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Open Society Foundation for South Africa | |
| Building a Global Alliance for Open Society |
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OSF-SA partners with government and communities to promote safety Since 2008 the OSF-SA has been working in partnership with the departments of Community Safety in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Gauteng to support three pilot projects in each province. The three sites are Elsies River, Nompumelelo, and Orange Farm. The pilot project has engaged government departments and community stakeholders to focus on the dual demands of immediate crime prevention and long term safety promotion. On 2 February the Elsies River Multi-stakeholder Forum was launched. Please click here to read the speech delivered by the OSF-SA Executive Director. For information on each site please click on the links below: Elsies River (831KB PDF) Nompumelelo (814KB PDF) Orange Farm (781KB PDF)
2012 OSF-SA Board meeting dates First board meeting - 14 April The closing date for applications to be reviewed at the first board meeting is Thursday 1 March 2012. Second board meeting - 28 July The closing date for applictions will be Wednesday 13 June 2012. Final board meeting - 24 November The closing date for applications will be Friday 12 October 2012. Paralegal Manual 2011 Published by Education and Training Unit & The Black Sash Biennial Report 2010/2011 Click here to view the report. An election resource for journalists
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The OSF-SA is committed to promoting the values, institutions and practices of an open, non-racial and non-sexist, democratic, civil society. It works for a vigorous and autonomous civil society in which the rule of law and divergent opinions are respected.
The Open Society Foundation for South Africa is a grant-making organisation, and is a member of the International Soros Foundations Network.
The Open Society Foundation was founded by George Soros in April 1993 to promote the ideal of an open society in South Africa; an ideal which includes democracy, a market economy, a strong civil society, respect for minorities and tolerance for divergent opinions.
The foundation has been established in the conviction that the collapse of a closed, apartheid society will not lead automatically to the emergence of an open society in South Africa. In its work the foundation will encourage new approaches and ideas which will contribute to the creating of an open society in South Africa.
George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary on August 12, 1930. He survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest and left communist Hungary in 1947 for England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics (LSE). While a student at LSE, Soros became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper, who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his professional and philanthropic activities.
In 1956, Soros moved to the United States, where he began to accumulate a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed. Today he is chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC.
Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979, when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa. Today he is chairman of the Open Society Institute (OSI) and the founder of a network of philanthropic organizations that are active in more than 50 countries. Based primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union-but also in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and the United States-these foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. They work closely with OSI to develop and implement a range of programs focusing on civil society, education, media, public health, and human rights as well as social, legal, and economic reform. In recent years, OSI and the Soros foundations network have spent more than $400 million annually to support projects in these and other focus areas. In 1992, Soros founded Central European University, with its primary campus in Budapest.
Soros is the author of eight books:
The numerous non-profit foundations and organisations created and funded by George Soros are linked together in an informal network, the Soros foundations network. At the heart of this network are 24 autonomous national foundations. They are located in Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Haiti, Hungary, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Ukraine and Yugoslavia.
The foundations share the common mission of supporting the development of open societies. To this end, they support a range of programmes and initiatives in education, civil society, independent media, Internet and e-mail communications, publishing, human rights and social, legal, and economic reform. The Open Society Institute - New York and the Open Society Institute - Budapest assist these foundations and organisations by creating programmes on issues common to two or more foundations and by providing administrative, financial, and technical support. Other entities created by George Soros include the Central European University, the International Science Foundation, and the Open Media Research Institute.
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