ACTSA Scotland Secretary’s Report to the A.G.M 15th December, 2007
I said last year that I expected 2007 to bring more hard work, the drawing in of more people and some solid progress, and that is how it has turned out.
Linking. The link between Scotland and Eastern Cape moved up another notch with the formalising in November of an agreement between Amathole District Municipality and Glasgow City Council. A group from Amathole visited Glasgow as part of the joint local economic development project, and during this visit the Executive Mayor of ADM and the Leader of Glasgow City Council signed a formal Memorandum of Understanding on broadening co-operation between the two Councils far beyond the initial project funded by the Commonwealth Local Government Forum. ACTSA’s role as marriage broker in this relationship was generously acknowledged at the ceremony, as well as privately by the Amathole representatives. We are delighted that the connection has progressed this far, and look forward to doing what we can to help deepen and strengthen it.
Much earlier in the year Mark O’Neill, Head of Arts and Museums in Glasgow, visited East London to advise the Board of the Heroes Park memorial project there, and we know his assistance was greatly appreciated. We hope it will be possible to assist also the Nelson Mandela museum in Mthatha, which asked for information on taking the benefits of the museum out to local schools.
Glasgow City Council has also taken on the convenership and provision of the secretariat for Local Authority ACTSA, which is another very substantial contribution to the building of links between local government in the U.K. and Southern Africa as a whole.
Brian Filling’s expertise and contacts in further and higher education have continued to increase connections between institutions here and in South Africa, both through British Council initiatives and more directly. An agreement was signed this year between Lovedale and Glasgow Metropolitan Colleges, arising out of earlier ACTSA contacts. The move of Derrick Swartz from Fort Hare to Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth should encourage new links. Other contacts with Fort Hare will continue, notably with the library there. Through our Book Appeal container we were able to transport the late Ethel de Keyser’s book collection from the Canon Collins Trust to the Liberation Archive at Fort Hare, and our annual ANC anniversary social in January raised £250 for the Archive’s development appeal.
When the new Scottish Government launched a public consultation on the future of its International Development policy we were able to respond with a submission that argued the case for supporting the Eastern Cape link as well as Southern Africa more broadly. David Kenvyn did the main drafting for us. We hope to submit evidence also to the Scottish Parliament’s External Relations Committee, in response to its own separate enquiry.
We are constantly struck by the number of community and institutional links that exist between Scotland and Southern Africa quite independently of ACTSA and about which we often only hear by accident. We obviously have no wish (or ability) at all to exercise any kind of control over these. It is good that there is so much interest and goodwill, and we are pleased to be able to play our own part in encouraging and enabling productive links and in assisting sometimes as the opportunities arise.
Book Appeal. Part of the link with Eastern Cape and a very large piece of work in itself, the Book Appeal’s demands this year have been unrelenting. Our fourth container was dispatched in April, sent off by the President and General Secretary of the STUC from their Congress meeting in Glasgow. Congress itself had a strong ACTSA presence, with delegates asked to bring book donations and an ACTSA slot in the main programme, on top of our usual stall and a Zimbabwean trade union guest.
Both offers of books and enquiries about volunteering have kept coming in and all need to be responded to. The Bookdonors project in Selkirk is a new source of books and offers almost unlimited supplies. At the present rate of work it seems likely that the next container-load will be ready only a year after the previous one rather than the more usual two or three years.. This is obviously a good thing in itself but also a challenge financially and organisationally. If the Appeal is going to continue to expand, new resources of accommodation, finance and organisation will be urgently required.
Events. Our annual ANC anniversary social in January this year featured Stuart Round, who showed an abbreviated version of a film about his work smuggling material to the ANC underground during the apartheid years. The Anti-Apartheid campaign, this time nearer home, was also the theme of Glasgow Caledonian University’s Witness Seminar on the history of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Scotland. Denis Goldberg and George Johannes both attended to contribute from the platform alongside more local activists, and those attending found it valuable. The entire proceedings were recorded for the AAM archives and are available on the GCU website. A barbecue held immediately afterwards by the Purdies raised some £800 to commemorate Edelgard Goldberg, principally through support for the Ububele counselling project.
The annual Burns Supper at South Africa House was also memorable as always, and used by the High Commission as an opportunity to develop contacts well beyond ACTSA itself.
A meeting with Verne Harris of the Mandela Foundation in July was very productive, and led on to planning for the 90th Birthday celebrations in 2008.
One planned event that had to be postponed was the second annual Mandela/Tambo Freedom Lecture from which the speaker had to call off. It should take place at a later date. The 2006 lecture was published this year as a pamphlet, thanks to Glasgow Metropolitan College.
We were glad to be represented also at some events organised by others – notably the unveiling of the Nelson Mandela statue in Parliament Square in London.
Southern Africa. We have assisted ACTSA’s Dignity. Period! campaign over the year, distributing material and encouraging and forwarding donations. As mentioned above, Lucia Matibenga of the ZCTU attended the STUC in April, and Annie White assisted in introducing her to Scottish trade unionists. We have circulated campaign action points from ACTSA in London on Zimbabwe, and have kept in touch with the Scotland Zimbabwe Group.
Brian Filling was invited onto an advisory committee set up by the Mozambican High Commission. We were pleased to meet Siphiwe Hlophe from Swaziland twice this year – at CIVICUS in June and again at the Scottish Parliament in December, though we were not responsible for either meeting. We have circulated material about ACTSA’s Vedanta campaign, and have been in touch with SCIAF about possible joint campaigning on the issue.
We have started working again on trying to encourage the setting up of a Cross Party Group on Southern Africa in the Scottish Parliament, taking account of the new intake of MSPs and the changed roles of others following May’s election.
We have been involved in some campaigning work on Economic Partnership Agreements as they affect Southern Africa in particular – raising EPAs at a meeting with Scottish MEPs in February, circulating ACTSA’s briefing paper and the recent Trade Justice Movement campaign postcard and online petition details, and taking part in the TJM lobby of the German Consulate in Edinburgh in April. TJM Scotland also prompted a letter to the Scottish Press from MEPs of three parties.
Stalls. The number of separate stalls was slightly lower this year at 20, but the total time involved in fact increased, not least because of a new 5-day stall in Edinburgh. All stalls serve the dual purpose of telling people what we are up to, and selling goods from community groups in Southern Africa, though the balance varies with the nature of the event. We have been gradually expanding our range of suppliers, with goods now from 7 SADC countries though all, of course, on a very small scale. We have raised with Amathole DM the question of support for small suppliers in finding their way into exporting small quantities by post.
Other work. We have continued to respond to requests for information or other assistance from a variety of quarters, have been actively represented in ACTSA’s UK structures, have kept up our links with NIDOS, have spoken at occasional meetings of other organisations, have kept up strong links with the South African High Commission, have supplied volunteers to the Workers Beer Company for four events, have kept up our website though without giving it the time and attention it needs, and finally waved goodbye to the Peter Magubane photographic exhibition as it departed for Norway early in the year. Several members have visited Southern Africa for different reasons, all making their own particular contribution there.
We have succeeded in drawing in quite a number of new people, mostly through the book appeal, Workers Beer volunteering and the stalls. Several of these have become involved in helping in other ways, and a smaller number have become interested in ACTSA more generally. We could not function without the willing help of a large number of volunteers for specific tasks, but if we are to increase the scale of what we do as we need to we will have to find ways of encouraging and enabling more people to take on the organising of areas of work as our present capacity is stretched pretty close to its limit.
John C. Nelson
ACTSA Scotland Secretary’s Report to the A.G.M. 9th December, 2006
After two extraordinary years – South Africa’s 10th anniversary in 2004 and Make Poverty History/Year of Africa in 2005 – this has been more a year of continuous steady work than of spectacular highlights. There has been a great deal of this solid hard work done, however, much of it on long-term initiatives and producing some useful results.
Link
with Eastern Cape: One long-term initiative that
has come
on strongly over the year has been the joint project on local
economic development between Amathole District Municipality and
Glasgow City Council, sponsored by the Commonwealth Local Government
Forum. Two groups of ADM officials came to Scotland during the year
for training and work-shadowing, and the project is considered to be
very successful. There is a strong expectation that funding will be
continued into a second phase beyond next March, and Mayor Somyo of
ADM is keen for this to include a four-way link-up with other
partners in England and Uganda. It is also hoped to widen the
relationship beyond the specific area of local economic development.
We are not responsible for this project, but we are pleased to have been instrumental in bringing the partners together, and have been keeping in close touch with it. Our own existing link with Amathole has been strengthened as a result. The Municipality provided much practical assistance when our own delegation visited in October, and is keen for the next Wild Coast Walk in 2007 to be a joint project with the ADM Mayor’s Challenge Hike.
Other strong elements of our link with Eastern Cape also developed over the year, particularly our contacts with Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre (with visits in both directions and help with expanding the Centre’s international connections in Scotland and beyond), Blythswood Institution, Vukani Old Age Service Centre and Lovedale College. New contacts were also made with the Kurt Warmberg Haven and the Heroes’ Park project in East London. Brian Filling’s connections in Further and Higher Education have continued to be put to good use through the British Council as well as directly, to encourage links between educational establishments in the U.K. and South Africa, including the Scotland/Eastern Cape special relationship. A dinner during President Mbeki’s visit to London also made possible a number of conversations about developing links.
Mzi Mahola from Port Elizabeth has been in touch more than once to reiterate the inspirational impact of his visit to Scotland in 2004, not just on his poetry but on his efforts to spread a love of literature among young people through an impressive programme of school workshops. He would welcome help from Scotland with this.
The Book Appeal has continued to attract quantities of useful material, and the sorting and packing goes on at Hillhead Library. An unfortunate misunderstanding led to the loss of a quantity of books that were part of the consignment about to be dispatched in March which has meant a delay of about a year in completing the container-load. Amathole District Municipality has agreed to take delivery of that container as they did of the last one we sent. The Co-operative Group’s help with taking in books at their stores was suspended early in the year for operational reasons, but we hope will be restored quite soon.
Funds raised by Scottish trade unions and the 2004 Walk for the Nomzamo Co-ops. at Fort Hare University were sent off this year, and used to branch out into the manufacture of chemicals for cleaning.
ACTSA Delegation: The delegation referred to above was part of the wider ACTSA UK visit to Southern Africa which we had proposed to the U.K. AGM in 2005. Although much of the organising work was done from the London office ACTSA Scotland played some part in the planning, including a visit to Denis Goldberg at his house in Cape Town. This visit and others in the first couple of days did bring home to many delegates visiting South Africa for the first time how deeply South Africa is inevitably affected by its history. The programme moved on to the building of dozens of practical connections between partner organisations in Britain and in South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho. The three delegates from Scotland shared the early part of the programme, but then went to Eastern Cape to work on our connections with that Province.
Events: Several events were organised during the year, most of them connected with anniversaries. Our annual social to mark the January anniversary of the founding of the ANC took place as usual in the STUC’s premises, and on June 16th we held a reception at the same venue to mark the 30th anniversay of the start of the Soweto uprising and also of the formal constituting of the Anti-Apartheid Movement Scottish Committee which took place three days after the shootings. Kumi Naidoo, now Secretary General of CIVICUS and a long-standing activist in the South African liberation struggle, addressed the meeting.
Throughout the year discussions were held about the marking of the 25th anniversary of Glasgow’s granting of the Freedom of the City to Nelson Mandela. The outcome was the establishment of an annual lecture on the theme of Freedom, jointly sponsored by Glasgow City Council, the city’s universities and Glasgow Metropolitan College. The inaugural lecture on 26th October was given in the City Chambers by Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and marked not only the Nelson Mandela anniversary but the beginning of the commemoration of the 90th year since O.R. Tambo’s birth. As well as our involvement with the actual meeting, we were pleased to assist with background information for the writing of the lecture.
The Community HEART fundraising dinner in the same location the following evening was not an ACTSA event but we were quite deeply involved, not least through our shared Chair.
We
were glad to be
part of Clydebank Asbestos Group’s international conference in
February, which had a strong South African element with contributions
from both Lindiwe Mabuza and Sophia Kisting. Contacts between
Clydebank and Prieska have continued since the time of the Cape
compensation campaign.
Southern
Africa: With the limited resources available to
us, both
human and material, there is no possibility of giving equal attention
to all 14 members of the Southern African Development Community, but
we do our best to assist when the opportunity arises. The major ACTSA
effort of the year relating to the Region but outwith South Africa
has undoubtedly been the Dignity. Period! Campaign of solidarity with
the women of Zimbabwe. With the help of AMICUS and NUS as well as the
ACTSA office, Thabitha Khumalo of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions has spoken at meetings and through the media and made a huge
impression on all her audiences. We have helped with the distribution
of information and wristbands in Scotland, and there is no doubt that
the campaign has reached new people and brought in new contacts with
no previous connection with ACTSA. We have also maintained our
links with the Scotland-Zimbabwe Group and were represented at the
ACTSA/TUC conference on Zimbabwe in London in November.
The Scottish Executive’s and Parliament’s commitment to links with Malawi, not least through the priorities of the International Development Fund, have strongly encouraged the growth of active solidarity connections with that country. This is not an area of strength for us, but we have continued to be involved in the Cross-Party Group on Malawi to keep in touch with develoments.
Although we missed the visit to Swaziland by the ACTSA delegation, we have been actively retailing the jams and pickles imported by the Balmore Trust from an inspiring community project in Manzini, and in promoting these to others with an interest in Swaziland. We were pleased to have a brief meeting with the Bishop of Swaziland, who is not only an important part of the pro-democracy struggle in the country but also grows some of the mangoes used in the jams and chutney.
Stalls: We ran 22 stalls in the course of the year, lasting from 2 hours to 3 days, which added up to a substantial commitment of time. On top of the primary function of these to spread information about ACTSA Scotland and build both old and new contacts, we have increasingly been using them also to sell craft goods from community projects in Southern Africa. These do attract attention to the stall, but we see them also as a useful economic contribution to the projects, on a very small scale. We organised our first direct, formal import this year, from Streetwires in Cape Town, and may do more of that.
Organisation: The Ayrshire Supporters Group has continued to meet, the Edinburgh group held its first public event with speakers from three SADC countries, and there is word of a prospective group in Dundee.
We have supplied volunteers for 4 Workers Beer Company events over the year, which has again brought in new people as well as helping with various aspects of ACTSA finances.
Other pieces of work
that don’t slot easily into categories have gone on throughout the
year. We have given advice and information when requested. David
Kenvyn has spoken at a couple of meetings for us. We continue to
participate in the Trade Justice Movement coalition. Members have
continued to visit South Africa for a variety of purposes, not least
Iain Whyte’s part in the Homeless World Cup. Irene Graham and David
Fletcher continue to work actively through Local Authority ACTSA. One
huge piece of work now completed (we hope) is the Peter Magubane
exhibition, which should leave for Norway any day now.
Although for ACTSA
2006 has not had any events on the dramatic scale of “South Africa
in the Gardens” in 2004 or the giant Make Poverty History rally in
2005, we have worked pretty hard, drawn in more people and made some
solid progress. We expect next year to bring more of all these.
John C. Nelson
ACTSA Scotland Secretary’s Report to the A.G.M. 10th December, 2005
In 2005 Africa, and rich world/poor world relations more generally, have been in the public spotlight to a quite unprecedented degree at international, U.K. and Scottish levels. ACTSA Scotland has been a very small player on this very large stage but has been making a contribution both to the work of the overall campaigns and to ensuring that our own particular concerns are not forgotten. While we have been active participants in these wider developments over the year we have also continued with our own long-term strands of work, and with building on the developments of the 2004 anniversary year.
2004 and after. The biggest commitment carried over from 2004 has clearly been the Peter Magubane exhibition, which was in full swing in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library at this time last year. It was seen by some 4500 people there, and the comments in the visitors’ book gave an indication of how deeply it affected many. It has been moving around the U.K. since then, and will continue to do so until Autumn 2006. This has been a colossal undertaking in both work and budget terms, and would have been quite impossible without a staggering amount of hard work by key volunteers. Funding has been a constant worry, though we still hope eventually to break even overall.
Another project arising from 2004 events was the publication of “Freedom Spring”, a collection of Scottish and South African writing in celebration of freedom, published by Glasgow City Council in March 2005 and arising at least in part from our writers’ symposium of June 2004.
Those wider developments. We took a full part in the Scottish “Make Poverty History” coalition meetings, helped work for a turnout and for stewarding volunteers for the huge march in Edinburgh on 2nd July, and had our stall at the Meadows that day which was mobbed from early morning until well into the afternoon. ACTSA at GB level was the formal member of the MPH coalition, and supplied Siphiwe Hlope, a trade union and HIV/AIDS activist from Swaziland, as a speaker from the main stage at that event.
In the Trade Justice Movement we were also represented on the Scottish organising committee, participated in the street stall in Glasgow during the Global Week of Action on Trade Justice, and took part in the lobby of the House of Commons on 2nd November. As with the TJM’s previous big lobbying campaign, it was striking how many of those involved from Scotland were ACTSA members and supporters, wearing a variety of hats.
We took part in meetings called by the Scotland Office and the Scottish Executive to look at Scotland’s place in these international development issues.
We also took part in meetings, organised by Scottish Churches House and NIDOS respectively, with Members of the European Parliament, where ACTSA’s concerns about Economic Partnership Agreements were raised. Ayrshire ACTSA Supporters Group was also in touch with MEPs about EPAs , and we know that ACTSA briefing material was used by speakers in debates elsewhere.
Linking. Our own particular concern with the importance of local people-to-people linking also came to unusual prominence over 2005. This was not primarily through our efforts I have to say, but we did do our best to encourage it. We made a short submission to the Africa Commission on the importance of links, both for their own direct effects and for their value in increasing awareness and understanding. Many other organisations made the same point, which meant it was included in the final Africa Commission report alongside all the large-scale macro-economic and strategic political issues, which is where it rightly belongs.
As well as the Scottish focus for Make Poverty History because of the location of the G8 Summit in Gleneagles, 2005 has been the year when the Scottish Parliament’s and Scottish Executive’s links with Africa have blossomed. We were glad to be involved in advising the delegation of MSPs who visited South Africa and Malawi in February. We suggested the inclusion of Eastern Cape in their visit, and were able to put them in touch with a variety of useful people there, including Premier Nosimo Balindlela (by whom they were deeply impressed). The main focus of their follow-up work has been on Malawi, but connections were also established in Eastern Cape which could be fruitful.
The First Minister’s visit to Malawi followed soon after and led, of course, to the signing of a formal twinning agreement later in the year. Although Malawi is not a country where
we as ACTSA Scotland have contacts or expertise, the expressed purpose of the twinning is very much in accordance with our own longstanding view of the importance of people-to-people solidarity connections, and the value of a particular focus on one area to allow links to reinforce one another. There is also some potential for three-way links as South Africa has a strong interest in the rest of the region and continent.
We will keep in touch with these developments, including the new Scotland/Malawi Cross-Party Group since Malawi is, of course, within our area of concern. We still hope to see the establishment of a wider Cross-Party Group on Southern Africa as well.
Eastern Cape. Our own work on links with Eastern Cape has continued, including developments arising from the 2004 Wild Coast walk.
The most significant new initiative has probably been the link between Glasgow City Council and Amathole District Municipality which we helped to broker. Funded ultimately by the Department for International Development through the Commonwealth Local Government Forum, this started in earnest in August this year, and over the next 15 months we hope will make a small but real contribution to economic regeneration in a small part of Amathole District, and perhaps produce results that can be more widely replicated.
Glasgow schools raised about £2200 for Blythswood Institution, but this was also about increasing understanding and so involved talks and slides from ACTSA speakers (not to mention a war-dancer from the Scottish Committee) and a video made at Blythswood by the school which Glasgow City Council edited and distributed as a DVD. We have also responded to expressions of interest in other school links, though this has still never reached the volume of connections we would have liked.
Links between Scotland and Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre have also continued, not least through a joint application to Comic Relief by Masimanyane and the Active Learning Centre. We expect a visit from Masimanyane’s Director Lesley Ann Foster in 2006, courtesy of Amnesty International.
Work on spreading information about Nomzamo Workers Cooperative within the Scottish Trade Union movement has also continued in collaboration with the STUC Women’s Committee, an initiative that arose from the 2002 delegation and a fundraising commitment made then.
Book Appeal. The Book Appeal, which is also very much part of the Eastern Cape link, has continued to draw in new volunteers through the Glasgow Volunteer Centre, and some quite large donations of books have been received. We are grateful to all these volunteers and donors (of funds as well as books) and also to Glasgow City Council Libraries and the Co-operative Group for their continuing help in making this project possible. We had hoped to get the fourth container away by now, but it should go early in the New Year. Amathole District Municipality have said they would be glad to receive it, and we know they can distribute a container-load.
South African High Commission. Our connections with the South African High Commission have also continued strongly. The Burns Supper there is a major annual piece of work, and this year the High Commissioner also made a big impact at the Glasgow Lord Provost’s Burns Supper. We were pleased also to be able to supply a speaker on behalf of the High Commission for Plockton High School and their impressive computer project with Limpopo Province, and to assist with contacts for a senior delegation from South Africa’s Department of Land Affairs which visited Scotland as part of a programme of gathering evidence of international experience to inform their own land policy development.
Fair Trade South Africa. A new development this year has been our connection with Fair Trade South Africa, which both imports crafts from community producer projects in South Africa and also advises these groups on design and other issues to help them break into the mainstream market in the UK. As well as selling their goods on our many stalls throughout the year, we have been attempting to encourage the involvement of Eastern Cape producers, and hope to have more to report next year.
Organisation. There has been quite a strong
Scottish input at UK level
through Local Authority ACTSA which has been developing strongly,
through the ACTSA NEC and through the AGM.
Ayrshire ACTSA Supporters Group has been working throughout the year, and was joined this October by a similar Group in Edinburgh which is looking very hopeful. We have continued to draw in new contacts through such things as our recruitment of volunteers for Workers Beer Company events (which has also helped our finances very usefully), the Book Appeal and our stalls at other people’s events. We can still draw on a huge fund of goodwill in many sections of Scottish society, and this year’s focus on Africa has increased both Press and public interest in the continent. Our challenge, as ever, is still how we best convert all this goodwill into practical action with the limited organising capacity available.
John C. Nelson
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