How it all started
Hey, I’m S’phongo. I started Inkundla in December 2023 — our first gathering was Pop Up Spaces, a living room open mic that quickly became something bigger. Inkundla comes from the Nguni/Zulu word for a communal gathering place: a space where stories are told, ideas are tested, and community is built. Two years in, that’s still the only brief we’re working from.
Our story
Inkundla Spaces runs open mics, provincial creative workshops, a literary journal, and an annual arts festival — creating infrastructure for artists who have the talent but not the platform. We work in Freetown, Kenema, Lunsar, and Foredugu, partnering with organisations like EducAid Sierra Leone to reach young people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to structured creative programmes.
We also run What We Leave Behind, a visual art programme where everything is made from discarded materials; Poetry Korna, a monthly literary journal with a South-South focus; and the Inkundla Arts Festival, which has been bringing artists together in Freetown every October since 2024.
Where we are now
In 2026, Inkundla Spaces became the first Sierra Leonean community arts organisation to win two EU mobility grants, through the Culture Moves Salone programme supported by the EU Delegation in Sierra Leone and the Irish Embassy. The grants will fund a seven-day intensive creative workshop in Kenema and a cross-border arts exchange with the Liberian Poets Society.
What we’re here for
We build creative platforms — in Freetown, in the provinces, and across borders — where artists develop their craft, share their work, and earn from it.
A Sierra Leone where every artist — in Freetown, in Kenema, in Lunsar — has a stage, a craft, and a way to earn from their work. Where the cultural economy is built from the provinces up, not the capital down.
pop up spaces was amazing and I really enjoyed every part of it. It was perfect.
Zato
Inkundla Spaces 