The Solidarity Movement, consisting of several institutions and independent partners, has approximately 500 000 families as members and is the largest mainstream Afrikaner organisation and one of the largest organisations in our country.
The main goal of the Movement is to help its people lead a normal life in a normal country. Each of the institutions and individual partners that are part of the Movement, plays a unique role in achieving this goal. Currently, the Movement consists of 21 institutions and 3 independent partners.
Member organisations
- The trade union: Solidarity
Solidarity fulfils the role of a traditional trade union, but at the same time offers a broader Network of Work which any working or prospective working person can join. Due to the constant changes in the workplace, the trade union established Occupational Guilds with the aim of organising people based on their occupation rather than their place of work, and in this way bringing them into contact with other people working in the same occupational field.
- AfriForum
AfriForum is a non-governmental organisation that aims to protect the rights of minority groups. Although the organisation operates on the internationally recognised principle of minority protection, AfriForum has a specific focus on the rights of Afrikaners as a community at the southern-most tip of Africa. AfriForum is therefore the civil rights leg of the Solidarity Movement.
- Solidarity Helping Hand
Solidarity Helping Hand is the Movement’s social wing that specifically focus on the development of the Afrikaner community and the creation of a social structure that can meet the demands of vulnerable groups (children, elderly and the disabled). They also try to alleviate urgent and direct need as far as possible and to create opportunities where poverty can be prevented through study and training.
- FAK
The FAK is one of the oldest cultural organisations – the oldest organisation in the Movement – with the federation already being established in 1929. The FAK is a future-orientated cultural organisation that offers a home for language and culture and promotes the Afrikaner history in a positive way. The FAK aims to be a cultural home for Afrikaners, empowering Afrikaners to proudly live out their identity. They also aim to focus on the development and promotion of the Afrikaans language and Afrikaner culture.
Education and training:
- Sol-Tech Occupational Training College
Sol-Tech is an accredited private occupational training college that are founded on Christian values and uses Afrikaans as medium of instruction.
- Akademia
Akademia is a Christian world-class higher education institution that plays a leading role in contemporary university life in an open, unfettered and critical way. All this in favour of the Afrikaans language community.
- Study Fund Centre
The Study Fund Centre (SFC) is a subdivision of Solidarity Helping Hand and has the specific aim to provide interest-free study loans to those in need, thus giving everyone the opportunity to complete their tertiary studies. The SFC forms part of Helping Hand’s strategy to not only alleviate poverty, but to break it by giving people the opportunity to receive further education and training.
- Support Centre for Schools
The Support Centre for Schools (SCS) is a private training institution focused on the professional and personal development of teachers in South Africa, the protection of Afrikaans schools’ rights and the development of solutions to problems teachers face in general. The SCS aims to establish healthy, sustainable, scalable, Christian, Afrikaans schools of world quality by firstly maintaining those which already exists, and secondly, building that which is needed now.
- Wolkskool
Wolkskool is the most important and largest product of the innovation team at the SCS. Wolkskool is a complete online school that is supplementary and enriching to existing schools and can be used at places where quality education in Afrikaans is under pressure. The ultimate goal of Wolkskool is to offer a complete digital Afrikaans school curriculum, which covers all grades and subjects.
- S-leer
S-leer is a subdivision of the trade union Solidarity and serves as a centre for continuous learning and development to help the working professional reach his or her career goals. S-leer forms part of Solidarity’s core business, namely labour relations, skills development and the broader Network of Work. S-leer serves as primary service provider for the Solidarity Occupational Guilds and offers their members the opportunity to develop their abilities and skills in such a way that they can get and maintain a good job, and thus live free, safe and prosperous.
- De Goede Hoop
De Goede Hoop is a private Afrikaans Christian residence for male and female students studying at the University of Pretoria. The residence was established by AfriForum in 2017. De Goede Hoop was established to serve as a cultural institution that offers accommodation to all students who are comfortable within the Afrikaans community.
Language and culture:
- Maroela Media
Maroela Media is an Afrikaans media house that strives to serve the Afrikaans community with news and other content that is of the highest quality and which is reliable and balanced. Maroela Media is not only the biggest Afrikaans digital platform, but also the largest Afrikaans media community of all media formats – digital, newspapers, magazines, television and radio included. Currently, Maroela has just more than 2 million unique readers per month and they are still growing.
- Forum Films
Forum Films is a full-spectrum production house for television, film, animation and full-length films. Forum Films launched by AfriForum, was officially launched on 30 August 2016, with the idea of it already being born in 2012. Forum Films is also seen as an important means of regaining ownership of our history and normalising it. One of the core objectives of Forum Films is therefore to help promote the Afrikaans language and the Afrikaner culture.
- Kraal Publishers
Kraal Publishers is a small, yet specialised publishing company that mainly focuses on the publication of quality non-fiction books that contribute to valuable debates regarding politics, history, cultural and social issues in the country within the Afrikaner community or among a specific target audience. This publishing house existed in 1999 during the 100-year anniversary of the Anglo-Boer War and initially focused on publishing collectors’ books on this war.
Funds, trusts and mobilising of capital:
- Solidarity Legal Fund
The Solidarity Legal Fund is the first of two funds managed and administered by the trade union, Solidarity. This fund specifically aims to oppose policies, projects or decisions by government, usually not in favour of the interests of minorities, through specific legal action. Although the Legal Fund places particular emphasis on opposing policies that are harmful to minorities – such as the BBBEE policy – the union often tackles cases that are not only in the interest of members and minorities, but also in the interest of the broader public.
- Solidarity Building Fund
The Solidarity Building Fund is the second fund managed and administrated by the trade union Solidarity. The Solidarity Movement is building a better society and better future for future generations. The Solidarity Building Fund is one of the ways in which the future is being built quite literally. This is done through contributions made to the Building Fund which funds the establishment of various cultural infrastructures.
- History fund
The History Fund is under management of the FAK. The History Fund specifically aims to contribute to the supports, preservation and normalisation of Afrikaner history. The FAK established the History Fund in 2016 in support of the series of history projects launched by the FAK in that year, which focused on the protection and preservation of Afrikaner history.
- Virseker Trust
The Virseker Trust resulted from a collaboration between Virseker, as part of Auto & General, and the Solidarity Movement where representatives of Solidarity serves as trustees. The purpose of the Virseker Trust is to give Afrikaners the opportunity to invest in specific training projects for the Afrikaans community by making use of a service in the private sector. The Virseker Trust is thus looking to mobilise Afrikaner purchasing power.
- De Kock Trust
The Arend Josias de Kock trust was established in 1863 with the birth of Arend Josias de Kock and officially registered in January 1998 by his grandson. This trust was initially established by Arend Josias de Kock for the purpose of not using the family’s money for their own gain, but rather to invest it in a trust that aims to assist the Afrikaner community through donations to specific community projects.
- Campus Trust
The Campus trust aims to be a donation fund that focuses specifically on the establishment of Afrikaans educational institutions. More specifically, the trust focuses on providing a sustainable model for recruiting, expanding and utilising donations for the education and training institutions of the Solidarity Movement – including Akademia, Sol-Tech and the Support Centre for Schools.
- Kanton Investments
Kanton is the investment company for properties established by the Solidarity Movement. The properties of the Solidarity Movement will serve as bases of the portfolio that will be expanded further through development. Kanton is a partnership between culture and capital and focus on providing sustainable property solutions at a good opbrengs to institutions in the Afrikaans community so that they can reach their goals. Kanton has the goals to create within the partnership between culture and capital, physical living spaces wherein Afrikaans can flourish.
Independent partners:
- Saai
The South African Agri Initiative (Saai) is an agricultural interest network for farmers through farmers, committed to protecting and promoting the rights, values, ideals and needs of family farmers in the primary production sector. As a network of interests, Saai plays an active role in the implementation of effective strategic solutions to agricultural problems that farmers experience on a daily basis and intends not to simply rely on the hope of policy influence.
- Pretoria FM
Pretoria FM, formerly known as Radio Pretoria, is an independent and community-based radio station located in Pretoria, South Africa. The range of Pretoria FM’s broadcast towers is about 2 million Afrikaans speakers. Pretoria FM is at the steering of numerous projects promoting the Afrikaans language community and the Afrikaner cultural community.
