Challenging Inequality: Social Action in an Ever Changing World - The Community Sector

The Community Sector: Ethics and Overview

ACOSS 2011 NATIONAL CONFERENCE
29th – 30th March

Renée Koonin
General Manager: The Housing Connection

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Introduction

I have no doubt that your first reaction when you read that I was to participate in the opening plenary session of the ACOSS conference was: Who on earth is she and why is she giving this address? I know this, because this was my response precisely when I was invited to speak. You have to be kidding! I do not have a high profile, I am not a politician, I am not the CEO of a major non-government organization, not a noted author, nor have I achieved high office. Then I thought about it a little more deeply and came to understand that I do indeed have a voice that is important to hear during a conference focused on social action and challenging inequality; a central event for policy makers, researchers, those engaged in social services and advocacy and committed to the values that guide us.

So, what informs what I have to say?

• I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa to parents who were refugees from Nazi Germany.
• I grew up under the Apartheid regime and was exposed from an early age to the impacts of inequality and oppression in that society. I was taken into townships and encouraged to ask questions about why Black people were glaringly disadvantaged? Why were Black men and women not allowed to live together as husband and wife and why were members of the security police raiding their dingy premises to enforce this law? And why were their children were being reared far away, in so called Homelands?
• I began my professional career during the turmoil of the Soweto riots that marked the start of the youth uprising against Apartheid in 1976; 1977 was the year Steve Biko died in police custody – turbulent times indeed. Later that year, I moved to Cape Town and worked there until 1983 in the townships of Athlone, Langa, Nyanga and Guguletu, confronting the oppressive realities of detention without trial, the demolition of squatter camps in which the most impoverished people struggled for existence, the banning of organizations deemed in opposition to the regime and the almost total absence of services for Black people who suffered every day the inequities of Apartheid. These were dark days when the triumph of a liberated country hosting the successful football World Cup was unimaginable.
• As a young worker confronted with such profound injustice, it was an enormous challenge to find a way to play any meaningful role. Working for the government in that context was unthinkable and it was to the community not-for-profit sector that I turned. Many community organizations, of course, simply toed the official line, working within the suffocating confines of total racial discrimination. But there were others that were up to the challenge of working for meaningful change and committed to the creation of services, even in the most unpromising circumstances – organizations that found a way to be relevant and sustainable. They were capable of remaining true to their values in the most adverse environment and despite government policy. These organizations made a difference.
• I have spent almost my entire working life in the non-government not-for-profit community sector – 27 years in Australia – seeking to challenge and address social inequality in all its guises, much of it in the disability sector.

I am therefore speaking from the coalface – from the personal and professional perspective of somebody who has experienced the consequences of injustice and structural inequality and who has worked to redress it. My voice is that of a witness and of a participant who has worked with passion in even the most challenging political and economic circumstances. And, I am a practitioner who has consciously chosen to work in the not-for-profit community sector because of my understanding of and commitment to its values and strengths. I am therefore one of the approximately 200 000 community service workers employed across the country with a vision similar to mine – a society based on equality, fairness and social justice – and a belief in the role of the community sector in achieving this goal.

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