Sally Timmel, The Cape Times
Anne Hope, co-author and founder of the
classic Training for Transformation books and training programmes,
has passed on in an interfaith intentional community in Claremont, California.
Anne Hope was born and grew up in
Johannesburg. She attended Rhodes University in Grahamstown and obtained a
degree in English literature and history. She then received her Master’s degree
in education from Oxford University in England. During her university days, she
immersed herself in the Catholic Student Movement and not only became convinced
of the horrors of apartheid, but became more and more committed both
emotionally and spiritually to the struggle for liberation.
In the late 1940s, Anne kept meeting members
of the international Grail at student conferences. She became intrigued with
this lay women’s Catholic movement and soon was invited to be part of the Grail
community for a year at their centre in Loveland, Ohio, outside Cincinnati.
The one year turned into four years where she
became part of the staff. Anne then went to teach and also be the headmistress
of the first high school for girls in Uganda in Kalasizo. This was where Anne
first became passionately committed to working with women’s groups and
community development. Anne returned to South Africa and was soon appointed
president of the Grail in South Africa.
In 1969, Anne was awarded a World Council of
Churches scholarship to study at Boston University in adult education and human
relations training. It was there that she met me, doing the same course. Anne
had heard of the brilliant work of Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator who
developed a methodology called conscientisation (or critical awareness).
Paulo had come to Harvard University at that
time to be at the Institute for Social Analysis. Anne and I then began
integrating the critical analysis approach of Paulo into participatory methods.
They applied some of these tools in anti-racism work through the USA National
YWCA, which at that time had taken on a One Imperative: to eliminating racism
wherever it exists and by any means necessary. Anne and I developed and ran a
number of workshops called White on White (as racism is a “white problem”).
Anne returned to South Africa in 1971 when
her USA visa ran out and I joined her in neighbouring Swaziland. There we
helped develop a literacy programme with a Swazi NGO supported by Unesco. After
nine months the South African police caught up with us and we were made
prohibited immigrants.
Anne began working with the Christian
Institute, a prophetic witness that proclaimed apartheid a sin against
humanity.
During this time Anne was asked by Steve
Biko, founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, to work with their
leadership for six months on participatory methods of Paulo Freire. Soon after
the training most of the leadership was imprisoned and she was advised to go
into exile to continue the work or face imprisonment. Later, Steve said that
there were two people who shaped his life – a nun in 6th grade and Anne Hope.
This was the essence of Anne: she brought out
the best side of a person – through encouragement, delight, affirmation and challenge.
Her vision and intuitions were something one could not ignore as they were spot
on.
Her challenges were constructive but brutally
honest.
One year after her return to South Africa,
the apartheid government seized Anne’s passport and later denied her entrance
back into her homeland for 17 years. Fortunately she had an Irish grandmother,
which was sufficient grounds to get an Irish passport for those years in exile.
Anne and I again teamed up and began working
for the Kenyan Catholic Bishop’s Conference through the Development Department.
Working in the then 10 of 13 dioceses, we
trained over 500 community development leadership who, in turn, within 10 years
reached over 3 million people in multi-faceted projects – from literacy, women
and youth groups and agriculture to ranching groups.
In 1981, Anne and I moved to Washington DC,
where Anne worked first with the US Returned Missionary Association and then
the Jesuit Centre of Concern. Anne also returned to southern Africa to work
with the Zimbabwe Council of Churches. I joined her for a year, where they
wrote and had published their classic books called Training for
Transformation. These four volumes still sell quite broadly and have been
translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese and Arabic.
When the apartheid government announced in
February 1991 that exiles could return, Anne came back to take up a temporary
post at the UCT Adult Education Department.
She moved on to initiate a women’s training
programme, DELTA, and founded the Grail in the Western Cape.
In 1999, with Anne’s leadership the Grail
purchased a residential retreat and conference centre in Kleinmond and three
years later developed a one-year in-service Training for Transformation Diploma
course for international teams of women.
More than 350 people have graduated from this
programme and it continues to go from strength to strength. Participants come
from as far as Indonesia, Papua, Korea, India, Sudan, Nigeria, Uganda,
Tanzania, Kenya, the UK and most southern African countries.
Anne was a global citizen and activist par
excellence, with an ability to see a positive “way out” of the quagmires of
injustices. Her insights and voice came from the deep core of her being as she
tried to act on these essential elements of goodness, truth and beauty.
This core was nurtured by an incredible
self-discipline of daily meditation, yoga and reading for two hours before
rising. Her spirit will continue to inspire generations to come.