MOJA

WE’RE CELEBRATING ADULT LEARNERS WEEK

During September we celebrate International Literacy Day as well as highlighting Adult Learners Week (ALW).

ALW has for many years been a time of recognition for our sector, commending adult learners and educators and the pathway of lifelong learning. The sector has had a long association with the themes determined by UNESCO for ALW and International Literacy Day.

This year it is;

Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies.

You are invited to join us!

When 10am - 2pm, 30 September 2023

Where Epilepsy South Africa, corner of Govan Mbeki, and Cotte Roads, Wetton

Contact person Merle FRED allforum@mweb.co.za 082 402 3293

Join us for an informative discussion on adult education and essential strategies for preventing and managing conflicts.

Date: October 3, 2023

Time: 14:00 CAT

14 pm CAT equal to 12 pm UTC/GMT (Mali, Togo, Sénégal, etc).

14 pm CAT equal to 13 pm (Cameroon, Gabon, Chad, Central Republic of Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo Brazaville).

Speaker: Dupleix Kuenzob, Executive Secretary, Dynamique Mondiale des Jeunes

Topics Covered:

1. Introduction of DMJ in the context of adult education.
2. Consistency of adult education and its impact on individuals and society.
3. DMJ's unique approach in adult education and its benefits.
4. The crucial importance of adult education in conflict prevention and management.
5. The influence of adult education on conflict prevention and management at an individual and collective level.

Registration

Photo: UN Women/Ryan Brown

RADICAL FOUNDATIONS

Saturday September 30^th (online)
1pm New York | 2pm Rio de Janeiro | 7pm Johannesburg

Register here

The Radical Books Collective will be hosting a masterclass on Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire convened by Dr. Antonia Darder in collaboration with the Paulo Freire Institute at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. An enduring, extraordinary and profoundly influential work, the book was written in 1968 and published first in Spanish, then in the original Portuguese in 1972. Freire's own life story punctuated by struggle and exile becomes an important context for the book itself.

The seminar will start with a short session convened by Anne Harley and Firoze Manji who will speak about Paulo Freire in Africa. It will be followed by a longer session from Dr. Darder who will offer an introduction to the general arc of Freire's life and work as well as a chapter by chapter analysis of Pedagogy of the Oppressed. We will then have one hour for comments and questions from the seminar participants.

About Dr. Antonia Darder

Antonia Darder is an internationally recognized scholar, artist, poet, songwriter, activist, and public intellectual, and is the recipient of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Award. She has worked tirelessly for more than three decades to fiercely counter social and material inequalities at work in schools and communities. Her scholarship focuses on issues of racism, political economy, education, social justice, and society. More recently, she has worked to articulate a critical theory of leadership for social justice and community engagement. For more than a decade, she held the Leavey Presidential Endowed Chair in Ethics and Moral Leadership in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, USA. She is a Professor Emerita of Education at LMU and a Professor Emerita of Educational Policy, Organization, and Leadership at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Formerly, she also held a Distinguished Visiting faculty post at the University of Johannesburg, in South Africa.

In the late 80s and early 90s, Darder studied and worked with renowned Brazilian educator, Paulo Freire, whose ideas profoundly influenced the direction of her life's work. Her book Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love focused on Freire's important contributions to education, particularly from the standpoint of oppressed communities. More recently, her book Freire & Education was released in both English and Portuguese. In 2016 she was also awarded the Paulo Freire Democratic Project award, given to individuals who embody the life and legacy of Paulo Freire and who are characterized by intellectual excellence, ethical concern and deep commitment to the creation, nurturing, and sustainability of fair and just communities. In 2018 (the 50th anniversary of Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed), she published The Student Guide to Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

Darder is the author of Culture and Power in the Classroom (the 20th anniversary edition of which was released in 2012) and Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love, named outstanding book in curriculum for 2001-2002 by the American Educational Research Association. She is also co-author of After Race: Racism After Multiculturalism. She is the editor of Culture and Difference and co-editor of Latinos and Education; The Latino Studies Reader: Culture, Economy and Society, and The Critical Pedagogy Reader. A Dissident Voice: Essay on Culture, Pedagogy, and Power, a twenty-year retrospective of her writings, was released in 2012. The book is a compilation of 21 essays and seven poems published from 1991 to 2011.

Over the years, Darder has collaborated on numerous social justice projects with students. In 2009, Darder's documentary, Breaking Silence: The Pervasiveness of Oppression, was awarded the second-place prize at the Central Illinois Women's Film Festival. The film was produced with a team of graduate students and community members involved in the Diversity and Technology for Engaging Communities research team, a study examining issues of power, privilege, and racism on the UIUC campus. In 2005, working with graduate students and community members, she established the Liberacion! Radio Collective, that examines politics, art, and struggle through the nexus of local/global connections.

Apart from the awards already mentioned above, Prof. Darder has received numerous other awards, including the Scholars of Color Lifetime Distinguished Career Contribution Award by the American Education Research Association; the Eminent Scholar Award from Southern Queensland University, Toowoomba, Australia; a Thinker in Residence Distinguished Faculty Fellowship from Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia; and a Rains Award for Excellence in Research, Scholarship, and Creative Work. She has also been the recipient of a Distinguished International Research Fellow Award from New Castle University, Callaghan, Australia; and a Heroes Award from the Sisters of Saint Joseph for Reconciliation and Justice awarded to individuals who exemplify justice and reconciliation in their lives. Along with a national Kellogg Foundation Fellowship, she has also received the Social Justice in Education Award from the University of New Mexico, and recognition for her Outstanding Service to the Latino Community from El Centro de Acción Social. Darder was one of 72 women chosen to appear in Victoria Alvarado's book, Mujeres de Consciencia/Women of Conscience, a tribute to U.S. Latinas who have made a definite and long-standing contribution to the Latino community and the nation at large. Darder is a visual artist and poet. Writing and performing in English and Spanish, her poetry and songs speak of love, struggle, and freedom.

About the co-conveners

Anne Harley is a senior lecturer in adult education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg) in South Africa. Prior to joining the university as a researcher in 1994, she did research work for an anti-apartheid women’s organization and a land rights NGO. Working within the radical adult education tradition, she is particularly interested in informal adult education/learning in/through/with struggle, and her work focuses on counter-hegemonic learning and theorizing, particularly in subaltern social movements, and is thus related to issues of emancipatory politics, the notion of civil society, and discourses of ‘development’ in South Africa and beyond. She has published numerous academic articles and chapters, and produced a number of popular publications. As part of her work, she heads up the Paulo Freire project, an affiliate of the Paulo Freire Institute in Brazil, which runs projects to further the thinking and work of the Brazilian educationist. She is also a member of the Popular Education Network, an international network of people involved in popular education.

Firoze Manji is a writer, publisher and activist with more than 40 years’ experience in international development, health, human rights, teaching, publishing and political organizing. He is the founder and publisher of Daraja Press which describe their mission thus: "We seek to build upon, develop and support interconnections between emancipatory struggles of the oppressed and exploited across the world. In a phrase, our aim is to nurture reflection, shelter hope and inspire audacity." He has published several books and articles, the most recent including African Awakenings, The Emerging Revolutions (2011) and China's New Role in Africa and the South: A Search for a New Perspective (2008). He is the recipient of the 2021 Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista Lifetime Achievement Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association.

Radical Books Collective

Radical Books Collective creates an alternative, inclusive and non-commercial approach to books and reading. We organize virtual book clubs, book and author events and immersive seminars on foundational radical books.

A community of readers from around the world come together to discuss bold and politically progressive books across a range of genres. Corporatized, profit-oriented publishing structures make it harder for us to find books and writers that don't fit the mainstream awards, praise, and review criteria. We are curating an alternative canon through a collective that includes publishers, bookstores, authors and book lovers everywhere. Book clubs meet online to discuss a recently published radical book and to meet the writer.

Let's change how books are read, circulated, reviewed and talked about. Let's read slowly, deeply, collectively. The Radical Books Collective is an independent initiative and are not supported by institutional funding. We rely on you to create progressive programming and to invigorate engaged reading communities. If you like the work we do, please support us in any way you can: https://radicalbookscollective.com/pages/support-us

Event by: Public Education Education Office of Parliament of South Africa, Cannon Collins Trust, Adult Learning Forum

The Education for Democracy Dialogue, is part of commemorating International Literacy Day, 9th September and International Day of Democracy, 15 September. This is a unique opportunity for scholars in the field of Education, to present their research and recommendations and allow time for brief discussion.

You are invited to join us in person, to participate in the dialogue. If you can’t be there, join us on online.

When 10am-12:30pm, 15 September

Where National Parliament of RSA, 120 Plein Street, Cape Town

Contact person Catherine@canoncollins.org | 072 767 1115

PROGRAMME

Opening and Welcome - Ms Ressida Begg, Division Manager: Core Business Support Division, Parliament of RSA

Dialogues Facilitated by Catherine Sofianos, the Canon Collins Trust

Ashley Visagie - “School Resource Officers take a militarised approach to school discipline and stigmatise poor young people and young people of colour.”

Qamani Njara - “Two recommenda(ons to help solve the literacy and arithme(c crisis in South African primary schools.”

Helga Jansen - “Alignment of South African’s local strategic development plans with TVET college offerings: An argument for policy coherence between the economy and technical and vocational training.”

Ivor Baatjes - “Centering Non-Formal Educa(on in Adult and Community Education and Community College.”

Closing by Farrell Hunter

Join us in person RSVP for the in-person event | Join us Online Register for online access to the event

Join us on August 29th as we share insights and examples from around Africa

September 8th is International Literacy Day and to celebrate MOJA is hosting a webinar to acknowledge the key role that literacy plays in adult education.

Register to join

Speakers:

1. The importance of literacy in adult education - Bassirou KEBE (Director of the Association for the Development of Social Education (ADES) Senegal)
2. Use of Mother Tongues in Adult Education Programmes - Said Errakib (General Secretary of the Moroccan Forum for Lifelong Learning)
3. Integrated Adult Education - José Mucuapa (Country Director, DVV International Mozambique)

Date: 29 August 2023

Time: 14:00 – 15:30 (SAST)

15:00 - 16:30 (EAT), 13:00 - 14:30 (NAT), 12:00 -13:30 (WAT)

The world as we know it is not sustainable. To change these realities, we need to dig deep to the very roots of Western thinking – this is a big story of alternative worldmaking at every level. This includes how we live, work, produce and distribute food, water, and energy.

This set of two participatory workshops encourages us to rebuild understandings of the inter-connectedness of everything so that we reignite relationships with one another and the planet. Instead of continuing to exploit the natural world we nurture and sustain it.

Through dialogue we will question: how and why did we lose our connectivity, our kinship with other living beings, our own embodiedness; and how do we unlearn separation and relearn relationality? As educators and activists, how do we generate a pluriverse of possibilities?

Workshop One will focus on Relearning kinship ethics – this is based on understanding the shift from modernity to relationality;

Workshop Two will focus on Composting Modernity, using past values and ethics to ‘compost’ practical possibilities for transformative practice.

• Dates: 14 September and 5 October 2023
• Time: PST 10h00; SAST 19h00
• Length: 2 hours

The workshops will be led by Dr Elizabeth Lange, author of the inspiring book (2023), Transformative Sustainability Education: Reimagining our Future. This book lays out the principles and practices of transformative sustainability education using a relational way of thinking and being.

We invite you to commit to both workshops and register in advance:

https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIkce-prjkiHN1Lwmb-IaFAK1aYafKMuv2b

Background:

This Teach-In series is a continuation of the PIMA webinars on Climate Justice Education which have run since 2020 in collaboration with the Canadian Association for Studies in Adult Education (CASAE), Adult Learning Australia (ALA), Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research in Education of Adults (SCUTREA), and MOJA African Adult Education Network. The webinars have fed into two special editions of the PIMA Bulletin 39 (Nov 21), 45 (Jan 23) January 2023 Bulletin TOC | PIMA Network - they both provide useful background to the Teach-In.

For more information, contact: Shirley Walters, PIMA Climate Justice Education - ferris@iafrica.com

The following Canon Collins Trust Scholarships are open in August

University of London LLM Scholarships

Canon Collins Trust invites applications for scholarships to study for the Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma and/or the Master of Laws (LLM) by distance learning at the University of London in 2024. Applicants can start at any level, and do not need to complete the whole programme. For example, applicants can start at Postgraduate Certificate level and work their way through to the LLM, or can stop after completing the PG Certificate. Applicants who have completed an LLB degree may start at LLM level, skipping the PG Certificate and Diploma.

https://canoncollins.org/scholarships/uol-llm-scholarships/

Canon Collins Sol Plaatje Scholarships

Canon Collins Trust in partnership with Sol Plaatje Educational Project invite applications for the postgraduate study in South Africa 2024. We will provide funding for up to a maximum of two years for Masters and three years for PhD. Continued funding depends upon satisfactory progress and academic reports.

In 2024, we will be making awards only to those studying in three areas:

1. Justice, which includes Climate Justice, Law, Economics and Politics
2. Education policy and practice
3. Humanities, which includes Literature, History, Anthropology and the Arts

Please only apply if your programme of study falls into one of these disciplines.

Interdisciplinary courses and doctoral studies may sometimes defy easy categorisation. Applicants are urged to use their judgement in assessing whether to apply. But applications that clearly do not fall within these areas (for example MBAs, medical sciences, sports sciences and applied sciences) will not be considered for an award.

In 2024, climate justice will be a priority. Climate Justice related scholarship applications may be in a science or applied science field as long as the application can demonstrate its relevance to climate justice related matters.

https://canoncollins.org/scholarships/canon-collins-sol-plaatje-scholarships

Canon Collins RMTF Scholarships for Postgraduate Study

Canon Collins Trust in partnership with Ros Moger and Terry Furlong group invite applications for the postgraduate study in South Africa 2024. Ros and Terry were inspirational London educationalists. Since 2001 friends and family have raised funds in their memory to award scholarships in their name. More information about the history of the RMTF scholarships is here.

Canon Collins Trust in partnership with RMTF seek to support exceptional individuals who are committed to social justice in southern Africa and for whom a postgraduate qualification is an essential tool in working to create an open and just society.

In 2024, we will be making awards only to those studying in three areas:

1. Justice, which includes Climate Justice, Law, Economics and Politics
2. Education policy and practice
3. Humanities, which includes Literature, History, Anthropology and the Arts

Please only apply if your programme of study falls into one of these disciplines.

Interdisciplinary courses and doctoral studies may sometimes defy easy categorisation. Applicants are urged to use their judgement in assessing whether to apply. But applications that clearly do not fall within Justice, Education or Humanities (for example MBAs, economics, medical sciences, sports sciences, applied sciences) will not be considered for an award.

We will provide funding for up to a maximum of two years for Masters and three years for PhD. Continued funding depends upon satisfactory progress and academic reports.

https://canoncollins.org/scholarships/canon-collins-rmtf-scholarships-for-postgraduate-study/

The annual LITASA conference is the premier platform for those working in the literacy sector to connect, share knowledge and learn from each other.