I received news this morning (from Harvey Dale, the President of the Southern African Legal Services Foundation) that the Legal Resource Centre just released its annual report:
They are celebrating thirty years of upholding the rule of law in South Africa and providing legal services there to the poor and the vulnerable. They were instrumental in helping to mitigate the effects of and eventually dismantle the apartheid structure. It is an amazing organization, doing critical work, and I have been privileged to work with them over the past three years. Until I came into closer contact with their work, I really hadn’t appreciated just how crucial the judiciary has been for a wide range of social and economic issues in South Africa.
Recently — and this also comes via Harvey — the LRC achieved an “8.2 billion rand ($1.2 billion) settlement with the Eastern Cape Department of Education in February on behalf of seven so-called mud schools in the former Transkei. Prior to this settlement, the South African government had included only one of 400 mud schools in its plans for replacement or improvement of schools.”
This is a huge settlement that will have a serious impact on one of South Africa’s biggest challenges — improving the sorry state of its school system.
You can read more about the settlement and find the memorandum of agreement here
http://www.sals.org/news/8-2-billion-rand-settlement-to-replace-inadequate-schools/