May is month of celebrating Africa at UCT

Professor Thandabantu Nhlapo, the deputy vice-chancellor responsible for internationalisation and the Afropolitan thrust at UCT, said: "A single day does not allow us to express properly the importance the university attaches to internationalisation in the first place, and to the transformative aspects of the Afropolitan vision in particular," professor Thandabantu Nhlapo, the deputy vice-chancellor responsible for internationalisation and the Afropolitan thrust at UCT, said.

Africa Day is the annual commemoration of the founding of the Organisation of African Unity on 25 May 1963. "Celebrating Africa Month at UCT allows for deeper reflection on our engagement as a university in continental issues and debates, in line with our Afropolitan vision. The extended period enables us to think of more creative ways to wear our African identity, to acknowledge the positive developments happening on the continent, and to celebrate the work that UCT academics, researchers and alumni are doing in Africa," professor Nhlapo said.

Restoring the pride in Africa

On 15 May Dr. Matlotleng Matlou of the African Institute of SA will deliver a talk on restoring the pride in Africa with the African Union; on 21 May cellphones in social transformation in Africa: Insights from Ongoing Research, will be the topic of a lecture by professor Francis Nyamnjoh from the School of Gender and African Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics.

On 24 May African culture, human rights, constitutions and law reform, will be the topic of a panel discussion featuring Tom Zwart of Utrecht University, speaking on cultural sensitivity in law reform; Sindiso Mnisi-Weeks of UCT's Law Faculty, on the Traditional Courts Bill; poet, sculptor and cultural activist Pitika Ntuli, on personhood and the African world view; Kwesi Prah, on culture, rights and the political order; and Salvatore Mancuso, a comparative lawyer, on the role of indigenous African methods of dispute resolution in a democracy.