Barry Streek
Abie Ditlhake (33), currently the deputy director of the National Land Committee, has been appointed the new director of the South African NGO Coalition (Sangoco).
Ditlhake, who takes up his new position on April 1, was declared persona non grata in the 1980s by the Bophuthatswana homeland government for his involvement in the Mass Democratic Movement in Mafikeng, where he went to school.
He was also involved in the formation of the African National Congress Youth League in the area before moving to Johannesburg.
There, he underwent training in rural activism with the Black Sash.
Ditlhake joined the now-defunct Farmworkers Research and Resource Project as a researcher and organised communities in the North-West and Mpumalanga provinces around the Labour Tenants Act, which he regards “as my small contribution to land reform”. He is currently studying toward a masters degree after completing his undergraduate degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he was involved in the South African Students Congress.
“Many people do not have the background and understanding of the evolution of NGOs as part of civil society; the kind of politics and commitment that is needed and challenges for development, in particular rural development, because our point of reference has always been urban,” he says.
“I believe that the struggles and activism we went through were very important in shaping our understanding of the world today.
“We don’t always have the commitment required to take civil society and South Africa in general to greater heights. But all is not lost – we have to enter into a process of renewal and rebuilding a new cadre of leadership in the networks.”
He also says the relationship between NGOs and the government has yet to be stabilised. “How do we relate to the ANC in government? To what extent do we differ with the ANC and to what extent do we accept them because we come from battle trenches with them?
“That is what I think has been one of the major challenges that has weakened the NGO sector, but I’m happy that debates have begun in that direction.”