Dear Friends,

On Saturday, 12 March we held our first face to face public meeting where we shared the origins and purpose of the Rivonia Circle, and the work we intend to do. We are going to hold more such meetings in major centres around the country, but more on that later.

I am writing this email is to thank all of you who have subscribed, indicated your willingness to be part of our work and to those who attended Saturday’s meeting either in person or online. All of us at RC are very grateful for your interest, and for taking time to be part of our proceedings.

I also wish to apologize for the technical glitches we experienced in our livestreaming service, which resulted in the collapse of the broadcast. The good news is that the recording will shortly be available and will be sent to you on email in a few days. Please email us your thoughts once you have watched it.

It was satisfying to see a diverse group of South Africans united in their belief that we have the potential and capability to reshape our country, and to make it both prosperous and just. It was clear in the meeting that while we must carefully consider what we do next, we must act with speed and urgency as time is not on our side. Our most pressing problems are deepening every day, with devastating consequences for millions of South Africans.

For our actions to be meaningful, they must be grounded on clear principles, values upon which we can all agree. As the Rivonia Circle we have chosen the social democratic values of Freedom, Equality, Justice, and Solidarity. In future engagements, we will expand on what we believe these mean in the South African context and solicit your inputs in determining how they should inform the national priorities we identify, and the solutions we develop together.

In the coming weeks and months, we will accelerate our Democracy Builder program by visiting more communities, more often, and supporting local activists and community members in developing new solutions to priority issues affecting them. As we have set out to do, they will also get to weigh in on systemic, national issues that make it difficult for local problems to be resolved.

Please let us know if you want to be part of Democracy Builder either by inviting us to your area (info@rivoniacircle.org ), or training to be a facilitator as we visit more locations around the country. On our website you can also choose to be an active Contributor or Associate of the Rivonia Circle.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Songezo