Patrick van Rensburg

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Patrick van Rensburg (born December 3, 1931 in Durban ; † May 23, 2017 in Serowe ) was a South African - Botswana educational scientist and social worker who founded the Brigades Movement in Botswana, as well as the Education with Production Foundation , which is based in South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe is active.

Life

Van Rensburg was South African Vice-Consul in the Belgian Congo (now: Democratic Republic of the Congo) from 1956 to 1957 when he resigned in protest against apartheid in South Africa. He joined the Liberal Party of South Africa and became its secretary for the Transvaal Province in 1958. After the Sharpeville massacre and the ban on several opposition organizations, he moved to the United Kingdom , where he described his homeland in his book Guilty Land . He got to know Seretse Khama and moved to his home town of Bechuanaland (now Botswana) in 1963 . There he lived mainly in Serowe , where from 1964 the writer Bessie Head also lived, who also came from South Africa and whom he assisted in numerous emergencies. Van Rensburg founded the Swaneng Hill School in 1963 , which took innovative approaches. So the school buildings were built by teachers and students. In addition to the usual subjects, the curriculum consists of practical subjects such as agriculture , carpentry and typing . The aim is to produce goods that are important to society. Van Rensburg founded two other schools of this type as well as the Botswana Brigades , which saw themselves as self-help institutions to enable the production of goods and the provision of useful services through mutual support and instruction .

1973 van Rensburg received the Botswana citizenship . In 1980 he founded the Foundation for Education with Production (FEP) with similar goals. The foundation spread its ideas in southern Africa and the Caribbean . In 1981 van Rensburg received the Right Livelihood Award together with Bill Mollison and Mike Cooley . In the mid-1980s, van Rensburg was the editor of the Botswana newspaper Mmegi (German: "The Reporter"), which became the leading independent Botswana daily newspaper. From 1990 van Rensburg was allowed to enter South Africa again.

Honors

1981: Right Livelihood Award

bibliography

  • Guilty land . Penguin, London 1962, OCLC 9805302 .
  • Report from Swaneng Hill . Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Uppsala 1974, ISBN 91-85214-01-9 .
  • The Serowe brigades: Alternative education in Botswana . Macmillan for the Bernard van Leer Foundation, 1978, ISBN 0-333-23594-0 .
  • with Andrew Boyd: Atlas of African Affairs . Methuen, London 1962, ISBN 0-416-64770-7 .

In addition, van Rensburg wrote some studies and scientific publications for the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation .

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Sandy Grant: Swaneng Hill School (2). Mmegi, November 11, 2005; archived from the original on November 26, 2005 ; accessed on May 26, 2017 (English).
  2. ↑ a b c Patrick van Rensburg - South Africa - 1981 Right Livelihood Award Recipient. Right Livelihood Award Foundation , archived from the original on October 7, 2006 ; accessed on May 26, 2017 (English).
personal data
SURNAME Rensburg, Patrick van
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African-Botswana educator, social worker and founder of the foundation
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Durban , South Africa
DATE OF DEATH 23 May 2017
Place of death Serowe , Botswana