Internationally acclaimed anti-apartheid activist and former Daily Dispatch editor Donald Woods has been reburied, alongside his wife Wendy and their infant son Lindsay, at Woods\u2019 ancestral home in Hobeni in the former Transkei.<\/p>\n

Woods, whose perilous friendship with Steve Biko was the subject of Sir Richard Attenborough\u2019s Oscar-nominated film Cry Freedom, died on 19 August 2001, aged 67. His ashes had been interred at the Cambridge Cemetery in East London.<\/p>\n

Following the death of his wife, Wendy, on 19 May last year, the Woods family decided to establish a family burial plot at the Donald Woods Centre in Hobeni, original site of the rural trading store where Woods was born and spent his formative childhood years.<\/p>\n

The site has since been developed into a multi-purpose community development centre by the Donald Woods Foundation, which is rolling out multiple health and education programmes in the surrounding Mbashe area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Foundation hopes to act as a catalyst for community-growth and development to provide a sound platform in health and education to support local people in getting or creating jobs,\u201d said eldest son Dillon Woods, who also serves as CEO of the Donald Woods Foundation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Donald and Wendy were laid to rest alongside their son, Lindsay, who died in 1971 after contracting meningitis shortly before his first birthday. The private burial ceremony was attended by immediate family and Donald Woods Foundation staff members.<\/p>\n

Woods was born at home in Hobeni on 15 December 1933 at the local trading store built by his father, Jack, just over 100 years ago. Donald Woods\u2019 return to the ancestral home he loved brings full circle the Woods family\u2019s remarkable legacy, not only in opposing oppression, but working tirelessly for the upliftment of the local community.<\/p>\n

Both Donald and Wendy\u2019s spirit lives on in the work of the Donald Woods Foundation, which is actively helping thousands of people in one of the poorest and most under-resourced regions in the country to access essential health care and basic education.<\/p>\n

Through its pioneering Health in Every Hut programme, delivered in partnership with Eli Lilly, Foundation staff and volunteers have visited thousands of homesteads in the Mbashe area to do basic health assessments and peer education.<\/p>\n

At-risk residents are referred to one of the local clinics, where DWF\u2019s clinic integration teams assist Department of Health staff with patient flow, data capturing, mentoring and education. This has hugely impacted overall health and patient care in the region, with the Foundation able to compile a detailed, first-of-its-kind health database of every homestead in its catchment area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe specific design of the project in a deeply rural area with dispersed homesteads in difficult terrain is to put the most distant, abandoned, unsupported person living furthest from the clinic, down by the river, hours walk to the road \u2013 first,\u201d Dillon says.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the moment they are visited and screened, they are valued and \u2018live\u2019. They are known, cannot be forgotten or left and are brought into the care network.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Internationally acclaimed anti-apartheid activist and former Daily Dispatch editor Donald Woods has been reburied, alongside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[110,111,125,113,104,106],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7DEjh-16B","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4247,"url":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/donald-woods-archive-established-at-hobeni\/","url_meta":{"origin":4253,"position":0},"title":"Donald Woods archive established at Hobeni","date":"July 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"26 July 2014 A comprehensive new archive of Donald Woods\u2019 life and momentous career is being established at the new Donald Woods Centre at Hobeni in the former Transkei. Meticulously curated by leading anti-apartheid activist David Kenvyn, the Donald Woods Foundation Library and Archive is the most detailed record yet\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Woods Centre"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4310,"url":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/building-the-donald-woods-centre-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":4253,"position":1},"title":"Building the Donald Woods Centre","date":"February 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The Donald Wood Centre at Hobeni has been featured in an article in the Financial Times, London. Headlined Donald Woods Centre built in memory of South African activist, the article by Lily Le Brun relates how the\u00a0family of the famous anti-apartheid campaigner have established the headquarters of the Donald Woods\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Citizenship and active democracy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/WP_20160201_10_29_51_Pro-e1460617539599.jpg?fit=1030%2C685&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4245,"url":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/new-dwf-head-office-at-donald-woods-birthplace\/","url_meta":{"origin":4253,"position":2},"title":"New DWF head office at Donald Wood’s birthplace","date":"May 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"23 May 2014 The Donald Woods Foundation has officially opened its new head office at Hobeni, in the deeply rural area of the Mbashe Local Municipality, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The old Hobeni trading store was where Donald Woods was born on 15 December 1933. The opening was attended by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Citizenship and active democracy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2406,"url":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/exercise-is-medicine\/","url_meta":{"origin":4253,"position":3},"title":"Exercise is medicine","date":"January 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Lilly researcher and Connecting Hearts Abroad 2015 ambassador Randall Dick writes about his experience bringing the message that exercise\u00a0IS\u00a0medicine during his stay with the Donald Woods Foundation at Hobeni. Randall was one of a group of 10 Lilly volunteers who spent two weeks at Hobeni at the Donald Woods Centre\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Woods Centre"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/exercise-girl.jpg?fit=800%2C534&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4306,"url":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/busy-week-of-visitors-to-dwc-at-hobeni-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":4253,"position":4},"title":"Busy week of visitors to DWC at Hobeni","date":"November 30, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"30 November 2015 The first week of December 2015 sees a number of visitors staying at and enjoying the facilities at the Donald Woods Centre at Hobeni. The first is the UK-based maternal health clinician, Dr Kim Turner who is heading up a group of Obstetrics and Gynaecology doctors who\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Woods Centre"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4288,"url":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/prestigious-gathering-at-donald-woods-foundation-consultations\/","url_meta":{"origin":4253,"position":5},"title":"Prestigious gathering at Donald Woods Foundation Consultations","date":"October 12, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"12 October 2015 A wealth of ideas and innovation was generated by more than 25 academics and experienced rural development practitioners with hundreds of years of experience between them at a rural\/agri workshop at Hobeni. A wealth of ideas and innovation was generated by more than 25 academics and experienced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Citizenship and active democracy"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.donaldwoodsfoundation.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}