refugees

Former African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) leaders accused ANC national disciplinary committee chairperson, Derek Hanekom, of having influenced or imposed his nephew Braam on the interim youth wing leadership.
 
Suspended former ANCYL spokesperson, Floyd Shivambu, points out that the youth does not know Braam Hanekom, who is also founder of People Against Suffering Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP), a human rights organisation working with refugees.
 
To read the article titled, “Knives out for new ANCYL task team,” click here.

With the State of the Nation Address and the 2013/14 Budget speech behind us, we now more than before have a gripping awareness that the South African reality is one that will need a lot more input before it is what we as South Africans need it to be.
 
We have made great strides towards equity and the sharing of wealth and knowledge but it has been staggered. This means that there are some areas that need more attention than others. One of these areas is youth development. I have always been passionate about the value of education and the attaining of skills because I understand that it empowers the individual as well as society, to improve. If we have knowledge and skills, our dependency on others will be less and we will be more equipped to be also self-sufficient, this is enriching in terms of dignity.

As a political science graduate, I know from experience how difficult it is to break into the job market, especially into one's own field. We can see that the youth is battling to come to grips with the reality that there are simply not enough jobs for everyone. We cannot continue to look at the state to resolve the issue, although we know that we can depend on it for assistance. It is the accumulation of these ideas that have led me to get off my behind and give my input. However, it goes without saying that actions speak louder than words, so this is what I am working on. I was given an opportunity to write articles on politics, to be edited published on a website by Shari Cupido, a Brussels-based diplomatic, to keep the poolsci juices flowing while doing my daily job. Upon completing the two-month online internship, I asked Cupido whether we could partner with the Claremont Volunteer Centre so that future interns who do not have a day job can gain working experience and build contacts through volunteering, to which she agreed. I then approached the Volunteer Centre, since I cannot volunteer due to my working - I collect goods and donate to when I can; I spoke with Shahida who also was in agreement. Shahida arranges for local and international volunteers to come and assist those who are in need of working experience. She hopes to grow her base of international volunteers to a group of more than one hundred. Shahida has put forth the invaluable opportunity for young political science and international relations graduates to motivate the volunteers by means of talks, and to workshops or lectures, to discuss issues such as diversity and HIV/AIDS.
 
The status of refugees in South Africa, as well as the more other issues such as how did the youth come to have a sense of entitlement and how young people can more broadly impact the community.

We had had our first successful talk, focusing on the issue of diversity, delivered by Fazlin Fransman, a member of the South African Political Science group.

It is our mission to give graduates a platform to gain the experience that they will need to put to use the knowledge that they have attained through their studies and allow them to polish real time ideas into articles on politics. The articles should speak to the contemporary issues as well as ultimately engaging in a broad-spectrum enrichment in terms of the actual volunteering and assisting of the administration of volunteering.

This blog serves to show that creative though in the face of difficult circumstances can lead to the development of ideas that are able to address issue and empower us as the people of South Africa to make a difference in our own communities. It has also been to thank those who are involved in SA Pol-Sci and the Claremont Volunteer Centre for the amazing work.

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Israel has turned back dozens of African asylum-seekers, mostly Eritreans, trying to enter the country from Egypt, according to rights group, Human Rights Watch and two other NGOs.

In a joint press statement, the organisations point out that, "In forcing asylum seekers and refugees to remain in Egypt and in deporting others, Israel is putting them at risk of prolonged detention in Egyptian prisons and police stations where they cannot claim asylum.

The NGOs implored the country to abandon its policy, reminding it that it signed the 1951 Refugee Convention in Geneva, which requires ‘all countries to respect the principle of nonrefoulement’ - a principle of international law which prohibits turning over a victim of persecution to his persecutor.

To read the article titled, “Israel turns back African migrants: HRW,” click here.

Human rights organisation, Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR), says the Department of Home Affairs officials should be held personally responsible for the department's failure to implement court orders.

The organisation’s head of refugee and migrant rights programme, Kaajal Ramjathan-Keogh, points out that, "The detention of refugees and migrants is carried out in an unlawful manner."

Ramjathan-Keogh argues that despite repeated engagement with the department, the organisation encounters a lot of difficulty in releasing people without resorting to the courts.

To read the article titled, “NGO demands answers from home affairs for court violations,” click here.