The Centre for Civil Society (University of KwaZulu-Natal) has committed funds to help defray the travel, living, and research costs of Visiting Scholars who would otherwise be unable to take up a visiting position due to funding constraints. Stipends at a maximum of R20 000 per applicant are available, though most will be significantly smaller. We now welcome applications for these funded positions.

AIDC seeks a committed activist to serve as the national organiser of our Right to Work Campaign which seeks to address the crisis of mass unemployment by amongst other things having the right to work entrenched in South Africa's Bill of Rights.

Participatory modes of governance are increasingly seen as crucial in achieving good governance, citizen empowerment, poverty reduction and human development goals. As one of CIVICUS' key programmatic efforts, the Participatory Governance Programme therefore seeks to enhance the capacity of civil society actors in developing and transitioning countries to participate in, and influence governance processes at the local and national levels.

The Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, in collaboration with forty different organisations from around the country, have joined together to launch a national month-long bus campaign challenging violence against women and children. The campaign has three main aims:
- To promote communities' awareness of women's rights as set out in the Domestic Violence Act, the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act, the Maintenance Act and the Firearms Control Act;
- To collect petitions calling on both Parliament and the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development to consult with civil society around the finalisation and enactment of the Sexual Offences Bill; and
- To take women and children's voices to parliament by recording their concerns and experiences of violence.

Following a recent spate of political killings in South Africa's east coast province of KwaZulu-Natal, an independent monitor has called for an overhaul of the police force. The ANC claimed it had lost 11 of its officials since local government elections on 1 March this year. "We have lost many more since the beginning of the election campaign, mostly in former IFP strongholds. The fact that all [those] killed are ANC members, and that all [those] arrested are IFP members can only let us believe that it is an IFP campaign," alleged ANC spokesman Mtholephi Mthimkhulu.

"I write per the direction of the National Gender Machinery and behalf of my sisters and colleagues, in the hope that you find solace in knowing that you have our support in your continued and brave quest to access your democratically guaranteed rights...We are fully aware that it is your right, in this constitutional democracy to access justice without fear, favour or prejudice. We have witnessed, as the process unfolds that this has not been totally true in your case. Instead you have been rendered both faceless and voiceless, and have had to live under sequestration."
* Related Link
Zuma's HIV beliefs irresponsible

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the National Department of Health are set to lock horns again - and this time it is over the exclusion of the activist group and its allies from the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on AIDS (UNGASS). The TAC and Aids Law Project (ALP) has been excluded from gaining accreditation to the critical meeting because the South African government had objected to its participation. It is two of only six international organisations who were denied accreditation.

More than 240 HIV-positive inmates at Westville Prison in Durban, South Africa, on Wednesday ended a hunger strike to advocate for access to treatment, Agence France-Presse reports. According to Xolani Ncemu, chair of the prison's HIV/AIDS support group, he and 241 other inmates launched the strike after months of negotiations with officials to resolve issues that have prevented some inmates from accessing treatment such as requiring identification documents.

In the period 1995 to 2002 South Africa managed to make major policy changes in education. Almost everything about the education sector has changed. This paper focuses on policies aimed at resource distribution. It documents significant improvements in certain measures of resource inequality. It documents that, against perhaps excessively optimistic expectations, responses in learning outcomes have not followed automatically, but have instead required much managerial pressure and oversight.

CIVICUS is recruiting an MDG Administrative Officer who will report directly to the MDG Campaign Manager, and liaising closely with other Campaign staff. The MDG Administrative Officer is responsible for providing high-quality overall administrative and logistical support to the work of the MDG Department.

The police and municipal government's crackdown on the Abahlali BaseMjondolo (shack dweller's) Movement march on February 27th was yet again a clear indication of the crisis of democracy in South Africa, reports this article on Indymedia South Africa. “The call "No land, No house, No vote" was a stark reminder of how the right to vote must be accompanied by a right to representatives who will support the legitimate demands of poor in the current political arena. This is not the case for Abahlali BaseMjondolo or many of the poor in South Africa.”

The purpose of this post is to ensure that bookings of Interactive Themba Theatre Performances are maintained in schools, and all follow-up work is achieved effectively and appropriately. The office is in Braamfontein, Johannesburg.

The rape case against South Africa's former vice president Jacob Zuma is moving into its final days. Before the judge speaks, however, advocates of rape survivors say they are already discouraged by what they describe as the ordeal of the 31-year-old HIV-positive woman who is the complainant. "If I was raped, particularly by an acquaintance, I would not report it after this trial," said Liesl Gerntholtz, a lawyer specializing in rape and HIV/AIDS issues and executive director of the Johannesburg-based Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre.
Related Link
* Demonstration in support of the Zuma complainant

CIVICUS is recruiting a Project Coordinator to initiate and coordinate CIVICUS’ involvement in various international networks. Besides managing the key activities of those networks, which are led by CIVICUS, the incumbent would also research potential further networking opportunities, monitor the development of civil society networks globally as well as design appropriate initiatives. The tasks involved under this job are managerial, conceptual as well as administrative.

The Public Protector, the Gender Commission and the South African Human Rights Commission have expressed concern over the conduct of Jacob Zuma supporters and media coverage of his rape trial, according to a report on the Mail & Guardian's website. The three bodies - all set up under Chapter Nine of the Constitution and referring to themselves as the C9s - said they met on Friday to discuss events around the trial.

Health Minister Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang admitted that South Africa is doing “very, very badly” at curing tuberculosis at the launch of a TB crisis plan on World TB Day (24 March). Only about half the country’s TB patients are cured, while almost 7% of patients who are not cured go on to develop multi-drug resistant TB, which is hard and expensive to cure.

For the last 10 years Anna Ngabayena has been haunted by her past. The memories of the violence she encountered as a foot soldier in the African National Congress (ANC) struggle against apartheid have plagued both her dreams and waking life. In recent weeks things had begun to change, said Ngabayena, now 42 years old. She had just taken part in a unique rehabilitation programme run by the National Peace Accord Trust (NPAT), which uses the natural environment as a means of coming to terms with a turbulent past.

Israel is rapidly constructing a parallel network of West Bank roads for Palestinians, who are barred from using the many existing (and superior) routes reserved for Jews only. B'Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, describes this system as bearing clear similarities to Apartheid's exclusionary and isolating alternate road system that existed in racist South Africa.

South Africa's black middle class is driving a post-apartheid consumer boom in the country, a report has said. The group is responsible for almost a quarter of the 600bn rand ($96m) spent yearly by consumers, the University of Cape Town's Black Diamond study said. Government measures to bring the sector into the mainstream economy have helped its growth, the report added. The black middle class, making up two million of the 45 million population, is expected to grow by 50% a year.

BarCampCapeTown is an idea is to bring the South African tech/geek/creative community together under one roof in the informal "un-conference" environment. Think of it as Open-Source conferencing, this is your conference, you present, you discuss, you attend, you spread the word.