Speakers give credence to tikkun olam

ANT KATZ

ABOVE: This inspiring story of the love between a mother and her baby in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, showing the importance of the first 1 000 days of a child’s life and how the Ububele Educational and Psychotherapy Trust supports this bonding process

Goldberg was the only white person among the eight Rivonia Trialists to be sentenced to life imprisonment with Nelson Mandela in 1964. He was also part of the brains trust, the patron and a financial backer of Ububele, giving and raising funds for its launch – both of which he still does to this day.

The Hamburgers are both psychologists living in Johannesburg. As the project’s founders they ran Ububele for most of its existence. Hamburger handed over the position of executive director to Katherine Frost, although he remains an active participant.

RIGHT: Founders Tony and Hillary Hamburger with the Inyathelo Award for Community Philanthropy which was awarded to Ububele in 2007

Last year Hamburger was instrumental in making a five-minute film which readers can watch on the Jewish Report website, entitled “Umdlezane – the First 1 000 Days” which was filmed in Alexandra, and follows an Ububele home visitor into the home of a mother and her new-born baby.

Says Hamburger: “The first 1 000 days of life, from conception to age two, is the most important time in a child’s life.” He illustrates this in the film and says that “the bond between the baby and primary caregiver, which usually is the mother, is so important for the healthy development of every little person.”

Ububele offers a variety of training courses and therapeutic interventions for caregivers and children under the age of seven.

Goldberg will be talking at Limmud in all three centres – Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town – on “Chronicling a Life, Fighting for Freedom”, while Hamburger will only be talking on Sunday August 28, at 15:30 at Limmud Johannesburg.

LEFT: Goldberg is the last and Mdiba the first in this iconic picture of the eight Treason Trialists sentences to life

For the last 23 years Hamburger has practiced as a psychoanalytic psychotherapist, also consulting to various mental health NGOs and training postgraduate psychotherapists as well as running Ububele with his wife Hillary.

Ububele’s work, according to its website, is centred on the promotion of mental health and the development of low-cost models of preventative care and experiential training, which are suitable for low-resource environments.

RIGHT: A much older Denis Goldberg with Madiba

The vision of Ububele is framed by a human rights approach to mental health, particularly the rights of children to special protection, and to be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable them to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy way.  

The then-fledgling United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution in 1959, which states that all nations should enact laws for this purpose and that the “best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration”.

The organisation’s vision for South Africa is that of a nurturing society with secure, well-cared for children, who grow up to be emotionally healthy adults, competent parents and good citizens.

• For more information, click herewww.ububele.org