The Trust

The decision to create a Trust followed shortly after Harold Wolpe´s unexpected death. On Prof. Kadar Asmal´s advice the family decided to create a fund. The first step was to hold an international conference that would both celebrate his contribution to intellectual thought and in turn contribute to a discussion on current issues facing South Africa.

A highly successful conference was held in April 1997, the cost of which was carried by a contribution from SIDA (Swedish International Development Corporation Agency). The title of the conference was The Political Economy of Social Change in South Africa’. Except for Professor Dan O´Meara´s contribution, none of the papers were published but a full transcript of the papers are under preparation and notice will be given of them when available.

The Fund had a generous contribution from Liberty Life and a donation from a personal friend in London. This amount then enabled Fund to promote a series of forum meetings held in Cape Town. To date, 25 meetings have been held, covering a wide range of topics. Latterly a rapporteur has captured the content of the meetings as many of the speakers have spoken from notes and not written material. The transcript of what is available will be found under Cape Town Forum.

For many reasons, including the incorporation of intellectuals into government, there has been a dearth of intellectual debate throughout the country. The thrust of the Trust has been to promote such debate in the spirit of Harold Wolpe´s incisive thinking and ability to synthesise material. It was clear that our efforts were reaching only a small group of people, although it did include some parliamentarians. The only way forward would be through extending the range of our activities. To this end, a funding agency was successfully approached and a grant for three years was made at the end of 2001.

The Fund is now able to extend its range of activities and already has an extremely commendable partnership with The Centre for Civil Society, University of Natal Durban. During 2002 the Centre has hosted 8 forum meetings at the university in Durban, attracting large audiences.  The Trust also held the first Memorial Lecture at the Old Assembly Hall (the original Parliament) with a lecture by Prof. Jakes Gerwel, formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Western Cape and Director General for former President Mandela. His speech  is set out here.

We have a partner in Johannesburg the Sociology of Work Unit, University of the Witwatersrand. This Unit will hold a workshop of the findings of research on different aspects of the labour market and carried out over the past three years. The findings of the workshop will be reviewed by Professor Michael Burawoy, President of the American Sociological Association. The final report will then be disseminated in a variety of ways. We are also negotiating with other partners, both in Johannesburg and elsewhere. We hope to hold a conference later in the year and engage in some publications. It is also our intention to reach a wider audience through the television medium and to this end we are currently engaged in negotiations to set up a project. Details of this will appear under the heading of Future Events.

Our patron is the former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela. Our Trustees were initially high profiled people but owing to pressure of work or change of domicile some of them have resigned and the present group of Trustees will be augmented at its next meeting. Currently the Trustees are: Professor Kadar Asmal, Minister of Education, Mrs. Naledi Pandor, Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces, Professor Marcus Balintulo, Rector andVice-Chancellor, Cape Technikon, Mrs. Rozenda Hendrickse, Lecturer in Management Studies, Cape Technikon, Professor Saleem Badat, CEO of the Council on Higher Education, and members of the Wolpe family, viz. Dr. AnnMarie Wolpe, Peta Wolpe, Tessa Wolpe and Nicholas Wolpe.