Ubuntu Web Info

The Ubuntu Foundation - South Africa •

All things are connected, like the blood that unites one family. Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life; we are merely strands in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

This land belongs to our people and we do not wish it to be despoiled by those who do not care. Through our programme of collective and reciprocal ownership we wish to empower everybody throughout the country thus ensuring that everybody owns a piece of everything making it hard to wish to despoil it.

Let's Create a Culture of Enterprise There is no longer any doubt that a strong culture of enterprise exists at the grassroots level of our society and it is essential that it receives all the support that we can muster together. As a result of Apartheid's laws, some as simple as denial of basic education, the creativity and independence of many of South Africa's people has been impaired. As a result they lack a sense of selfworth and have been forced to become economically dependent for their well-being. Closely linked to this is a prevalent perception amongst some that the distribution of economic opportunity will automatically flow the same line as political voting rights. If this perception is not changed, the ensuing disillusionment will result in rebellion and a high wave of crime. To counter and correct this situation, it is necessary that those who want to help themselvesand not depend on the handouts of others be given the opportunity to do so. We need to expose a mass of people to basic business skills and improve their access to resources so that there can be upliftment across the board. Economic freedom is more than just a theoretical moral value. Coupled with access to resources, it is a powerful improvement tool that liberates creativity and encourages independence. The opportunity to start one's own business enables a person not just to put food on the table but engages one in something creative and challenging. While in no way disputing the importance of welfare projects in areas where people cannot help themselves, the primary focus should be aimed at development, addressing the causes rather than the symptoms of poverty. Excessive welfare only leads to increased dependency and unrealistic feelings of entitlement. People need to be given the necessary help and development support to enable them to become responsible for their own well-being. It is through the propagation of this ethos that we will be able to avoid a culture of entitlement, another form of dependence. This country has suffcient natural resources and sense of 'Ubuntu' to sustain us. Let us reach out now. There is no doubt whatsoever that we will succeed as long as every link in our programme prevails. We South Atricans have something special to teach the world. The spirituality ot 'Ubuntu' is rooted firmly in the concept that a person is a person only through other persons. Ubuntu enbraces Uhe values of justice,truth, respect, honesty and equality of all persons. All these are essential elements both of human rights and democracy.

Remove Yola Link

STATEMENT OF PURPOSE We must realise that the triumphs of Science. Law, Politics and Economics are neutral. They can be used to good or to bad purposes according to those who use them. By themselves, they cannot make us better or nobler human beings. By the pursuit of life in the exclusive light of these subjects, which treat material comforts as an end to themselves, the modern world has sold its soul to materialism; to the cult of the materialistic interpretation of history; to doubts about a person s higher destiny; to the neglect of moral values; to spiritual bankruptcy. The Ubuntu Programme, founded in June 1992, is a multi-facetted, all-encompassing hub that facilitates an enabling environment for the upliftment and enpowerment of all persons. We support and stimulate individuals and organisations interested in restoring, discovering and legitimizing belief systems which embrace human potential for healing, creativity, enterprise and wholeness. Through our wide spectrum of activities, we are creating and bringing legitimacy to a vision of a humane, sustainable, and peaceful world. As a Member ship Or ganisa tion We offer opportunities for individuals to blend knowledge of scientific and scholarly research with their own experiences and application thereof in the community. Subscribing members receive regular Ubuntu Publications and are invited to participate in study groups, lectures and research programmes. As an Educa tional Pr og ramme The Ubuntu Mutual Terrain Learning Programme is a holistic learning threshold that enables one to explore the following: Science, Communication, Health, Mathematics, Information Systems, Environmental Care, Law & Justice, Conflict Resolution, Economics, etc. As an Enabling Tool By reciprocative networking, and information sharing, the Ubuntu Programme can be used as an alternative to Money as a commodity, and the Capitalisation and implementation of Goodwill. Ubuntu Specifics The Ubuntu Programme is largely being run without the accumulation of Capital . WE DO NOT ACCEPT DONATIONS FROM ANYBODY unless we reciprocate by the rendering of services, products or skills to the same value or more. This mode of economic activity can be applied in virtually any economic sphere as it encompasses a lot of goodwill and integrity. Because we are NOT funded, misappropriation and wastage are non-existent and a culture of entitlement is eliminated. Everything is thus earned. Ubuntu Projects A wide range of projects have seen the light ea. 1. Lifeskills Centres where the unemployed are taught, inter alia, how to convert discarded material into marketable products like greeting cards and paintings, paper mache products, panels for building, etc.\par 2. Perma Culture Technigues, Water Resources Management, Energy Conservation Methods, Gender Issues, Appropriate Technology, Poverty Alleviation, Legal Facilitation, Energy Issues, etc. 3.Hope Sanctuary in Cape Town that facilitates empowerment programmes for the unemployed.

What structure does the programme have? There is no structure in the conventional sense. One has to unlearn the traditions of conventional organisation and unfetter oneself from the debris of reactive and archaic thinking. The spirit of our age is fraught with paradox,. It is at the same time pragmatic and trancendental. It values both enlightenment and mystery...power and humility...interdependence and individuality. It is simultaneousley political and apolitical. We are reluctant to create hierarchical structures and we are averse to dogma. We operate on the principle that change can only be facilitated, not decreed. We do not have any manifestos. Ubuntu is a way of life that is very old. Perhaps, by integrating magic and science, art and technology, our ever expanding vistas can be facilitated. There are risks, of course, in drawing attention to something that has operated so effectively without publicity. There is always the possibility that this great cultural realignment will be co-opted, trivialised, exploited; indeed, that has already happened to some extent. But whatever the risks, this 'breathing together', whose roots are old and deep in human history (albeit Africa), belongs to all of us. The Ubuntu Programme was founded for all those who belong to it in spirit but have not known how many others share their sense of possibility, and for those who despair but are willing to consider the evidence of hope. Like the charting of a new star, naming and mapping the programme only makes visible a light that has been present all along but unseen because we didn't know where to look. 'When life becomes a process, the old distinctions between winning and losing, success and failure, fade away. Everything, even a negative outcome, has the potential to teach us and to further our quest. We are experimenting, exploring. In the wider paradigm there are no "enemies", only those useful, if irritating, people whose opposition calls attention to trouble spots, like a magnifying mirror. ' Marilyn Ferguson The emerging entrepreneurs, who are alligned with the Ubuntu Programme, are more truly thoughtful persons who are changing products and services to fill the needs of a more thoughtful and caring audience. They are saying: Don't make me an adjunct to the process; make me inherent in it. Before we choose our tools and techniques, we must choose our dreams and values, for some technologies serve them, while others make them unrealisable. "A Church, a Temple, or a Kaba Stone,\par Quran, or Bible, or a martyr's bone.\par All these & more our hearts can tolerate .\par Since our religion are of love & peace alone."\par - Sufi Inayat Khan Ronald E Campher (Founder& Initiator)

Affirmation

Together we labour to preserve the earth, our living home, and all the delicate intermingling channels of life: the air and the soil and the water - all ore our single sphere of life. Let the rivers flow, orchards yield fruit, hills and mountains grace this earth. Let rains fall, pure, to give growth to earth's gifts. May air be clean again, transporting sun and the light of the stars; And the round, cool moon appear above a universe at peace. Spirit affirms, the breath of life praises, The teachings live: Our way together is the way of life. PONDERINGS A man once brought the Hodja a letter he had received and asked him to read it for him. " The handwriting is too bad," said the Hodja. 'I cannot read it. The man grew angry. " You call yourself a Hodja,' he cried, 'and wear the turban of a learned man, and you cannot even read a letter!' The Hodja took off his kovak and placed it before him. 'If you think that everyone who wears a turban like this is a learned man,' he said, 'you put it on, and see if you can read the letter!' The Hodja was invited to an important banquet, and he went in his everyday clothes.No one paid any attention to him whatsoever, and he remained hungry and thirsty, and very bored. Eventually he slipped out of the house unobserved and made his way home. Here he changed into his best clothes, putting on a magnificent turban, a fine silk binish, and a large fur coat over-all. Then he made his way back to the banquet. This time he was welcomed with open arms. The host bade him sit beside him, and offered him a plate covered with the choicest delicacies.The Hodja took off his fur coat and held it to the plate.'Eat, my beauty!' he said. 'Effendi, what are you doing?' exclaimed his atonished host.' It was the fur coat, not the man inside, which conjured up these delicacies,' replied the Hodja. 'Let it then eat them!. GLOSSARY Binish - a robe or cloak; Hodja - a learned person, a scholar; Kavuk - a scholar's turban On Wednesday, when the sky is blue, And I have nothing else to do, I sometimes wonder if it's true ,that who is what and what is who Winnie the Pooh On Humanism We must remind ourselves once again that humanism is not self-expressionism. The actualizing of the potential in us does not mean striving after perfection in every conceivable aspect of life. It is not possible to be even fairly good at everything, and the result of trying is dilettantism, not humanism. Each of us has our own particular line, more or less clearly defined by our own potentialities; each has subsidiary capacities in other directions; very few, if any, has capacities in all directions. There are persons who have concentrated all their abilities and devoted all their time to the achievement of some great objective the very nature of which forbids tarrying over lesser interests; and these are fulfilling their own particular possibilities precisely by this exclusive concentration, and we do not call them half-persons, we call them great people precisely because they have achieved something great and fulfilled themselves in the achievement.

And why should we deny to the mystic what we so readily grant to these? That it should be so is perhaps the ultimate proof of the power of matter, the depth of the warfare between the spirit and the flesh... People must follow their stars. The only field in which a person may make no sacrifices, under pain of being called a fanatic, is that person's faith, in whatever form. Such persons may become stunted, may become half-persons: the academic philosopher who becomes a bookworm and no person. The businessperson who becomes a commerce-machine, the lawyer who becomes a codex, they fail, but it is not because their specialization has led them to adopt this line rather than another, but because their concentration on this has excluded, unnecessarily, all interest in the value of any other. Those who devote their lives to the advance of medical science cannot perhaps be first-rate musicians; they can appreciate the value of music. There is such a thing as an ascetic who values good wine; indeed, they are the only ascetics, for the person who abstains and does not value is not an ascetic but an agrestic, a bumpkin. Humanism demands, not that people should do everything, but that they should have their eyes and hearts open to the beauty of everything. And if religion commands this thing and one remains poor, that thing and one remains celibate, the other, and one submits one's will to authority, this does not mean that the valuing of the good things of life is precluded or that the personality is stunted. Self-sacrifice, as has often been pointed out, is self-fulfilment. We dislike control - 'Damn braces' said William Blake - but we know its necessity. and the person whose principles hinder enrichment or marriage or any of the endless possible experiences and joys of life may become stunted indeed but need not; for these very reversals and denials can open and enrich the soul in a way possible to placid progress and affirmation. Ubuntu Creed WE BELIEVE IN OURSELVES We believe in ourselves, ond we believe in our destiny. We believe that we are contributors to this new civilization. We believe that we have inherited from our forbears an ancient dream, a song, a prophecy, which we can proudly lay as a gift of gratitude upon the lap of the new South Africa. We believe that we are deeply rooted here, and that we would be fruitful. In our veins run the blood of the poets and wise persons of old, and it is our desire to receive from this land, but we shall not come with empty hands. We believe that even as our parents came to this land to produce riches, we were born here to produce riches by intelligence, by labour. We believe that it is in us to be good citizens. And what is it to be good citizens? It is to achnowledge other persons' rights before asserting our own, but always to be conscious of our own. It Is to be free in word and deed, but it Is also to know that our freedom is subject to the freedom of all other persons. It is to create the useful and the beautiful with our own hands, and to admire what others have created in love and with faith. It Is to produce by labour and only by labour, and to spend less than we have produced so that our children may not be dependent upon the state for support when we are no more. We are here to build together - and with a will.

Ubuntu We are the faithful ones who find in the goodness of people a groundwork for the betterment of the whole nation The Ubuntu Foundation - Contact Details [email protected] Ubuntu Consultus - Legal Facilitation Division [email protected] Publishing [email protected] Cellular Contact: +27-82-670 9968 Central Address: 71 Loop Street Cape Town 8000 Some of the Current Ongoing Projects: Land Restution Project - Eastern Cape , Gauteng World Life Centre School of the Arts Streetkids - Knysna (Annual Xmas Luncheon for Streetkids and Homeless) The above is used to maintain a database of streetkids and the homeless as well as re-integrating the streetkids into the school system. Hope Sanctuary - Retreat Soccer and Rugby Balls for township kids Werkswinkel - Knysna (Timber, Wool & Tools) Bamboo & Jicama Agricultural Projects Foreground Music Sessions Rehabilitation of Dumpsites: Various Townships Food Gardens: Various Creches : Magdaleentjie's , Concordia, Knysna Some of the Projects Completed School Library - Steenberg High School Women on the Move - Crags Eden Community Awards - Knysna Streets Anthology of Poetry - Publication Dreambook for Guitar - Publication Various other Music Publications Resolution of Water PolutionProblem - The Crags Domestic Violence, Human Rights, Constitutional Training for SAPS Dispute in SAPS re en masse promotional exercise from Captain to Superintendent