Myrtle Witbooi
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Myrtle Witbooi
Myrtle Witbooi (''née'' Michels, 31 August 1947 – 16 January 2023) was a South African labour activist. She co-founded the first labour organisation for South African domestic workers, the South African Domestic Workers' Union, and served as general secretary of its successor, the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union, and as the first president of the global International Domestic Workers Federation. Personal and work life Witbooi was born in 1947 in the town of Genadendal, the daughter of a carpenter and a cook. She became a domestic worker in Cape Town when she was 17 and worked for a family for 12 years before leaving to become a shop steward in a factory. In 1973 she married Cedric Francois Witbooi, an electrical technician; they had three children. Classified as "coloured" under South Africa's apartheid laws, she had to live apart from her family while in domestic service. The couple parted in the 1980s because of her long hours in union work, and h ...
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Genadendal
Genadendal is a town in the Western Cape province of South Africa, built on the site of the oldest mission station in the country. It was originally known as Baviaanskloof, but was renamed Genadendal in 1806. Genadendal was the place of the first Teachers' Training College in South Africa, founded in 1838. Location Genadendal (Valley of Grace) is approximately 90 minutes drive east of Cape Town in the Riviersonderend Mountains, in the Overberg region. History Genadendal has a rich spiritual history and was the first mission station in southern Africa. It was founded by George Schmidt, a German missionary of the Moravian Church, who settled on 23 April 1738 in Baviaanskloof (Ravine of the Baboons) in the Riviersonderend Valley and began to evangelise among the Khoi people. The Moravian Church (originated in 1457 in Moravia, today part of the Czech Republic) had a particular zeal for mission work. Many thought that mission work among the Khoisan was attempting the impossible, bu ...
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Community House (Salt River, Cape Town)
Community House situated in Salt River, Cape Town is a unique and historic site of living heritage. It has always been known as a site of activism from around the mid-1980s which has shaped and continues to shape the socio-political landscape of its extended communities. The building itself houses NGO's and Trade Unions as well as a labour and community history museum centered on the Trade Union Library and its archive. It presently houses twenty-four organizations that focus on labour research, popular education, gender advocacy, HIV/AIDS education, environmental issues, youth development, media production and union organization. History In the mid-1980s, anti-apartheid trade unions and civic and service organizations began searching for a new headquarters for their resistance campaign.The Archival Platform: Community House. http://www.archivalplatform.org/news/entry/community_house1/ ccessed 21 October 2014/ref> The Western Province Council of Churches (WPCC) and an NGO, t ...
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Domestic Workers
A domestic worker is a person who works within a residence and performs a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly dependents, and other household errands. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service". Some domestic workers live within their employer's household. In some cases, the contribution and skill of servants whose work encompassed complex management tasks in large households have been highly valued. However, for the most part, domestic work tends to be demanding and is commonly considered to be undervalued, despite often being necessary. Although legislation protecting domestic workers is in place in many countries, it is often not extensively enforced. In many jurisdictions, domestic work is poorly regulated and domestic workers are subject ...
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South African Women Activists
South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz'' ("south"), possibly related to the same Proto-Indo-European root that the word ''sun'' derived from. Some languages describe south in the same way, from the fact that it is the direction of the sun at noon (in the Northern Hemisphere), like Latin meridies 'noon, south' (from medius 'middle' + dies 'day', ), while others describe south as the right-hand side of the rising sun, like Biblical Hebrew תֵּימָן teiman 'south' from יָמִין yamin 'right', Aramaic תַּימנַא taymna from יָמִין yamin 'right' and Syriac ܬܰܝܡܢܳܐ taymna from ܝܰܡܝܺܢܳܐ yamina (hence the name of Yemen, the land to the south/right of the Levant). South is sometimes abbreviated as S. Navigation By convention, the ''bottom or down-f ...
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2023 Deaths
This is a list of lists of deaths of notable people, organized by year. New deaths articles are added to their respective month (e.g., Deaths in ) and then linked below. 2025 2024 2023 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1995 1994 1993 1992 1991 1990 1989 1988 1987 1986 Earlier years ''Deaths in years earlier than this can usually be found in the main articles of the years.'' See also * Lists of deaths by day * Deaths by year (category) {{DEFAULTSORT:deaths by year ...
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1947 Births
It was the first year of the Cold War, which would last until 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Events January * January–February – Winter of 1946–47 in the United Kingdom: The worst snowfall in the country in the 20th century causes extensive disruption of travel. Given the low ratio of private vehicle ownership at the time, it is mainly remembered in terms of its effects on the railway network. * January 1 – The ''Canadian Citizenship Act, 1946, Canadian Citizenship Act'' comes into effect, providing a Canadian citizenship separate from British law. * January 4 – First issue of weekly magazine ''Der Spiegel'' published in Hanover, Germany, edited by Rudolf Augstein. * January 10 – The United Nations adopts a resolution to take control of the free city of Trieste. * January 15 – Elizabeth Short, an aspiring actress nicknamed the "Black Dahlia", is found brutally murdered in a vacant lot in Los Angeles; the mysterious case is never solv ...
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AFL-CIO
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) is a national trade union center that is the largest federation of unions in the United States. It is made up of 61 national and international unions, together representing nearly 15 million active and retired workers. The AFL-CIO engages in substantial political spending and activism, typically in support of progressive and pro-labor policies. The AFL-CIO was formed in 1955 when the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations merged after a long estrangement. Union membership in the US peaked in 1979, when the AFL-CIO's affiliated unions had nearly twenty million members. From 1955 until 2005, the AFL-CIO's member unions represented nearly all unionized workers in the United States. Several large unions split away from AFL-CIO and formed the rival Change to Win Federation in 2005, although a number of those unions have since re-affiliated, and many locals of Chang ...
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International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is one of the first and oldest List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agencies of the UN. The ILO has Member states of the International Labour Organization, 187 member states: 186 out of 193 Member states of the United Nations, UN member states plus the Cook Islands. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with around 40 field offices around the world, and employs some 3,381 staff across 107 nations, of whom 1,698 work in technical cooperation programmes and projects. The ILO's standards are aimed at ensuring accessible, productive, and sustainable Work (human activity), work worldwide in conditions of freedom, equity, security and dignity. They are set forth in List of International Labour Organization Conventions, 189 convent ...
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Houses Of Parliament, Cape Town
The Houses of Parliament in Cape Town serve as the seat of Parliament of South Africa, South Africa's national legislature. As the country's legislative Capital city, capital, Cape Town hosts this historically significant complex consisting of three main sections: the original 1884 building housing the National Council of Provinces (originally the Senate of South Africa, Senate), the 1920s extension containing committee rooms and offices, and the 1980s expansion accommodating the National Assembly of South Africa, National Assembly. The building has been designated a National Heritage Site by the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), receiving Grade 1 heritage status, the highest level of recognition. The complex suffered severe damage in a devastating 2022 Parliament of South Africa fire, fire on 2 January 2022, with restoration efforts ongoing as of 2024. History Early meeting places The establishment of a parliament in the Cape Colony was approved by Queen Vic ...
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1994 South African General Election
General elections were held in South Africa between 26 and 29 April 1994. The elections were the first in which citizens of all races were allowed to take part, and were therefore also the first held with universal suffrage. The election was conducted under the direction of the Independent Electoral Commission (South Africa), Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), and marked the culmination of the four-year process that Negotiations to end apartheid in South Africa, ended apartheid. Millions queued in lines over a four-day voting period. Altogether, 19,726,579 votes were counted, and 193,081 were rejected as invalid. As widely expected, the African National Congress (ANC), whose slate incorporated the labour confederation Congress of South African Trade Unions, COSATU and the South African Communist Party (SACP), won a sweeping victory, taking 62 percent of the vote, just short of the two-thirds majority required to unilaterally amend the Interim Constitution of South Africa, ...
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African National Congress
The African National Congress (ANC) is a political party in South Africa. It originated as a liberation movement known for its opposition to apartheid and has governed the country since 1994, when the 1994 South African general election, first post-apartheid election resulted in Nelson Mandela being elected as President of South Africa. Cyril Ramaphosa, the incumbent national president, has served as president of the ANC since 18 December 2017. Founded on 8 January 1912 in Bloemfontein as the South African Native National Congress, the organisation was formed to advocate for the rights of Bantu peoples of South Africa, black South Africans. When the National Party (South Africa), National Party government came to power 1948 South African general election, in 1948, the ANC's central purpose became to oppose the new government's policy of institutionalised apartheid. To this end, its methods and means of organisation shifted; its adoption of the techniques of mass politics, and ...
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