-Habeenzu
Kufunga Foundation was founded and is led by Oscar Manduku-Habeenzu, MBA.
He is a business strategist and technology builder of some twenty-five years standing, working across media, publishing, web infrastructure and business expansion in Africa and internationally. He is the founder of Cabanga Africa Group, the pan-African business media house publishing twelve regional editions, of Cabanga Platforms, its digital platform portfolio, and of the advisory firm Evertol Associates. He is also an author, and he has mentored young people from across the continent for a decade.
The three instruments this Foundation runs are his own work. The FBI Virus Audit comes out of his book The FBI Virus, and the Dzungu Index and the Sales Fit Audit are instruments of his own design. The Foundation holds them as its diagnostic infrastructure and administers them under his direction.
His full business profile is published on the Cabanga Africa Group team page, and his personal profile on his own website.
The Twelve Objectives
These are the objectives as they were written, in the language of the founding document.
Thinking Skills
To develop the thinking skills of youths, taught directly and deliberately rather than left to arrive on its own as a by-product of something else.
The Hubs
To build and manage hubs for intellectual property education and technology development, and to promote the members of those hubs from start-up and beyond rather than dropping them at launch.
Knowledge And Data Libraries
To research and develop intellectual property, knowledge resources, think tanks and data libraries of folklore, current affairs, cultural artefacts and all manner of knowledge, and to solicit the knowledge and ideas of established figures for the benefit of the young.
Talent Into Leadership
To identify young and upcoming talent and to nurture it into well-groomed icons and leaders, with greater exposure in their respective fields and a patriotic responsibility to their nation and their people.
Diplomatic Engagement
To engage the diplomatic community for the intercontinental development of youth-oriented policy, cultural exchange, academic knowledge sharing and international field trips.
Institutional Collaboration
To collaborate with the relevant public and private organisations and authorities in all matters directly associated with the youths.
Social Ills And Representation
To overcome the social ills affecting young people, and to develop the capacity of youth to represent themselves so that they are better represented in the economy.
Peace And Enterprise
To promote peace and entrepreneurship among the young through music and the arts, and to confront what sits underneath so much of it: narcotics and alcohol abuse, premarital sex, unemployment, family problems and HIV and AIDS.
Social Responsibility
To arouse the sense of social responsibility in the minds of the young by donating some of the proceeds of the work to the needy in the communities we work in.
Networks Between Associations
To establish networks between associations for resource sharing and the exchange of ideas, skills and information, and to connect youth associations involved in economic empowerment while helping them implement what they have planned.
Capital For The Young
To fundraise for a youth credit guarantee fund, start-up venture capitalisation, research and development capitalisation, and general financial resource mobilisation.
Industry Dialogue
To facilitate dialogue between established industry and youth businesses, so that the young are negotiating in the room rather than waiting outside it.