Participants at the Winter Schools
The participants at the Winter School have mostly come from South Africa, Southern Africa, East Africa (Uganda, Kenya and Sudan) ; and other have come from Europe (Finland and Sweden), Australia and India.
All sectors of society have participated in the School, farmworkers, sex workers, casual workers, unionists, community and social movement organisations, youth, women, community health workers, ecumenical activists, environmentalists and feminists, and progressive ngos amongst others.
In addition to the trade unionists in the early period of the school, and the rise of the new social movements, other key constituencies to the school have included farmworkers, sexworkers, community health workers and waste reclaimers. For a period Khanya College was the Secretariat of the Farmworkers Network Southern Africa, and they regularly participated in the Winter School.
Together with Khanya’s support the Gauteng Community Health workers Forum was formed in 2017, with its own Constitution. The GCHWF first approached Khanya for assistance in 2009. As volunteer workers, they received a stipend for local ngos, but no recognition from the Department of Health. In 2020, the GCHWFs were victorious and became permanent employees of the Gauteng Department of Health.
The CHWs were the largest constituency at the School from 2013 to 2021.
Similarly, Khanya has assisted the waste reclaimers to become an independent organization. The reclaimers play an important role in the environmental chain, recycling and in the city and society in general. In 2017 the African Reclaimers Organisation was formed at the Jozi Book Fair in Newtown.
From 2002 to 2013/14, participants were from the SADC region - Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, SA, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe) were predominantly from public sector unions (PSI affiliates), farmworkers, community and women activists, environmentalists and progressive ngos.
In the course of a long solidarity partnership with Afrika Gruppenar from Sweden since the late 1990s which continues, there have also been regular participants from the Folk Schools in Gothenburg and Stockholm, in Sweden. This assisted in building non-racialism and internationalism at the School.