Africa Groups of Sweden, AGS 1992-
History
The Africa Groups of Sweden (AGS) had from the mid-1980s, apart from its anti-apartheid campaigning and lobbying in Sweden, handled part of the Swedish governmental aid to different legal organizations and institutions in South Africa and Namibia in one way or another active against apartheid. The financial aid was secret as the Swedish government did not want it to be official during the ongoing sanctions against South Africa.
When apartheid eventually collapsed and Namibia became independent the main task for AGS, as a continuation of this aid, became to take part in the support of the reconstruction of South Africa and Namibia. As a consequence the activities of the Africa Groups Recruitment Organization (ARO) and AGS became very similar. Therefore the organizations merged in 1992 under the name the Africa Groups of Sweden (Afrikagrupperna).
The work of AGS has been dominated by the support for projects in Southern Africa and sending out of volunteers. The campaign and lobby activities in Sweden have mainly been connected with the work in Africa. More recently the activities in Sweden have been aimed at global issues like fair trade to influence the Swedish government and authorities to become more active on the international scene on these issues.
The periodical Africa Bulletin was renamed to “Southern Africa” in 1994 and a yearbook on the developments in Southern Africa started to be issued in 1993.
The new organization has not only individual membership as earlier but also membership for organizations active in one way or another with African issues and support for Africa.
The board, elected at the annual general meeting, has a number of subcommittees and working groups serving it in different ways. The Mobilization subcommittee (MOB) handles mainly the lobby and opinion work in Sweden whereas the Project committee (PAU) and Volunteer committee (KAU) handle issues concerned with projects and volunteers in Southern Africa. These two subcommittees were merged in 1993 and thereafter called the Programme committee (PU). The working groups have been the IT group, the Forestry group and a special group in charge of the support for South Africa, before 1993 called the Coordination subcommittee (SAMUT) and thereafter the South Africa project group (SPG).
AGS continued the ARO seminars and courses arranged to prepare volunteers for their work in Southern Africa, Seminar on Solidarity Work (SOS), language courses and Take-off seminars. After coming home a seminar on opinion building and lobbying is arranged.
In each partner country in Africa AG has a coordinator leading and coordinating the activities. These coordinators meet annually in Stockholm at a so-called Coordinators Meeting, when all the coordinators, Stockholm staff and board members meet. All the volunteers in each partner country meet twice every year for so-called Land group meetings together with representatives of the Stockholm staff and the board.
Some archival series, especially those concerning projects, may have a starting year before 1992. This is due to the fact that for some project activities, even if they started before this year, the main activities were performed afterwards. There are accordingly some overlaps between the archives of AGS and ARO.
The volumes contain extensive correspondence, primarily with solidarity workers but also authorities in various aid countries. There is also material from seminars on solidarity work and minutes and accounts of the organizations' operations as well as material from various projects and campaigns along with courses and seminars.
Access
The archive is available at ARAB.
Repository
Archives and Library of the Swedish Labour Movement, ARAB
[Arbetarrörelsens arkiv och bibliotek]
Postal and visiting address: Elektronvägen 2, 141 49 HUDDINGE, Sweden
Telephone: +46 8 4123929
Fax: +46 8 4123990
http://www.arbark.se/en/
External link.
Address
The Africa Groups of Sweden [Afrikagrupperna]
Tegelviksgatan 40
SE-116 41 Stockholm
SWEDEN
Telephone: +47 8-442 70 60
E-mail: post@afrikagrupperna.se
http://www.afrikagrupperna.se/ External link.
| Extent: | Approx. 84 Vol. |
|---|---|
| Ref. code: | 1755 |
| Country: | Sweden |
| Period: | 0-0 |
| Keywords: | Nongovernmental organizations NGO Sweden Africa Groups of Sweden AGS International organizations Volunteers Voluntary organizations History Non profit organization Anti-apartheid movement Financial aid Swedish government South Africa Namibia Africa Groups' Recruitment Organization ARO Africa Bulletin Southern Africa Seminars Seminar on Solidarity Work SOS Lobbying Courses Solidarity work |