Buildings named after three Struggle icons

THE University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) School of Education has officially opened new buildings at its Edgewood campus named after black women Struggle icons and educators Ellen Kuzwayo, Phyllis Naidoo and Dulcie September.

The state-of-the-art facilities, with lecture theatres, staff offices and a commercial space, were opened at a ceremony in Pinetown on Saturday.

Along with the launch of the completed Ellen Kuzwayo Building, the university named the largest lecture theatre in the building after Phyllis Naidoo.

Kuzwayo was a women’s rights activist and politician, and was awarded an honorary doctorate of Law from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1987, and the Order of Meritorious Service by Nelson Mandela in 1999. She died in 2006.

Naidoo was a was a lawyer, university lecturer, author and activist, a member of the Non-European Unity Movement, Natal Indian Congress, the SACP and uMkhonto we Sizwe. She died in 2013.

A third building which has been reconfigured into a conference centre was named after September. She was an anti-apartheid activist, born in Athlone, Cape Town, and assassinated outside the ANC’s Paris office in 1988.

The School of Education dean, Professor Thabo Msibi, said: “UKZN aims to be the premier university of African scholarship, offering quality, decolonised education to graduates on the national and international stage. In order to enable this, the university was privileged to receive infrastructure funding from the Department of Higher Education and Training.”

According to Msibi, the naming is the culmination of a three-year project around the decolonisation of UKZN spaces.

Six canvas paintings created by education students will be housed in the facilities. Students were encouraged to be a part of the “Make Your Mark in Paint” initiative, curated by Dr Antoinette D’amant and Professor Daisy Pillay.

As they came from writing their exams, students were invited to make their mark on canvases using paintbrushes and paint.