Black Sash celebrates 55th birthday!
Born out of outrage in 1955, the Black Sash spent its first 40 years in resistance to apartheid and its unjust laws. The last 15 years have been spent working to ensure that our hard won freedoms become a reality for all who live in South Africa.
A birthday message from Black Sash National Director Marcella Naidoo ...
On the 19th of May we celebrate our 55th birthday. What better tribute could there possibly be to our late patron Sheena Duncan? The human rights organisation her mother helped establish 55 years ago this week is still going strong and doing great work .. and that is in part due to Sheena’s own personal sacrifices, commitment, hard work and unwavering belief in justice for all. As Mary Burton said .. Sheena was a special woman .. a warrior for justice who lived and worked among us for the benefit of all South Africans.
Her tireless efforts to “Make Human Rights Real” during her life - both at a practical level with her involvement at the advice offices and at a Policy level by ensuring the entrenchment of the right to social security in our Constitution – laid the foundation for much of the work we do today.
The transforming years of the 1990s brought an opportunity to celebrate the prospect of a Bill of Rights and a chance to help shape our constitution and an imperative to transform ourselves in response to the opportunities and challenges of our new democracy.
Guided by our unchanging values of justice, dignity for all, the affirmation of women, integrity, non-violence, rigour through meticulous and accurate work, independence and courage, and the importance of volunteer contribution to civil society and the counsel of the many women who had worked for the Black Sash over the decades, we set ourselves the task of making constitutional rights (especially socio-economic rights) real. "Making human rights real" has become our call to action.
We have continued to provide free one-on-one paralegal advice to poor and vulnerable communities. Over the past decade, we have helped over 125 000 people this way. We have recently extended our advice services to all provinces by establishing a free helpline.
Through our advocacy we have ensured that more people who are poor and can’t provide for themselves have access to the social assistance and protection they were promised. After more than a decade of campaigning, we finally celebrated the extension of the child support grant to children under 18 as well as the lowering of the qualifying age for men for a state pension.
Just last month (April), we launched a launched a legal application against the government in an effort to help tens of thousands of people waiting to have their social grant appeals heard. And we recently published what’s been described as the most comprehensive guide to social security in South Africa. The paralegal manual has an advocacy slant so that more people can participate in the policy dialogues which impact on the laws and regulations which govern their lives.
Our work as part of the Community Monitoring and Advocacy Project (CMAP) has brought us closer again to many Community Based Orgnisations (CBOs) who are eager to wear our luminous monitoring vests. Link to our monitoring. Through this partnership, we encourage local CSO’s to monitor and engage local authorities on the slow pace service delivery. A partnership, with the Health Economic Unit at UCT has also ensured that there will be a public dialogue about the National Health Insurance proposals. It also gives us the opportunity to work towards securing another right outlined in section 27 (1) of our Constitution – the right to access health care services.
As one of my colleagues said last week - it is a significant and awesome task to walk in the footsteps of this great leader, Sheena Duncan. She challenged us all with her words .. “work hard enough, be committed enough, do enough, to choose the ways in which we build a new, just and peaceful society for our common future”. We take that task seriously and will continue the fight to make human rights a real for ALL who live in South Africa. It’s the greatest tribute we pay Sheena.