The Second Annual Social Justice Summit, which is hosted by Stellenbosch University, will take place virtually in early November. The event is convened by the Law Trust Chair in Social Justice at the Law Faculty, Professor Thuli Madonsela.
The event follows on from the inaugural summit held in August 2019, and this year will focus on the launch of the M-Fund which is a crowdfunding initiative to accelerate the advancement of equality and the elimination of poverty – in pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal 10 (reducing inequality).
The Fund’s name refers to the Musa Plan for Social Justice which was launched by Madonsela in 2018. The plan seeks to understand why – despite having one of the most ground-breaking Constitutions in the world with equality and employment equity acts and many laws that seek to give meaning to the constitutional promise of alleviating poverty and reducing inequality – the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality have persisted.
At the heart of the day’s deliberations is a simple two-pronged question – why is it that a country with one of the world’s most widely respected Constitutions, is still regarded as the most unequal society in the world? And, what can be done to address this continuing inequality?
The Second Annual Social Justice Summit will take place virtually on Wednesday 4 November 2020, under the theme “All hands on deck to leave no one behind”.
The day consists of three sessions:
· A morning session that involves a number of keynote addresses by high ranking dignitaries to set the scene for the day’s proceedings;
· An afternoon session that includes a number of parallel plenary sessions that will deal with the event’s various thematic focus areas (such as land & poverty, education & training, poverty mapping, gender & other excluded groups, and politics and democracy, among others); and
· A third concluding session at the end of the day, in which the key resolutions will be captured in a Statement and a Policy Brief.
Members of the media are invited to register for the event and take part in the day’s proceedings. Interviews can also be arranged with any of the delegates or speakers who will be part of the Summit.
