From the outside looking in

Within a few years of its establishment, the CFT started sending grantees in the opposite direction – from the UK and Holland to South Africa. The objective was to build links with those opposing apartheid from within the church and to gain a deeper understanding of how they could support that opposition. The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust (JRCT) funded these visits and became the core donor to CFT in the UK. JRCT, a Quaker trust supporting people addressing the root causes of conflict and injustice, made numerous grants to support anti-apartheid efforts in South Africa from the 1960s through to the advent of democracy. It then focused mainly on peace and justice work in the UK and Ireland.

The early grantees from Europe were diverse in their backgrounds and experience, and this diversity was reflected in the facets of South African life to which they were exposed and the observations they made. One of the first grantees was OKR4 Claus Kemper (1970), Superintendent of the Overseas Ministry to German Congregations of the Lutheran Church. His programme focused on addressing church meetings and theological colleges, such as the Federal Theological Seminary (Fedsem), at Alice, near the University of Fort Hare. In 1975, religious lecturer Peggy Holroyde stayed with several families in Indian-designated areas of Durban and Johannesburg. While the wretchedness of life in African townships and the luxury of white suburbs were widely broadcast in European media, Peggy saw how marginalisation and inequality manifested within and across communities of Indian descent. She visited a Tamil couple and their seven children living under canvas.