Mail & Guardian
Mail & Guardian
makhandalatest news & developments
Unsafe supply: Qwa Qwa residents use river water to do their laundry. They also collect water from the river for their homes. Photo Delwyn Verasamy

No freedom without water

Across South Africa, communities are marking Freedom Day under the weight of an escalating water crisis, where unreliable supply, contamination and ageing infrastructure continue…

Set for the stage: Ndumiso Manana is preparing for the first leg of a nationwide tour that begins in Johannesburg before moving to East London, Makhanda for the National Arts Festival, Durban, Cape Town and Pretoria.  Photo: Supplied

Manana and the art of trusting the process

Fresh off his Standard Bank Young Artist win, Manana reflects on growth, collaboration and creating space for alternative sound in South Africa

Equipped: A woman looks around in the Michaelis Art Library within the Johannesburg City
Library on 9 August 2025. Photo: OUR CITY NEWS/James Oatway

How funding apartheid fails young library users

Lack of funds prevent provinces from carrying out their mandate to manage public library services

Healthy habits: Selunathi, Libanathi and Luminathi Maphele read from some of their favourite books.
Photo: Kearabetswe Nkadimeng

How 20 books make all the difference

Children growing up in homes with many books receive three years more schooling than children from bookless homes, a study shows

Children learn through play at the Little Red Dragon preschool, run by the Lebone Centre in Makhanda. Play helps children ‘read’ their world and tell their stories, a vital step in their literacy development. Photos: Debbie Smuts

Preschoolers falling through the cracks

SA spends just 1.8% of its education budget on ECD: the damage shows

Aced it: The winning Grahamstown Adventist Primary School team at
the Phendulani Literary Quiz. Photo: Nozipho Maphalala

Give children high-quality books from Grades R-12: they will likely read them

Research shows that classroom libraries increase reading frequency by 70% compared with centralised libraries

Literacy: Some of the nearly 400 delegates who attended the 2024 Makhanda Education Summit. They adopted a vision for the city to become the
country’s leading educational hub by 2028. Photo: Rod Amner

How a broken city doubled South Africa’s literacy rate – without the government

Civil society cannot solve the country’s literacy crisis on its own, because the scale is too vast and the resources required too substantial

PUTTING TWO AND TWO TOGETHER: Children attending GADRA Education’s Whistle Stop School are
immersed in the program’s carefully designed literacy resources. Photo: Supplied

“R5 billion withheld: The EC school funding crisis

Since 2020, the Eastern Cape Department of Education has retained about R5 billion from the budgets of its poorest schools, ostensibly for “centralised procurement”. Some of that…

The programme provides a safe space for teenage girls in Makhanda’s townships to discuss and learn about sexual and reproductive health

Girls’ movement calls on traditional isiXhosa practice of entangeni

The programme provides a safe space for teenage girls in Makhanda’s townships to discuss and learn about sexual and reproductive health

International law and the international law of war are shrugged off by those who justify their lawlessness by multiple ideological euphemisms for lawlessness. Photo: File

The risks of chaos when political rogues are on the loose

The global order of years of diplomacy and peacebuilding can be flipped over by the cynical or power-hungry

In the run-up to the 2021 local government elections, the Makana Citizens Front challenged corruption and dysfunction in  the municipality rather than try to collapse state institutions. Photo: Delwyn Verasamy/M&G

Makana is not ripe for anarchy

Instead of replacing state capacity with grassroots action, we need to strengthen state institutions to serve the poor

Sewage flows in Scotts Farm, Makhanda (2024). Photo: Lucas Nowicki

Makhanda the poster child for municipal collapse

The cause goes beyond corruption and incapacity to dysfunctional centralised, bureaucratic rule. The solution lies in decentralised, participatory and direct democratic forms of…

Martine Jackson shapes clay to document emotive journeys, such as Silent Resolve

Clay Formes and the resurgence of African sculptural traditions

Olivia Barrell’s gallery and book reclaim clay’s place in art history, grounded in care and curation

A moment in time: Images from Jonathon Rees’s show titled Stillness.

Jonathon Rees: Finding stillness in a note

Photographer’s images are a soulful visual tribute to South African jazz

Jozi jokes: Comedy Jam will be on at the Houghton Hotel on Friday 2  August.

Diary:  Comedy Jam at The Houghton Hotel in August,  Vuma Levin returns with new album Allegories, Black Coffee at Hey Neighbour

Your essential dose of art and culture

Thandiswa Mazwai returns to the stage for an intimate, soul-stirring performance at The Lyric Theatre. (Photo supplied)

Diary: National Arts Festival, Thandiswa live at the Lyric, Sisonke Afrohouse

Festival returns with fresh fire and fearless talent For 11 days this winter, Makhanda becomes the beating heart of South African creativity and artistic innovation as the…

Miles to go: (From top) Local trumpeter Darren English, who will be performing at the National Arts
Festival this weekend, says he is inspired by American jazz musicians Freddie Hubbard and Miles Davis. Photos: Anthony Barboza/Getty Images

Jazz maestro Darren English to debut ‘The Birth’ at National Arts Festival

We chat to Darren English about his musical journey, inspiration and experience on stage

Chef Ndlovu believes there is much African cuisine that remains unexplored. Photo supplied

Exploring African cuisine with chef Vusi Ndlovu at the National Arts Festival in Makhanda

Ndlovu transforms traditional African ingredients into gourmet masterpieces

Found: Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner Stephané Conradie’s show Wegwysers Deur Die Blinkuur will be on at the National Art Festival in Makhanda.

Stephané Conradie: Objects of our lives as signposts for the future

Artist transforms everyday objects as into poignant narratives exploring identity and heritage

Sizzling show: One of the highlights of the upcoming National Arts Festival will be performances by Sipho ‘Hotstix’ Mabuse. Photo: Oupa Bopape/Gallo Images via Getty Images

The stage is set for a cracker of a National Arts Festival 

National Arts Festival continues to create platforms for creatives, 50 years later