Jay Naidoo is an Elder, grandfather and social activist. He has played many roles from a student, community, political and union activist. He has been the founding General Secretary of the Congress of South African Trade Unions and a Minister of Reconstruction and Development and then Communications in President Nelson Mandela’s Cabinet.

He sat on the Board of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation for a decade, which focuses on building good governance and ethical leadership in Africa. He has chaired the Development Bank of Southern Africa that was dedicated to expanding access to basic services in municipalities and promoting socio-economic development.

Today he is a volunteer who dedicates his life to the building of an authentic intergenerational conversation in Africa and globally and was a founding member and now an Elders Council of African Rising. He is deeply involved in conservation and deepening the role of indigenous wisdom, culture and ceremonies in shaping a new narrative of building sanctuary for the emergence of conscious communities. Currently he is co-creating a space for Natural Healing and Natural Farming called the Calabash International Regeneration Centre adjacent to the Magalies Biosphere and Cradle of Humankind and establishing a Bioregional Alliance to move mining and all economic activity towards a Nature Positive approach that supports a deeper consultation with communities living here historically and giving the Magaliesberg Biosphere a voice in how we work together.

He supports youth causes that co-create a new activism based on movement building that puts ecology and indigenous wisdom at its centre, - and that breaks the bondage of a toxic patriarchy that has poisoned our relationships with each other, with the millions of other species we share our planet with and our very Mother Earth.  

‘It is essential that we build an intelligent co-operation between the sacred feminine and the sacred masculine to ensure our survival as a human species.”