Lerato Mutsila

Anti-apartheid veteran, prolific scientist and champion for health equity in South Africa, Professor Hoosen ‘Jerry’ Coovadia, has died. Tributes paying homage to Coovadia’s incredible life, dedication to equality and impeccable legacy are pouring in. Daily Maverick looks at how he is being remembered across South Africa.

New political party Rise Mzansi hosted almost 800 delegates from all nine provinces at its People’s Convention at the weekend, where it aimed to develop the party’s policies.

Since 1996, the number of people in South Africa in the 5-24 age group not attending school increased from 5.09m to about 5.4m (26.6%), Census 2022 has revealed.

With October being Mental Health Awareness Month, the spotlight falls on the state of mental health services. In Joburg, Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital is in a state of crisis, with psychiatric patients being kept in untenable conditions.

Living with a stoma is challenging at the best of times. It gets harder when patients have to fight tooth and nail for access to dignified care. Now, ostomates have gathered at Helen Joseph Hospital to demand a minimum standard of care – a right enshrined in the Constitution.

GroundWork, the Centre for Environmental Rights and several other civil society organisations marched to police headquarters in Pretoria to demand widespread protection for human rights activists and whistle-blowers. This follows a spate of threats, attacks and killings of land rights and climate activists and whistle-blowers in South Africa.

Former deputy chief justice calls on the state to protect whistleblowers as inaugural Whistleblower Awards celebrate journalists, rights defenders and media houses for their dedication to building a corruption-free South Africa.

Civil society organisations with a focus on education, health and social grants were less than enamoured with the 2023 Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement that Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delivered on Wednesday.

As South Africans head into voter registration weekend, the question on many minds is how to get the youth interested in voting. While 26 million voting-age South Africans are already on the voters’ roll, the age group of 18 to 29 only makes up 7% of that number. To address the low rate of youth registration, civil society organisation Ground Work Collective aims to incentivise and mobilise the youth with its ‘first-of-its-kind’ Voter Registration Portal.

Being able to read a book is something most non-visually impaired people take for granted. Removed from their reality is the fact that for persons with visual impairments and blindness, access to reading materials is often an uphill battle.