Tuesday, 24 January, is the International Day of Education. Education is a human right, as well as a public good and responsibility, according to the United Nations (UN).

“The right to education is enshrined in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The declaration calls for free and compulsory elementary education. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1989, goes further to stipulate that countries shall make higher education accessible to all,” it says.

About 244 million children and adolescents around the world are out of school, while 617 million cannot read or do basic maths.

“Without inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong opportunities for all, countries will not succeed in achieving gender equality and breaking the cycle of poverty that is leaving millions of children, youth and adults behind.”

On Tuesday, 24 January, at 10am, the official memorial service for Dr Frene Noshir Ginwala will be held at the Johannesburg City Hall on Helen Joseph Street.

Ginwala – a South African journalist and activist, and founding Speaker of South Africa’s democratic Parliament – died on 12 January.

“We mourn the passing of a formidable patriot and leader of our nation, and an internationalist to whom justice and democracy around the globe remained an impassioned objective to her last days,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa after Ginwala’s death.

On Tuesday at 6pm, Youth Capital is hosting a Twitter Space on “Beyond the matric pass rate”. The talk will unpack the matric pass rate, school dropout, the urgency around the matric rewrite, and the support young people need to write and pass final exams.

“A matric certificate increases the likelihood of young people’s ability to secure work, but only six in 10 learners who start school write their matric exams,” according to the event description.

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Speakers include Perky Moleke, CEO of the Gauteng City Region Academy; Nicole Klokow, skilling manager at the Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator; and Pumza Ndamese, project lead for Reading for Meaning at the Zero Dropout Campaign.

Set a reminder for the space here. 

On Thursday, 26 January, the inaugural Social Justice Assembly (SJA) will kick off in Pretoria and run until 27 January. 

The SJA will unpack the findings of the Social Justice Sector Review Report, published in November 2020, and will “seek to build sectoral cohesion and better coordination in response to the crises affecting people living in South Africa”, according to the event description.

More than 250 delegates from community-based organisations, social movements, non-governmental organisations and the academic field will discuss challenges facing the country and the world.

“The SJA presents a unique and exciting opportunity for movements and organisations working on all aspects of social justice in South Africa to come together to learn from our past, exchange on how we understand our present so we can better work together towards the transformation that is necessary,” says Phumi Mtetwa, southern African regional director at JASS and an SJA coordinating committee member.

Find further information on how to participate in the SJA event here.

For media enquiries, contact Rumana Akoob on 078 036 6832 or at [email protected]. 

On Friday, 27 January, at 10am, Web Rangers SA together with the Information Regulator in South Africa will host an event to engage children on their rights to privacy.

The event marks 2023 Data Privacy Day on 28 January.

“The event will unpack the report with recommendations and resolutions presented by the Web Rangers SA Article 12 group, titled ‘The protection of personal information of children’. The outcome of the session is to craft partnerships and a plan on programmes to create awareness and participation of children in data protection,” according to the event description.

The venue is McAuley House, 1 Sans Souci Road, Parktown, Johannesburg.

RSVP to [email protected]. DM/MC