Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara

Biography

"Mazibuko Jara is an Executive Director of Ntinga Ntaba ka Ndoda, a community-controlled organization that works in 13 villages in Keiskammahoek south in Amathole district. He also works as a research associate at the UCT Law, Race and Gender Research Unit his research focus is on rights of women to land, rural governance and traditional leaders. His particular academic interests include post-apartheid agricultural policy and political economy of food production. Mazibuko is also a founder and spokesperson of the Democratic Left Front. "

"Mazibuko Kanyiso Jara is a native of Rabula village in the Keiskammahoek district of the Eastern Cape.

"He stays in Cape Town with his wife, Nolene Morris. He has worked for more than 8 years in the non-governmental sector in South Africa in the areas of human rights advocacy, HIV/AIDS, media liaison, communications, public & community education, community development, local government transformation, local economic development, promotion of co-operatives, alternative economic transformation, financial sector transformation, social and economic justice, and land and agrarian reform.

At university, Mazibuko was a member of the Students' Representative Council and a student activist in the South African Students' Congress and the Young Christian Students.

"He has worked as the chief spokesperson and strategist for the South African Communist Party (SACP) for the five years between February 2000 and April 2005.

"He has previously worked as a student engineer-in-training at ESKOM Power Stations in Mpumalanga and as a Project Coordinator and National Director at the National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality (NCGLE – now known as the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project).

"As an activist, in addition to his professional working experience, Mazibuko has also served as a board member of the AIDS Consortium, Dora Tamana Co-operative Centre, Treatment Action Campaign, Development Update (SANGOCO-Interfund publication) and the Ceasefire Campaign for Demilitarisation. Currently, he serves on the boards of the Goedgedacht Forum for Social Reflection, the Media Development and Diversity Agency, the Harold Wolpe Memorial Trust, Amandla Publishers, the Community Health Media Trust, the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project, the Don Davis People Centre and the Ntaba ka Ndoda Heritage Festival (in his Rabula home village).

"He currently works as a researcher, trainer and monitoring & evaluation specialist. He focuses his work in the areas of land and agrarian reform, agricultural policy, sustainable agriculture, rural development, cooperatives, local government, poverty, and economic policy.

"Mazibuko is completing his mini-thesis for an M.Phil degree in Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape. He previously studied for a B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering Degree at the former University of Natal (Durban)."

Affiliations

• Director, Alternative Information and Development Centre