Khanya Winter School: Rebuilding Communities and Solidarity
This year, Khanya College celebrates 26 years of hosting its Annual Winter School on 15 – 19 June 2025. While modest in scale, the Winter School represents a significant moment in the ongoing work of building movements that struggle for an egalitarian society in South Africa. It also reflects the dynamic relationship between Khanya College and the various social movements it works with. The School provides a window into the changes within the working class and the impact of the government’s ongoing neoliberal programme. After 30 years of democracy, South Africa remains one of the most unequal societies in the world.
Since its establishment in 1986, Khanya College has been committed to building solidarity within the working class and promoting citizenship and social justice through an approach grounded in Education for Liberation. The College strives to contribute to peaceful social transformation, and all its programmes aim to nurture a culture of reading and writing, empower people through skills development, organise for social justice, and promote feminist social change.
This year’s Winter School takes place on the eve of the All-College Conference (ACC), which brings together all of Khanya’s constituencies. In collaboration with the Khanya Board, the ACC plays a strategic role in shaping the College’s direction for the period ahead. The last ACC was held in 2014, shortly after the Marikana massacre, and resulted in the development of Khanya’s current Strategic Perspectives. (The conference planned for 2020 was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.) The discussions and outcomes of this year’s Winter School will directly inform the deliberations of the upcoming ACC.
Aims of the Winter School
- Strengthen, develop and empower activists to understand the world in which they live and act;
- Promote self-education among activists through popular education methods that encourage reading, writing, and critical thinking;
- Support the development of theory, analysis, strategy, and tactics;
- Foster unity among activists and the working class to build networks and advance peaceful social justice efforts;
- Strengthen internationalism and engage with art, literature, and culture as part of movement building.
Photo Gallery of Past Winter Schools
Theme: Rebuilding Communities and Solidarity
The theme of this year’s Winter School is Rebuilding Communities and Solidarity — a broad, overarching theme that will likely require further exploration beyond the School. The community is where the working class lives and where its social reproduction takes place daily. This year’s theme provides an opportunity to revisit and unpack the meaning of ‘community’, to explore what constitutes a community, and to examine the social processes that shape it.
The School will focus on key social institutions involved in social reproduction, such as family households, schools, churches, orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) centres, and others. It will also consider gendered relationships, the role of women, parenting, and relationships between children, caregivers, and neighbours. Family households, in particular, serve as microcosms of broader social relations and offer insight into the conditions of the working class.
A central focus will be the breakdown of social bonds within communities. What forms the social fabric that holds communities together? How have these bonds changed over the past 30 years, and how can they be rebuilt or strengthened today? Through this theme, the School will reflect on the nature of community ties and begin the process of reimagining solidarity in the current context.
