Symposium
Ubuntu Symposium discusses how to continue our sense of unity
The heart of the City gears up for the Ubuntu Festival from Friday 16 to Monday 19 July and celebrates former president Nelson Mandela’s birthday in fine style throughout the weekend of events.
The Ubuntu Symposium, the final event, takes place on Monday 19 July at the Taj Hotel in Wale Street and explores ways in which Cape Town can harness that wonderful feeling of unity amongst Africans and all visitors that was achieved during the World Cup – Ubuntu at its very best!
The Symposium aims to unpack the concept of Ubuntu and encourage Capetonians to practise Ubuntu at work and at home, within our communities and beyond – to create a better city to live, visit, work, study and invest in.
How do we foster Ubuntu and take forward the legacy of the World Cup? How do we maintain the momentum of the warmth and humanity that was one of the greatest attractions for visitors to the City? Taking into account how important tourism is to our economy, how does practising Ubuntu contribute to Cape Town’s success as a destination, leading to the creation of more jobs and unlocking the city’s full potential? These and many more questions will be discussed and debated during the three hour workshop. A key focus will be to identify the obstacles to practising Ubuntu and explore creative ways to overcome them.
Opening the event will be the powerful voices of Jenny Cargill (CEO BusinessMap), Max Moyo (Head of Emerging Market Development at Allan Gray) and Tony Ehrenreich (regional secretary, Western Cape, of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), who will set the scene of “where we are now.” With their unique understanding of various sectors, each can offer a broad perspective of what is happening in our City and our country.
Using the interactive powers of Open Space Technology, every participant will have a voice at this unique event. The Ubuntu Symposium will be facilitated by award winning actress and theatre maker, Mwenya Kabwe, who will lead participants through a process of finding solutions.
This is no talk shop, but a meeting of minds and collaboration on driving the process forward. We are putting traction on transformation and finding solutions for the social problems that still face us as a city. Undoubtedly, this will be a memorable and very different event, where you set the agenda.
Following the symposium delegates will enjoy delicious refreshments and Afro Jazz at The Rainbow Room in Mandela Rhodes Place, where the great ambience and social drinks will provide the perfect networking opportunity.
You can make a difference, so book now!
Registration starts at 2pm with the symposium taking place from 2:30 to 5:30pm.
The price per person is R200 with a special concession for Cape Town Tourism and Creative Cape Town members. Seating is limited so book early.
021 462 5052 / anita@amybiehl.co.za
More on the speakers:
Mwenya Kabwe is a Zambian theatre maker and facilitator currently living and working in Cape Town with other home bases in New York and Lusaka.
Kabwe is currently a lecturer and course co-ordinator in the Drama Department at the University of Cape Town. Kabwe is also an independent trainer and facilitator with 6 years of staff training curriculum, design and delivery experience for a number of international programmes affiliated with the American based NGO, The Association of Hole in the Wall Camps, in their American, European and African programmes.
Kabwe is a recipient of the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees (KKNK) 2008 award for Best Upcoming Professional Artist and the 2008 Fleur du Cap award for Best Actress for her performance as Alma in Yellowman.
She is also one of the seven Spier Contemporary 2007 winners for a collaborative performance work titled unyawo alunampumlo and was on the Spier Contemporary 2010 selection and curatorial team. Her original performance work has been showcased at the Drill Hall in Johannesburg (Please Do Not Leave Your Baggage Unattended, 2007), Out the Box Festival (for nomads who have considered settling when the travel is enuf, 2007 and 27 Windows, 4 Doors & 2 Taps, 2010) and the UNESCO Chair International Festival of Theatre Schools, Barcelona Spain (AFROCARTOGRAPHY: Traces of Places and all points in between, 2008). Kabwe is a co-founder of manje-manje projects, an arts collective that was launched with an exhibition at the Association for Visual Arts (AVA) Gallery in Cape Town, titled SCRATCHING THE SURFACE VOL 1. Kabwe is also a member of The Bonfire Theatre Company, Phakma Projects and UNIMA South Africa.
Besides writing original poetic texts for her own performance work, Kabwe’s publications include an article in the South African Theatre Journal (SATJ) Vol. 21, (2007) titled Transgressing Boundaries: Making Theatre from an Afropolitan Perspective; as well as Untethered in a Performance of Afrohybrid (April 2008), published in a catalogue for an exhibition titled FLOW at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Kabwe’s writing has also featured in Rootz Africa Magazine Volume 21, 2008 with an article titled Afrophobia Exposed.
Jenny Cargill (CEO Business Map)
Jenny is an author, a protagonist in an award winning film on the struggle against apartheid, founder of a think tank as well as a specialist in transformational investment and black economic empowerment.
Jenny is the author of Trick or Treat: Rethinking black economic empowerment, published in 2010. She offers a unique experiential and analytical journey into the controversial policy to promote black corporate ownership and the mega deals that have characterized South Africa’s efforts to reverse the legacy of apartheid and bring its black citizens centre stage in the mainstream economy.
Her book is underpinned by the same principle that motivated her to join the African National Congress in the early Eighties – notably, that all South Africans should have the opportunity to participate equitably in their society and economy, guaranteed of their human rights and respect. Her experiences as an underground operative, first inside South Africa and them from exile in Zimbabwe, are captured in the film, Memories of Rain, released on the 10th anniversary of democracy at the Berlin Film Festival.
On returning to South Africa, Jenny picked up on her former career, financial journalism, and in 1994, founded BusinessMap SA, which monitored the economic transition as the country sought to integrate into the global economy; and organized dialogues between business and political leaders. BusinessMap became internationally renowned for its penetrative reviews and publications as well as foreign investment and empowerment databases. Regularly quoted in the media, locally and internationally, Jenny was a weekly commentator on an anchor talk-radio show on SAFM. During this time, she was also a guest lecturer, conference speaker and an initiator of an annual international investment conference, Europe-South Africa.
In 2002, Jenny placed Business Map’s research activities in a not-for-profit foundation. Since then she has focused on advisory work, in the main, structuring BEE transactions for South African and multinational corporations, such as BP SA, BHP Billiton, Sasol Mining, Impala Platinum and Discovery Holdings. Her expertise lies in strategic perspectives on economic and investment sustainability, with particular emphasis on societies in transition and people who are economically marginalized.
Jenny was born and educated in Natal; a head girl of her senior school; a mother to one son (Marc 19); an avid gardener passionate about environmental sustainability, as well as her dogs, who are her constant walking companions; swimmer and scuba diver. She believes that South Africa’s future will be defined by how it treats its young citizens and so she focuses her voluntary work on children.
Tony Ehrenreich
Regional secretary, Western Cape, of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)
Max Moyo
Head of Emerging Market Development at Allan Gray. He talks around the country on the relationship between money and identity from the African perspective. Has been in position for 4 years – previously Sales Director of Charter Life: prior to that Deputy GM at Discovery Health and Regional GM at Sanlam Life. Originally from Zimbabwe he came to SA as a young missionary for 7th day Adventist Church then moved into the Business world. His career started with Old Mutual, he then became Marketing Manager at BP, followed by E-Plan at Std Bank and from there moved to Sanlam.
Max describes himself thus: “I am a public speaker and coach focussing on personal Identity, igniting your potential and the relationship between identity and wealth.
Who you are determines what you do with your life, and what you do with your money. When you find yourself unable to make meet your bills at the end of the month, your problem is not money; its identity.
A fool and his money are soon parted. Foolishness is not in the mind but in the heart.
If you do not know who you are you will look for identity in position or possession. When you know who you are, you know your talents and capabilities and therefore are in a position to ignite your full potential.
Through the Allan Gray Circle of Friends I speak to thousands of people across South Africa on Investments and investing. I think Timothy Maurice Webster captures the essence of who I am and what I do: Meet Max Moyo of Allan Gray. Max is a 'Wealth Catalyst' who focuses on helping individuals secure their futures by understanding their identity and its relationship with their finances. He is a thought leader at seeking African principles to drive investment models and economic frameworks.
