Equal Ed celebrates nine years of activism

Our partner organisation, Equal Education is celebrating their ninth birthday this month! To celebrate, we are reflecting on the considerable success and impact of their advocacy and campaigning over the years.

In 2008, Doron Isaacs and Yoliswa Dwane (then both law students at UCT) began working full time to build the organisation that would later become Equal Education. They began their work by trying to understand why there is such a big difference in the quality of education in township and rural schools, and former Model C schools in the suburbs. They read books, spoke to experts and spent time sitting in classrooms in primary and high schools in Khayelitsha in the Western Cape. The ‘Fix Our Schools Rally’, which took place that same year, attracted 500 learners, where a memorandum and a petition was handed over to the MEC for Education in the Western Cape. The campaign was a success and a month after the march, the WCED agreed to EE’s demands regarding the upgrading of neglected schools in the province.

Since then, Equal Education have gone on to achieve nationwide success; expanding their offices to Limpopo, Eastern Cape & KwaZulu Natal, setting up a sister organisation – the Equal Education Law Centre, and winning the Mail & Guardian Award for education organisation of the year in 2013.

Their campaigns and projects focusing on school infrastructure, sanitation, school transport and textbook provision have built up considerable momentum, and the organisation is universally regarded as a force to be reckoned with.

The Canon Collins Trust look forward to continuing our collaborative efforts with EE to achieve universally accessible, quality basic education in South Africa.