The 2021 Right2Know leadership school takes place virtually from 4 February to Tues 16 March under the theme “Ten more years of organising for peoples power”. The school aims to strengthen the capacity of R2K activists to engage in the substantive issues impacting the right to know and actively participate in the democratic leadership of the organisation. Participants include R2K activists from various structures as well as invited guests.
Background & Objectives
In October 2020 R2K launched a Turnaround plan that includes a process to address past conflicts and (re) establish a culture of respect and comradeship, a participatory review of the work we’ve done to build R2K as a movement rooted in working class communities, and a process to review our Campaign strategy and adopt a 2021-23 operational plan and budget.
The 2021 Leadership school is planned to underpin the success of this Turnaround by developing the capacity of key R2K activists and enabling deep reflection on our context and how best we can best respond. Proposal coming from the School will form the basis of discussions at out 2021 Provincial and National Summits that aim to adopt a 2021-24 strategy. Detailed school objectives are presented below.
School Design
The school is designed using a Freirian methodology that grounds learning in the experience and knowledge of participants. Sessions will highly interactive and participatory – including creative and multimedia elements like drawing, video, music, etc.
Participants will be expected to undertake the agreed assignments (actions, reading, viewing, listening, etc) on their own between sessions. These assignments are intended to integrate ground covered in sessions.
Most of our time will be spent in small thematic groups of 9 to 14 comrades to ensure intimate, intensive, and engaged learning. Cross-cutting issues will be covered in a plenary of 45 people that also include breakways and other exercises to support engagement and full participation of everyone.
School Programme
Our Programme a will remains a work-in-progress as we adapt it to the emerging needs of participants. See the work-in-progress propgramme.
Sessions in the following table are each conceptualised as 3 hour long zoom meetings. Facilitators may require less or more depending on their designs.
Thematic streams each have +-9 hours to do popular education on their issues (1 session/week for 3 weeks) followed by one +-3 hours session to “Develop strategic 3 year campaign objectives & preparing presentation”. A total of 12 hours for each thematic group.
There are 8 plenary sessions (+- 24 hours total):
-
- A session for introductions and context setting – including Right2Know, shared history, principles & politics
- A session for Global, SA & Local context mapping
- Two sessions (+-6hours) for combatting patriarchy & democratic organisational culture
- A session for workshopping effective advocacy (campaigning, what works?) before thematic groups do their 4 year plans.
- Two sessions for presenting the Thematic stream plans and pulling them together into a draft 2021-24 strategic framework
- Two sessions workshopping the roles, structure and policy that can vest support the draft 2021-24 strategic framework
Session Dates & Times
Sessions in the following table are each conceptualised as 3 hour long zoom meetings. Facilitators may require less or more depending on their designs.
| STREAM | Session 1 | Session 2 | Session 3 | Session 4 |
| PLENARY 1: School Opening | Thurs 4 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | |||
| PLENARY 2: Political Context | Sat 6 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | |||
| FOCUS 1: CR, Traditional Media | Tues 9 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Tues 16 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Tues 23 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Tues 2 March, 13h30 – 16h30 |
| FOCUS 2: CR, Internet & Telecoms | Wed 10 Feb, 9h30 – 12h30 | Wed 17 Feb, 9h30 – 12h30 | Wed 24 Feb, 9h30 – 12h30 | Wed 3 March, 9h30 – 12h30 |
| FOCUS 3: Repression, Surveillance & Protest | Wed 10 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Wed 17 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Wed 24 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Wed 3 March, 13h30 – 16h30 |
| FOCUS 4: PD, Local Govt & Local Struggles | Wed 10 Feb, 9h30 – 12h30 | Wed 17 Feb, 9h30 – 12h30 | Wed 24 Feb, 9h30 – 12h30 | Thurs 4 March, 13h30 – 16h30 |
| FOCUS 5: PD, National Institutions | Wed 10 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Wed 17 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Wed 24 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Fri 5 March, 13h30 – 16h30 |
| PLENARY 3 & 4: Towards a feminist R2K | Sat 13 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | Sat 20 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | ||
| PLENARY 5: Effective campaigning | Sat 27 Feb, 13h30 – 16h30 | |||
| PLENARY 6 & 7: R2K’s 2021-24 Programme | Sat 6 March, 13h30 – 16h30 | Tues 9 March, 13h30 – 16h30 | ||
| PLENARY 8 & 9: Organization for R2K programme | Sat 13 March, 13h30 – 16h30 | Tues 16 March, 13h30 – 16h30 |
Detailed School Objectives
| STRAND | OBJECTIVE |
| 1. Impactful Campaigns |
|
| 2. Growing shared strategy |
|
| 3. Working better together |
|
| 4. Making the political personal |
|
Facilitator details
| Overall School Facilitator. | Busi Mtabane | mtabanebusi@gmail.com |
| Plenary sessions on context and pulling together strategy | Mark Weinberg | majimaji11@gmail.com |
| Plenary sessions on patriarchy & democratic conduct | Asha Moodley | ashamoodley310@gmail.com |
| Plenary sessions on patriarchy, democratic conduct, review of roles, structure, policy | Bulelwa Mshumpela | bmshumpela@gmail.com |
| Communication Rights: Traditional Media | Lazola Kati | lazolakati.Campaigns@gmail.com |
| Communication Rights: Internet access & Telecoms | Michael Graaf | graaf.michael@gmail.com |
| Repression: Surveillance & Protest | Thami Nkosi | tnkosi37.Tn@gmail.com |
| Participatory Democracy: National Institutions | Burton Jaganathan | bjaganathan@yahoo.com |
| Participatory Democracy: Local Govt & Local Struggles | Alvin Anthony | tonymflk@gmail.com |
