Background and reflection

Cape Town 2019: Some material for reading/watching about Cape Town and South Africa

On this page we are placing some suggestions for background reading and viewing in order to prepare for your stay in Cape Town. Note: There is a very large amount of material available about South Africa. This list represents just a few suggestions. I’m Not Black, I’m Coloured - Identity Crisis at the Cape of Good Hope Word of Honour: Reclaiming Mandela’s Promise Some background on the Kaaps language which is widely spoken by the “coloured” communities in Cape (...)

5 August 2019

Cape Town 2019: A reflection on silence

Chumani Bontsa, was born in the Eastern Cape region, and spent his youth in the Khayelitsha township of Cape Town. In 2014 he spent three months at Taizé as a volunteer. He is involved in his Anglican parish and works as a fisheries inspector. Thinking back I realize that silence has always been a big part of the life of people in Africa, when we were still true to who we are and we respected each other. I remember growing up in the Eastern Cape and the total loss of (...)

7 November 2018

Visiting the Eastern Cape province

Two brothers from the Taizé Community, based in Cape Town, visited the Eastern Cape province during the last week of June and the first week of July. "Our first stop was to attend a meeting in East London with people engaged with young people in difficult situations (such as poverty, drug ...), we went to Alice, to attend the Synod of the URCSA (Uniting Reformed Church of Southern Africa), (...)

2 August 2018

Reflection: “Next year gathering can be a place of healing..." Ntombekhaya

Reflections on trust towards the Pilgrimage of trust 2019, Taizé - Cape Town.Ntombekhaya has spent three month in Taizé (France), from February to May 2018. She shares some of her reflections and expectations around the upcoming meeting in Cape Town: I expect the 2019 Pilgrimage of Trust in South Africa to help young people to connect their diversities. Coming from a very diverse city such as (...)

8 June 2018

“All began with a step of trust...” - John de Gruchy

Reflections on the pilgrimage of trust 2019 in Cape Town.A pilgrimage is an experiment in building, experiencing and learning to live life in trust. From the moment we leave home, boarding the bus, catching the train or plane, for Cape Town we will find ourselves moving across boundaries, from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from home to the hospitality of strangers, from the security of our (...)

29 May 2018

“Giving birth to a new people” - Jaco Botha

"I am ordained in the Dutch Reformed Church. It is the Church that is at the origin of apartheid, the Church of the old rulers of this country. They are the ones who thought about and developed the ideology of racial division. Our story is a story of segregation. This is the truth in which we as a church has to serve, both coming to terms with our sin and becoming a true part of Africa. This (...)

15 May 2018

Archbishop Tutu and Taizé

On the 3rd of August 2017, two brothers met with Archishop Desmond Tutu in Volmoed, an ecumenical retreat Centre in the Western Cape. He remembered his first visit to Taizé. “I visited Taizé in 1979, when I was Secretary General of the South African Council of Churches. I was deeply moved to find myself among five thousand young people from all corners of the globe, coming together across (...)

11 May 2018

Taizé and South Africa

Every year dozens of South Africans stay in Taizé and participate in international meetings. Today it is several generations who have been able to experience the common prayer and fraternity lived with the community, a parable of communion. Brother Roger himself was always very attentive to their presence because of the long trial of apartheid that their country was going through, but more (...)

31 March 2018