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?
SACSIS embraces a rights based approach to development, which views poverty as a denial of human rights.
Jane Duncan -
A significant debate has arisen between Deputy Minister of Correctional Services Ngoako Ramatlhodi and the University of Cape Town’s Pierre de Vos on the appropriateness of South Africa remaining a constitutional state.
In an article in The Times newspaper, Ramatlhodi argued that the supremacy of the constitution is disempowering the democratically elected government, whose decisions are second-guessed by a judiciary that still remains largely untransformed.
Ramatlhodi...
Gillian Schutte -
In 2008 hundreds of South African women donned their miniskirts and protested at the taxi rank where a young girl was brutally accosted by taxi drivers and hawkers for wearing a short denim skirt. The men who accosted her allegedly stuck their fingers into her vagina and called her a "slut."
Women were outraged. The angry protestors wore mini skirts and T Shirts saying, “Pissed-Off Women.” They stormed the ranks and told the perpetrators in no...
Glenn Ashton -
South Africa's agricultural landscape remains essentially unchanged. Landed white farmers pursue an industrial farming model that relies on high external inputs. Farm ownership patterns have changed little, despite continual promises. Food security remains unresolved. Significant sectors of our people, particularly women and children, remain under or malnourished. To top it off, the ecological impacts of our farming – soil erosion, high water use and abstraction, overuse of chemicals,...
The Yes Men -
Great moments in “laughtivism” from Yes Men Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno, the guys who duped the BBC, embarrassed Dow Chemical, and mocked Halliburton.
Some say that laughter helped bring down the Soviet Union, by making “Brezhnev” rhyme with “ridiculous.” At the Yes Lab, we help activists cook up funny antics and escapades to change public opinion—with laughter. We’ve used humor as a weapon to avenge corporate wrongdoing for more...
Michelle Pressend -
The adoption of the Convention Concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers on 16 June at the 100th International Labour Conference of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was a momentous occasion for domestic workers around the world.
This Convention sets out global standards to ensure decent working conditions for domestic workers, which the 183 Member States of the United Nations (UN) will have to implement, as the ILO is a UN agency.
Domestic workers often referred to as...
Frank Meintjies -
Each year during June the focus turns to youth and the role that youth played in the struggle to end apartheid. This appreciation must advance beyond nostalgia, and should inform a hard-nosed focus on youth to have a more decisive influence on socio-economic development in South Africa.
Youth in South Africa today face many similarities with the youth in the rest of the continent. While youth increase as a proportion of the population, their socio-economic position worsens....
