By The People

It’s not often that I meet a champion - someone with a great big vision and a great big heart - a bright spark that lights other sparks and makes big fires. Such a person is Bronwen Lankers Byrne, coordinator of the “Imagine Hout Bay” initiative. “Imagine Hout Bay,” as I discovered, is all about [...]

What type of person do you imagine when you think of a volunteer working for the benefit of others in South Africa? Do you imagine a township Mama whose long life has been spent caring for her children, grandchildren and her community? Or do you imagine a privileged young idealist who takes time out between [...]

The Maoist cultural revolution introduced the concept of a barefoot doctor - a rural paramedic permanently deployed in far-flung villages. These embedded health-workers would live within and under the same conditions as their client communities - copying the Chinese peasant farmers’ Spartan aversion to footwear (which, apart from being an urban luxury had a ruinous [...]

The South African National Zakah Fund (SANZAF), is a faith based socio welfare and educational organisation established during the Apartheid Era as a means to alleviate the suffering of those destitute, needy and oppressed. Since its inception and formalisation in 1974, the organisation has moved rapidly from a ‘charity’ organisation, to an agency of empowerment, [...]

The phrase “I’m going out quickly to pick up some guys” will be familiar to many South Africans whose parents manage their own minor building or major gardening projects.
The next step works like this: Dad departs with an empty bakkie and returns an hour later with an assortment of men riding in the back.
These men [...]

Across the country, children are refused entry into state schools.
Informal schools are trying to fill the gap, but will government let them? Julia Frielingaus looks at the problems facing informal schools

The Eastern Cape is one of the poorer provinces in South Africa.
Edu-college, a Port Elizabeth based private school, manages 100% pass rates with affordable fees. Julia Frielinghaus visited the school and has this report.

CIDA is a low-cost, independent college.
We take a look at this pioneering Gauteng school that places hi-tech business education within the reach of the poor. Neil Horne explains how they do it.

Across the developing world, private schools are succeeding where state schools fail.
James Tooley gives us lessons from the third world.

Following the success of CIDA City Campus, featured on bythepeople in our first edition, a similar college TSiBA is opening in 2005 in Cape Town. Jean Barker looks at what their plans are, how they compare to CIDA, and what you can do to help!