The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
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Urban land is of symbolic significance in South Africa because it is land that people of colour were historically denied access to. But the historically privileged still own, occupy and enjoy the best urban land.
The question is, why hasn’t our government been able to unlock well-located land in urban areas to provide housing for the people who need it most?
The historically disadvantaged continue to live on marginal land on the peripheries of South Africa’s cities and the...
In mid-April, member of the executive committee of shack dwellers' movement Abahlali baseMjondolo, Thembani Jerome Ngongoma, spoke at a SACSIS event about poor peoples’ struggles to access land for housing in urban South Africa. In recent days, Abahlali have controversially endorsed the Democratic Alliance (DA) in the 2014 General Election. Many individuals and organisations of the left are shocked and dismayed by the decision, as the DA is traditionally associated with maintaining...
Acclaimed economist, Ha-Joon Chang, professor in the faculty of politics and economics at Cambridge University argues that economics is too important to leave to the experts. By publishing his latest book, Economics: The User's Guide, he crosses the chasm separating academic theory and regular life and produces a book that seeks to turn every one of us into an economist. Chang contends that 95% of economics is common sense. You don’t need a degree to understand it. He visited the RSA...
You can't understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. It's the whole, or it's nothing. In this illuminating TED talk, he explains how he studies the big picture of climate change with mesmerizing models that illustrate the endlessly complex interactions of small-scale environmental events. There are thousands of activities and interactions that have a cumulative and definite impact on climate change. Schmidt uses models to show what will happen to planet Earth...
In a discussion at a San Franciso event that principally focused on decriminalising marijuana in the "War on Drugs", Sir Richard Branson argues that it is also worth decriminalising heroin. He refers to Portugal where heroin use is treated as a health problem. Heroin users are not sent to prison, but instead have access to state funded outlets where they can get their drugs as well as clean needles. Consequently, the number of HIV cases has decreased dramatically and the problem...
In reflecting on 20 years of South Africa's democracy, a group of artists in Johannesburg have tapped into the major themes in our ambient culture to emerge with a fascinating exhibition of artworks that distil some of the key issues dominating our national discourse at this important juncture in South African history.
SACSIS' Fazila Farouk caught up with curator of the exhibition Farieda Nazier at the Ithuba Art Gallery and discovered that violence, censorship, racism, patriarchy and...
