At the African Left Handers Foundation, our advocacy has always been rooted in a simple but powerful truth: inclusion cannot be piecemeal, justice cannot be selective, and dignity cannot be conditional.

It is in that spirit that we are proud to share the Second Semester 2025 Newsletter of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation (CERT) and the South African Chair in Community, Adult and Worker Education at the University of Johannesburg — a research centre that has become one of our most important partners in the fight for educational equity for left-handed learners across South Africa and the continent.

The newsletter documents a remarkable year of research, global recognition, and community-engaged scholarship. For the African Left Handers Foundation, it also tells the story of a partnership that is growing in depth and ambition.

On 25 August 2025, CERT and the African Left Handers Foundation signed a landmark Memorandum of Understanding, formalising our shared commitment to inclusive education. The MoU, signed at the University of Johannesburg’s Nadine Gordimer Auditorium and launched through a podcast series hosted by our Chair, Mme Mathlogonolo Maboe, sets out a clear agenda: no left-handed child should be told to “try the other hand.” Classrooms must have appropriate tools and accommodations. Teachers must be trained in inclusive pedagogies. Assessment procedures must reflect the diversity of learners. And school infrastructure must be designed with every child in mind.

These are not abstract principles. They are the lived realities of millions of left-handed children across Africa whose educational experiences are shaped — and too often diminished — by systems that were never designed with them in mind. CERT’s research gives those realities an evidence base, and that evidence base gives our advocacy its teeth.

We are equally proud that our partnership was launched in the presence of the Public Protector of the Republic of South Africa, Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka, whose keynote address at the podcast launch reminded us of what is at stake. We thank her for her continued solidarity with the left-handed community, and we thank CERT Director Professor June Bam-Hutchison and the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education, Professor Nadine Petersen, for their leadership in making this partnership a reality.

The CERT newsletter reflects a centre in full stride — raising over R2.2 million in research funding in 2025, earning global awards and fellowships, publishing groundbreaking work in decolonial and community-engaged scholarship, and mentoring the next generation of researchers who will carry this work forward. As one of their community partners, we are inspired by their energy and encouraged by the quality of scholarship being produced on behalf of marginalised learners.

We invite our community, our supporters, and our allies to read this newsletter and to see, in its pages, what it looks like when academic research and grassroots advocacy work together in service of human rights.

Download the Full CERT Second Semester 2025 Newsletter Here.

Together, we are building a world where every child — regardless of which hand they write with — is seen, valued, and equipped to thrive.