Apartheid was one of the most evil social projects the world has ever seen.
Apartheid was a system of racial segregation and discrimination that controlled every part of life in South Africa. Lasting from 1948 to 1994, its impact is still felt today, even though the system officially ended over 3 decades ago.
Since the 1950s, Christian Aid has stood in solidarity with communities in South Africa, supporting them through decades of struggle and their ongoing battle for justice and equality. This commitment has evolved over time, leading to partnerships that prioritise local leadership and grassroots action. ACT Ubumbano, formed in 2019, embodies this approach—helping communities not only confront the lasting impacts of apartheid but also tackle a wide range of social injustices. By supporting, mobilising and amplifying local voices they are creating real, lasting change from the ground up.
ACT Ubumbano fights injustice every day—but lasting change needs action at every level. Join Christian Aid’s Restore campaign and call on the UK government to cancel unjust debts holding communities back.
Who are ACT Ubumbano?
ACT Ubumbano is a loose network of organisations in Southern Africa and Europe working for social, economic and environmental justice. It helps these organisations working with communities to speak out against injustice, support local activism and challenge unfair power structures. The work focuses on tackling inequality, fighting climate change and standing up for gender and reproductive rights.
How does the partnership between Christian Aid and ACT Ubumbano work?
Christian Aid supports ACT Ubumbano through both funding and shared efforts to create lasting change. The financial support helps grow and strengthen their locally led projects, deepening the practice in communities of taking action and drive change in their own lives. But it’s not just about the money – Christian Aid and ACT Ubumbano also work together to amplify local voices, strengthen activism and push for justice in a world that often neglects those on the margins.
To learn more about the impact of this collaboration, we caught up with Ashley Green-Thompson, the Director of ACT Ubumbano. In our conversation, he shared insights on their mission, the powerful partnership with Christian Aid and how together, we are working toward a more just and equitable world.
Can you please introduce yourself and share a little more about how you got involved with ACT Ubumbano?
I'm originally from KwaZulu Natal, which is on the east coast of South Africa, but the big city lured me many, many years ago. In terms of my interests, I enjoy music, mainly jazz and reggae. I also run-I’ve completed The Comrades Ultra Marathon ten times! I've got four boys and my beautiful wife back home in Johannesburg.
I've been living in Johannesburg, I think, since the late eighties. I came to university, but instead of being in the library, we were often confronting the police about some of the apartheid crime that was being perpetrated.
I joined an organisation called the Young Christian Students, which basically allowed my faith to grow and inform my social justice activism. I ended up working full time for the organisation. And from there I kind of fell into different roles. I worked in the 1994 election for the IEC, the first Independent Electoral Commission in South Africa. I joined various NGOs along the way, and I worked for the Catholic Bishops Conference as head of the Justice and Peace Department.
And so, I think my entire life has been defined by working in some form of social activism.
Can you tell us a little bit about ACT Ubumbano and its mission?
ACT Ubumbano means solidarity in the Zulu language from in South Africa. So in about 2016, I was hired by Christian Aid and other Protestant agencies from the North to act as a change manager.
I think that the European partners were engaging with the Southern African partners to see how to redefine and find a new way of being in solidarity with each other, in light of shifting global trends and reduced funding.
It was a brave step because they invited the local partners to have a conversation about what this would look like. And so, without predetermining the outcome, I was able to manage and facilitate the conversation between these stakeholders and what emerged out of that - all in the search for a new way of doing solidarity.
What emerged was ACT Ubumbano, It's effectively a space that holds the relationship between organisations of the global north, of Europe, and from Southern Africa to explore new ways of being in solidarity with each other, to explore how to deepen our social justice practice by turning the critique on ourselves and saying: 'what in my practice is making me complicit in maintaining systems of injustice?'.
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Your work at ACT Ubumbano focuses on amplifying the voices of communities facing injustice. Can you share some of the key issues you’re tackling right now?
ACT Ubumbano has at the core of its practice the convening of a solidarity hub to reflect on the struggle for economic, environmental and gender justice. Perhaps it's best illustrated if I briefly describe the most recent meeting that we did.
90 activists from eight countries in southern Africa came together in Johannesburg for two days of conversations. The only thing that's set on the agenda is a provocation by a couple of actors who are performing a provocative satirical piece by Mike Van Graan, an award winning South African playwright. And they perform for about half an hour at the beginning, and put a whole bunch of questions about social justice and transformation onto the table.
The participants then go away and share their own experiences. They identify what are the key issues that they'd like to discuss more deeply. So, you craft an agenda around the issues and concerns that the participants have put on the table, and they've got this nice reference they can go back to, which is the provocation piece. There's no expert input in that entire two day session. All the insights, the knowledge is generated by a group of people sharing the lived experience.
Apartheid was a system built on deep injustice. How did its impact shape the fight for justice in South Africa?
I think it was Marcus Garvey who said that a nation without knowledge of its past is like a tree without roots. So, you're never going to know how to navigate a future if you don't have a knowledge and an appreciation of whence you've come. And so, I mean, I think we've achieved some incredible successes, right? We've defeated apartheid, we've ended the Cold War. I think a lot of those things are driven by activism. The anti-apartheid movement was global. It was probably one of the most significant movements of all time, with perhaps the civil rights movement in the States. And so we don't have to go back and try to replicate them.
But I think if you do a deep dive into what made those things work, there wasn't a project officer that was expecting biannual reports and audited statements. It was about people connecting at a very human level and sharing a common desire to see something that was more caring and more just. And the one thing that South Africa's experience has taught is-in fact, the region. Southern Africa has taught—is that liberation isn't a moment, it isn't a spot on the timeline of history. I think that we're constantly engaged in struggle to push back against systems that dehumanize. And so how we look to those who will take the struggle further once we've become part of the earth again is a big challenge.
You were part of a spontaneous march celebrating Mandela’s release. Can you tell us what that moment felt like?
In 1990, Mandela was released from prison. His colleagues, his comrades, had been released earlier, but Mandela was the big one, right? And I think it was around a week before my 21st birthday in 1990, in February.
I can't remember clearly, but I might have been still a student. And I used to represent my student organisation in the Area Committee of the United Democratic Front, which was this internal resistance movement.
I remember when the announcements of the changes were made, people had a spontaneous celebration in the street. There was an instance in Johannesburg where there was a white bus driver, I think, who couldn't deal with the crowds and knocked some people with his bus or his truck or something, and the people beat him up. So there was this—there was almost this conflictual side of things because it was spontaneous, and there was no control.
So we decided that we were going to show our celebration in a very disciplined way. We met in the center of Johannesburg at the Central Methodist Church. Within an hour, we had planned a protest—not a protest, a celebratory march. Some people were dispatched to get loudhailers, to get, you know, all the various things you needed to corral the march.
I was part of a group of—I think it was about five young people, I think the energetic ones. We went to a local student residence in the city center and started doing the dance, the toyi toyi. And of course, when people heard us doing it, they all came downstairs. We then moved up to another place where there was a high density of people. By the time we got that much organised, there must have been 10,000 people, and it was organised on the spot. There was no preparation or anything like that.
It was the joy of the time. We never thought that this would happen so quickly. For people who were older than I, I can't imagine some of the despair that they might have gone through when things didn’t seem to have the possibility of change. And yet, we were witnessing this firsthand.
It's a blessing because I've been able to see the horrors of apartheid. And frankly, I didn't suffer nearly as much as so many people who lost family members, people who were maimed and injured, spent years in jail, who were killed.
It seems we both agree that Christian Aid and Act Ubumbano’s partnership goes beyond far funding. What do you believe true solidarity looks like in our work together?
Christian Aid were one of the founding funders of Act Ubumbano and continue to act as one of those founding funders. We actually have an official position on the board, which I think rotates between the three partners. But I think our relationship is about a lot more than the contribution of funding. It's a space to have conversations. We bounce ideas. We share perspectives on what it means to be genuinely in solidarity with community struggles in a world that is becoming increasingly hostile to those who are at the margins of society.
And so there's a strong shared value base that goes beyond just the funding. Of course, we'd always like more funding, right? But that's not what defines our relationship.
I think this kind of global solidarity arrangement and relationships strengthens the ability to shift practice globally. And each of us has a role to play in that.
Finally, what gives you hope for the future?
There are times when I feel completely hopeless. I must confess, I look at the magnitude of the problems, and I think we are never going to get out of this.
And then I spend time with my boys, my sons, and I see—I listen to the one who's a poet, and he performs slam poetry at various places. And I think, if he's still willing to engage in these very difficult conversations, that means others like him are, too.
And so, it's not the cliché of ‘the future is our young people.’ But if you engage in meaningful conversation with young people in particular, you find that there is a willingness to explore a future that isn't consumptive and isn't just about ruining the earth. It's actually about creating a coexistence that goes beyond what we've ever experienced.
That's where I find my hope—when we convene those spaces. The solidarity hubs bring together people from such diverse backgrounds, from eight countries in Southern Africa and sometimes from abroad.
There are a lot of inspirational people in the liberation theology environment. I had the great opportunity to know Albert Nolan, who died a few years ago. He was the author of Jesus Before Christianity, one of the seminal books in my formation.
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