Our Goals

What do we hope to achieve?  Our polestar is the FREEDOM CHARTER

The Freedom Charter has been the nation's polestar for decades.  Our country has an extraordinary history and on looking back we can draw inspiration, strength and courage from the generations that went before us to subdue great adversity, oppression and hardship. We know too, that in many instances South Africans have excelled and been an inspiration to the world.  In recent times, for many, the Freedom Charter was the compass; and so it remains a declaration of the ideal that we envisage for a shared future and the Common Good of our nation.

The Preamble to the Freedom Charter:

We, the People of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:  that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of all the people; that our people have been robbed of their birthright to land, liberty and peace by a form of government founded on injustice and inequality;  that our country will never be prosperous or free until all our people live in brotherhood, enjoying equal rights and opportunities; that only a democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief;  And therefore, we the people of South Africa, black and white together – equals, countrymen and brothers – adopt this Freedom Charter. And we pledge ourselves to strive together, sparing neither strength nor courage, until the democratic changes here set out have been won.

- Read full Freedom Charter

The 10 Clauses of the Freedom Charter are the following:

 

  1. The people shall govern
  2. All national groups shall have equal rights
  3. The people shall share in the country's wealth
  4. The land shall be shared among those who work it
  5. All shall be equal before the law
  6. All shall enjoy equal human rights
  7. There shall be work and security
  8. The doors of learning and of culture shall be opened
  9. There shall be houses, security and comfort
  10. There shall be peace and friendship

 

    Let all who love their people and their country now say, as we say here: "These freedoms we will fight for, side by side, throughout our lives, until we have won our liberty."

- Freedom Charter

[The Freedom Charter was adopted at the Congress of the People at Kliptown, Johannesburg, on 25th and 26th June, 1955.]