Kifuliiru Lab Manifesto

The Kifuliiru language belongs to the Bafuliiru people of South Kivu and to a diaspora scattered across the world. It is a living language, carried in homes, songs, memory, and everyday speech.

Kifuliiru Lab exists to build language infrastructure and to make sure it belongs to the people it was built for.

Kifuliiru Lab was founded by Ayivugwe Kabemba Mukome, a member of the Bafuliiru people, a technologist, and someone for whom the Kifuliiru language is a living inheritance.

The work began with a simple observation: the Kifuliiru language had almost no digital presence. That was unacceptable.

Most of this work has been built quietly. This manifesto is, in part, an announcement: the infrastructure is real, substantial, and belongs to you.

• Public homes at Kifuliiru.com and Kifuliiru.org.
• Kifuliiru HQ, Tabula Kifuliiru, Kifuliiru Numbers, and Kifuliiru Store.
• Dictionary data, corpus work, conjugation tools, LaSAn, and language impact frameworks.

Kifuliiru Lab is the parent of all Kifuliiru digital efforts. Every platform, tool, research output, and community initiative lives under the Lab.

We are not primarily seeking external grants. External partnerships are welcome only when they respect community sovereignty and come without conditions.

The financial model is a loop, not a dependency and not a hierarchy. The community funds the work. The work serves the community. The community owns the assets.

The technical work was largely built by one person, but the movement was never just one person. The wider community brings what the work cannot exist without.

The goal is a structure that runs without any specific person being indispensable. That is what it means to build something that lasts.

• The language belongs to its people.
• Independence is not negotiable.
• Community funding is community governance.
• Technology serves, it does not extract.
• The work must outlive its builders.