‘I will stay here until I die’

This chapter provides a critical analysis of the Muthande Literacy Programme that was joint-funded by the Department for International Development (DfID) and the European Commission and run in Clermont, a township area near Durban in South Africa, between 1997 and 2000. The programme was devised for a particular group of elders attending a welfare lunch club run by the Muthande Society for the Aged (known as MUSA), a member of Help Age International. Although not established with a gender focus, 90 per cent of the participants were female and all were of pensionable age. An analysis of it raises some interesting questions for policy makers and for educationalists around how programmes are played out ‘on the ground’ and the difficulties associated with the transfer of theory into practice. It is also a good illustration of the social and symbolic aspects of literacy and their implications for notions of power.