Nair name graces education project
Activist wanted dignity for all people
name and educational legacy of antiapartheid activist Billy Nair is to live on through an education district and help desk named after him in Tongaat, KwaZulu-Natal.
The Billy Nair Circuit, formerly Tongaat Education Circuit, was launched alongside the Billy Nair Education Desk in the Tongaat Town Hall on Thursday. Nair, a former Robben Island political prisoner and National Assembly member, died in 2008.
His sister, Angela, represented the Nair family at the launch, which was also attended by KwaZulu-Natal education MEC Senzo Mchunu and former Constitutional Court justice Zak Yacoob.
Circuit manager Selvan Chetty said the decision to rename it was taken because “we thought that we could no longer just be an entity but needed an identity”.
“With a name like Billy Nair, we are hoping that we will get teachers and the community to aspire to some of the aspirations that comrade Billy had.” A total of 38 schools fall under the circuit.
Several businesses have pledged bursaries and teacher-training support worth more than R1-million for the Billy Nair Education Desk. “We believe the education desk can be used to provide resources and support in areas where the Department of Education might not necessarily be able to assist,” said Chetty.
Yacoob called the education projects a fitting tribute, adding that Nair was a committed, simple person who wanted dignity for all people and “suffered a great deal because people were poor, because other people suffered”.
He said although Nair believed in the constitution and its values, today he “would acknowledge also that, although the constitution proclaims all these values, we have not yet achieved the kind of society contemplated in the constitution.”
He said South Africans must continue the struggle of their “incomplete revolution” to realise Nair’s vision.
Mchunu said Nair had championed education even while in prison.
Angela Nair said her brother had avoided most attempts to name things after him but had embraced education projects because “it was mostly education that he was interested in”.