In collaboration with several other civil society organizations,The Ahmed Kathrada Foundation has called on the public ahead of Mandela Day to share their thoughts on actions that need to be taken to #FixOurDemocracy in relation to the state.
The Foundation’s Executive Director Neeshan Balton encouraged organizations, businesses, workers, state employees, youth and all individuals to fill in a short online form, where they were being asked to lay out their views on what actions are needed to fix the democracy.
This process was followed by a collation process, categorising and condensing the content into 67 action points.
This survey strictly focused specifically on the state and issues related to governance,capture and corruption, accountability and ethical leadership,this was so as to attain very specific ideas generated on how to fix the democracy rather than a broad focus and being unable to do justice in capturing suggestions put foward.
This list of 67 action points will be made public tomorrow on Mandela Day to mark the Legacy of Former President Nelson Mandela who spent 67 years of his life championing social Justice and equality, as well as accountable and ethical leadership.
Mandela Day encourages active citizenship. It is about taking Madiba’s legacy forward. While it is important, especially in light of the current health and food crisis as a result of Covid-19, to undertake humanitarian work, it is equally important ideals.
Also these long term challenges, cannot be fixed in 67 minutes,that is why it required the collective involvement of all who live in the country over many years. However it was realised that encouraging people to pen their views about how our democracy can be fixed will activate public engagement.
This will contribute to ensuring that these issues are not treated as sideline matters during the pandemic, but are given priority on the national agenda as part of a sustainable plan to deal with deep-rooted,systematic problems that make tackling crises all the more challenging.
“There are myriad challenges that we face in our country – from gender-based violence to racism, unemployment and xenophobia – but we thought that this survey should focus very specifically on the state and issues related to governance, capture and corruption, accountability and ethical leadership, amongst several other key areas. This is so that we have very specific ideas generated on how to fix our democracy within this sphere, rather than having a broad focus and being unable to do justice in capturing the suggestions put forward.” said a correspondent of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation
