The Social Justice Writing Competition is the result of a partnership between young people, the South African Schools Debating Board and the the Centre For Sexualities AIDS and Gender (CSA&G) at the University of Pretoria- through its Just Leaders student volunteer programme.
The competition is an essay writing competition and is open to all grade 8-11 learners in South Africa. The top entries are selected and published in a book through the CSA&G. The first leg of this competition was hosted in Gauteng.
Reflection on the 2019 Project
Acknowledgements
This whole project would not have been possible without the significant effort and contributions from the following people and organisations:
Bettina Buabeng-Baidoo and the SA Schools Debating Board (SASDB) initiated this project and ensured that it was successful – it would not have happened without her.
Pierre Brouard and his organisation, the Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender (CSA&G) at the University of Pretoria, worked closely with Bettina to take this project through its various stages.
Bettina and Pierre also edited the stories and assisted the learners to polish them.
Tumelo “Duke” Rasebopye of the CSA&G took this project under the wing of the Just Leaders project he manages at the CSA&G and he assisted with developing and implementing the Social Justice workshop which the school learners attended as a requirement of entering the essay writing competition. The Just Leaders project is funded by the Norway-based Students and Academics International Assistance Fund (SAIH) and their generous financial assistance helped make this project possible.
Volunteers of the SASDB (Khutso Mhlaba, Ethienne Smith) and Board Members Tlou Matshidiso, Rimbilana Shingange, Irene Mpofu and Richard Chemaly) helped out on the day of the Social Justice workshop, especially with logistics; and volunteers from the CSA&G’s Just Leaders project (Boitumelo Nokeri, Chigo Mabila, Mohau Nei, Onkaetse Khupari) helped to organise and run the workshop, leading sessions with the learners, modelling advocacy and leadership.
Crawford College Pretoria generously hosted the workshop for the learners and Yvonne Ready offered support and oversight from Crawford’s perspective on that day, we thank them for this.
Last but not least, Johan Maritz designed, laid out and formatted the booklet and helped us to achieve an excellent product.
