As you celebrate the season with family and friends, we at CIHA want to wish you Happy Holidays and a Prosperous New Year! Thank you all for your support of this blog and we are honored to have each of you as readers. And many thanks to our wonderful team of editors, editorial assistants, contributors, and donors! May you experience all the blessings of the season, a joyous Christmas for those who celebrate it, and best wishes for a peaceful and healthy 2019! Today we post Season’s Greetings and holiday wishes from our multi-country team as well as an end-of-year message from our partners at the Ujamma Centre – UKZN. We will be taking a brief hiatus and will be back in early January 2019!
Deweneti – Wolof (Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania)
Feliz año novo – Portuguese Creole (Senegal-Casamance, Guinea-Bissau)
Musukoroni Salo (Mandinka New Year’s rite, in The Gambia) – Mandinka (Senegal, Gambia)
Umattal sammenge – Ajamaat or Joola/Diola (Sénégal, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau)
Noheli nziza, Umwaka mushya muhire – Kinyarwanda (Rwanda)
Joyeux Noël, Bonne Année – French (Francophone countries)
Tunawatakieni kila la heri mwaka mpiya wa 2019 – Swahili (Kenya, East Africa)
Sinifisela ukhisimusi omuhle, nonyaka omusha onenjabulo – Zulu (Southern Africa)
Amazarwa g’omucunguzi ag’eihoreere, n’omwaka omutsya omurungi – Kinyankore (Uganda)
Mbotama elamu mpe mobu mwa sika molamu – Lingala (Republic of Congo and Democratic Republic of Congo)
Afehyia pa, afenhyia pa – Akan (Ghana)
Our partner’s End of Year message to all CIHA Blog Contributors and Readers
Ndawura Rogers, Yenziwe Shabalala & Albert Bangirana – UKZN
As we round-up the year-2018, we at the Ujamaa Centre – UKZN in partnership with the CIHA Blog would like to thank each one who has contributed, read, liked or shared our posts to enable the public to understand and make resolutions to tackle or offer critique on questionable practices within humanitarian praxis.
The CIHA Blog together with the Ujamaa Centre share common cause through a critical and theological nexus for humanitarian engagement. The year 2018 has seen a series of exciting programmes both empowering and discourse setting at the Centre. Below is summary of a few of these programmes (Refer to the attached News Letter for more information).
Rape and Gender-Based Violence
In South Africa, rape and gender – based violence is a serious humanitarian crisis. In August this year in order to break the silence towards rape and gender-based violence, we held a silent protest and campaign, which symbolically engaged with the rape culture and the associated gender-based violence problem as often silenced, so that the two ills can be controversially visible to the public.
Education and Self reliance.
In the month of September, CIHA Blog and Ujamaa Centre organised an annual memorial lecture in honour of John Langalibalele Dube, the first ANC president and a proponent of education. Dube understood education to be knowledge and knowledge is power, therefore in the early 1800s, he wished for his black fellow people to be educated as education was the only way for them to free themselves from poverty and be self reliant. In affirming this notion of education in relation to liberation, Prof. Chad Berry who delivered the lecture mentioned that education can be a force for liberation and further said that it was the reason why enslaved people in the US were not allowed to be educated due to the fact that once they’re educated they will be liberated and hence their ‘masters’ will find it difficult to maintain oppression over them.
Expropriation o
f Land in South Africa
Land Reform was the main topic for discussion at this year’s Mzwandile memorial lecture that took place in October. This lecture takes place each year purposely to honour Mzwandile Roddy Nunes – a co-founder of the Ujamaa Centre for his tremendous contribution towards the emancipation of the poor especially the marginalised. He advocated for decent work for the poor, decent working conditions and wages.
The issue of land is currently a hot debate in South Africa. Generally, Conflicts that emerge from land related issues such as its access, ownership and use normally threaten health, safety and the well being of communities posing a humanitarian crises. Notably, in many African countries and South Africa in particular land conflicts left and still leave many people displaced and disemfranchised from access to wealth creating opprotunities.
The key note speaker at this lecture, Mr. Sikhumbuzo Zuma noted that for many people, land is a source of livelihood and integral to economic rights. It’s often linked to peoples identities therefore in the case of South Africa, he urged the government to deal with the issue of land expropriation in a manner that won’t cause any dispute because disputes over land are the causes of violent conflicts and culminate into stumbling blocks to the restoration of sustainable peace.
In the new year (2019), we envisage more engagements in work around human rights and different forms of injustice/s as it is these that fuel conflicts within Africa and the world. In East Africa, we will have a special focus on migration and climate change.
Wishing you Happy Holidays and a Rewarding 2019!