The year 2020 will be remembered as a year of tumultuous change. The COVID-19 pandemic forced governments, civil society organisations, business, academics and the health profession to reimagine the way we work, how our economy runs and how society functions as a whole. It is also the year SECTION27 marked its ten-year anniversary. This exhibition invites us to take the time to review the performance of this organisation of catalysts for social justice, as we all attempt to evaluate, co-create and operate in this new normal.

Since 2010, SECTION27 has worked with partners to ensure access to textbooks for learners in Limpopo, it has placed the issue of school sanitation firmly on the national agenda, and fought for access to medicines – even as the medical fraternity seeks to find a vaccine for COVID-19. Through work with miners, mental health-care users and other vulnerable groups, SECTION27 continues to advocate for health system reform, to challenge corruption through investigative reporting and to advocate for access to food for learners in schools. SECTION27 uses the law, community mobilisation and constitutional literacy to make a difference in the lives of all who live in South Africa. Ten Years of Impact showcases some of the most important cases and campaigns of the last decade.

In 2021, the year that South Africa marks 27 years since our first democratic election and as the world grapples with the change wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, SECTION27 continues to fight for the realisation of the socio-economic rights as articulated in Section 27 of our Constitution.