Meet our Board Members

Arnold Sibanda

he/him

Arnold Sibanda is a cultural curator, writer, and community builder passionate about creating spaces where Black identity, creativity, and resilience can thrive. As the Director of Culture at Black City Culture, he leads a platform that brings together books, art, and music to celebrate African stories and experiences. Through this work, he aims to cultivate spaces that are not only creative but also deeply connected to community and heritage.

He is also the founder of the Black Male Positivity Project, an initiative close to my heart. This project challenges harmful stereotypes about Black men, offering new narratives rooted in strength, vulnerability, ambition, and joy. By using storytelling, mentorship, and dialogue, they create opportunities for Black men to see themselves beyond society’s limiting frames. He is humbled that this work has been featured in national media and continues to inspire meaningful conversations and change.

His passion for storytelling also extends to younger generations. He is currently working on a children’s book series that introduces the lives and legacies of icons such as Steve Biko and Robert Sobukwe, ensuring that the spirit of the Black Consciousness Movement continues to guide and empower future leaders.

Everything he does is guided by a simple but powerful belief: our stories matter. Through literature, art, music, and dialogue, he strives to honour the richness of our heritage while building bridges to a future where Black voices are celebrated unapologetically and with pride.

Inolofatseng Lekaba

they/them

Scholar and practitioner of spatial, economic and epistemic justice.

Inolofatseng is a knowledge worker with a colourful focus on epistemologies of the Global South, decolonial research and teaching methodologies, alliances between civil society and private property in creative placemaking, urban renewal governance and politics of power and place. Their equally important side quests are on solidarity cities, food sovereignty, reclaiming the use value of land, peri-urban spatial transformation, organisational development, and art-led activism. Their practice centres advocacy for economic systems change, liberatory Afrikan economics, and pluriversal ways of knowing; mobilising research techniques for social movements in MEL and transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge; building and maintaining organisational systems that decentralise power amongst practitioners; curating, speaking and moderating discussions on aforementioned topics; collaborative governance in civil society; writing and editorial work; guerilla gardening in peri-and-inner Johannesburg; general agitation of the academic industrial complex; and caring for their nephew and cats. 

Madison Bannon

she/her

Madison Bannon is building critical mass for a livable planet for all. As an organizer, she brings 16 years of experience inviting people into the work of social and planetary good.  Her expertise is in translating complex issues––in racial and gender justice, neo-colonial economics, geopolitics, climate change, and sociology––into accessible narratives that inspire action.

Madison's Sociology degree from American University focused on the intersection of race and urban education which kicked off a lifelong passion for youth development in underserved communities. 

This passion for working among youth (NOT as a formal classroom teacher- really not her forte) brought her into the lives of young people in DC, Seattle and in Eswatini where she served as a US Peace Corps volunteer and country director of the Girls Leading Our World program. 

In 2017, Madison moved to Johannesburg, where she became a mother to her very cool son, Revo. Here, she began writing for The Delve, an American political podcast, covering underreported topics with the experts that know them best. 

A lifelong rower, Madison has run rowing programs for youth from underserved places from Seattle to Johannesburg, these young people are Madison’s impetus to make the world better.

In the post-COVID era she doubled down on a lifetime of activist work. First taking on Shell (a corporate enemy) attempting seismic blasting off the Wild Coast and since October 7th 2023, with the Palestinian solidarity movement. She contributes strategic organizing, longform writing and digital skills to the Energy Embargo campaign (Glencore is another corporate enemy) and to her neighborhood solidarity organizing group. 

Madison is passionate about food: how we grow it, prepare it and enjoy it. She sees food as a test-case of poly-systems collapse and advocates for the exercise of our ‘sharing muscles’, before the broken corporate food system fully collapses. She is working to live by this tweet: “The apocalypse won't require you to know how to shoot a gun; it will require you to know which of your neighbors has chickens.”

Madison lends her communications talents to the Collective Leadership Institute, in the WellBeing Economy Alliance ecosystem. This, and destiny, is how she got to the Afrikan Liberation Gathering where she connected with the life-changing people and ethos of the Afrikan Liberation Hub. She is glad to serve on its board, helping cultivate a decolonial, liberated Southern Afrika.

Thandi Dyani

she/her

Thandi Dyani is a consultant, entrepreneur and alchemist, helping impact startups, corporate businesses, foundations, and governments with leadership journeys, social impact, justice and equity initiatives.

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She is a dynamic collaborator and alchemist dedicated to forging connections with change-makers and creating pathways to unlock opportunities and expand networks through the lens of equity.

Bungcwethi Z Hlongwane

they/them

Z Hlongwane is a freelance researcher currently working for WeThePeopleSA and the Trinity Session. They are primarily interested in exploring the intersections of gender, class, sexuality, and queer Marxist theory.

With a Master’s in Development Studies, Z is passionate about knowledge production. They are interested in pop culture, reality TV and the downfall of imperialism and capitalism in their lifetime.

Dr Lebohang Liepollo Pheko

she/her

Dr. Lebohang Liepollo Pheko is a political economist, activist scholar, and global movement builder whose work spans 30 years and 52 countries. A Senior Research Fellow at Trade Collective, she is deeply rooted in intersectional feminist, race, and decolonial analysis, with  work in reparations, post-COVID recovery, international trade and feminist wellbeing economics. Her work spans the Afrikan political economy, regionalism, states and nationhood, international trade and global economic governance.

She has taught at  several universities across South Africa, in Zambia, the UK, the US, Sweden, Norway and Mexico. Liepollo Pheko has spent  many years cocreating and re-framing Afrikan feminist alternatives to build forward looking, ethical, decolonial economics. She is deeply committed to grounding academic research in community struggles and contexts and has for decades been in community and solidarity with people centred movements for land justice, trade justice, food and seed sovereignty, access to  basic services, rethinking social reproduction. 

Liepollo Pheko serves on the Walter and Patricia Rodney Commission on Reparations leading the South Africa research on the intersection between land restitution and healing. She is a member of several global platforms including notably Wellbeing Economy Global Alliance where she has been an ambassador for many years, Global Tapestry for Alternatives as member of the facilitation team, the Afrikan Liberation Hub as one of the founding board member and the founding curator and South Feminist Futures.

She has taught and advised institutions across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas and has spoken at over 100 international fora. Lebohang Liepollo has also been very concerned with the State-led curation of liberation histories and memory. In her spare time , Liepollo takes long hikes, jogs slowly, listens attentively to poetry, gospel, jazz, hip hop and is a mother, daughter, partner, friend, sister, neighbour. She marvels at lovely sunrises, pauses for glorious sunsets , while practising the elusive art of stillness.

Miso Mvelase

she/her

Miso Mvelase is a dynamic leader, community organiser, and environmental activist who currently serves as the Precinct Manager of Makers Valley Partnership in Bertrams, Johannesburg. With a National Diploma in Public Relations Management,  combines strong communication skills with grassroots action to lead impactful initiatives focused on urban rejuvenation, sustainability, and community empowerment.

In her role at Makers Valley, she  oversees daily precinct operations, coordinate environmental clean-up campaigns, and transform illegal dumping sites into thriving urban farms. She is deeply committed to waste reduction, recycling, and upcycling, leading by example and involving local residents in efforts to create a cleaner, greener community. Through door-to-door engagement, educational workshops, and hands-on projects, she mobilises people of all ages—particularly youth—to take ownership of their environment and become agents of positive change.

She also plays a key role in managing community programs targeting unemployed and out-of-school youth. One such initiative trains young people to become environmental stewards and change-makers, equipping them with knowledge and practical skills to address climate change at a local level. In partnership with local businesses, the program offers monthly vouchers as incentives, helping to address both social and economic challenges in the area.

As a climate change activist, she is passionate about sustainable urban living, environmental justice, and the power of community-led solutions. She believes that our work is grounded in the belief that systemic change starts at the grassroots and that every small act of care for the environment has the potential to ripple out and transform entire communities.

With a strong foundation in public relations and community development, she is also committed to bridging the gap between local action and broader environmental goals, continuing to build partnerships across sectors and champion initiatives that uplift people while protecting the planet.

Thoriso Moseneke

she/her

Thoriso Moseneke is a quiet radical — a generational thinker, creative strategist, and curator of transformative systems. With over a decade of experience, she works at the intersection of art, justice, and circular economies, using curation as a form of cultural co-authorship and strategy as an instrument of repair.

With the Afrikan Liberation Hub, Thoriso brings programme design, event coordination and fundraising. She does this through clarity, and a politics of listening into every space she enters.