Teacher_Book - General - Draft 23 - 2015

ACTIVITY 16 ANSWERS
Poaching is a complex issue and concerns globalisation, inequality,
slums, poverty and wildlife. To stop poaching, we need a deep
understanding of the social justice and equity concerns within a
community. Humans are doing the poaching, so we must look at their
needs and address them. Maybe, we need to adjust our definition
of what constitutes ‘social justice’ and ‘equity’. Maybe, the defintion
of these terms need to be broadened to embrace ‘all living things’.
The IAPF discusses the goals of ‘social justice’ and ‘equity’ for all living
things by using an analogy.
GOVERNMENT
SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUALITY &
INSTRUCTIONS
Read the following example and drawing, then answer the
questions.
Example: Imagine there was a running race. Everyone that
wanted to run was invited. The runners all lined up along
the start line. But the runners had mixed abilities: one was
fit, one was crippled, one was starving,
one was very overweight. The fair thing to do was
to give everyone an equal or same opportunity to
run in the race in order to win the overall prize of 10
sandwiches. This showed ‘equality’, everyone started
from the same place.
Who do you think would win the race and win all the sandwiches?
WILL THIS RUNNING RACE BE
EQUITABLE & SOCIALLY JUST?
But, is it ‘socially just’’? Is it ‘socially just’ if the fastest and fittest
person in the race was to win and get all the sandwiches? Does the
fit healthy person really need them all? Or does the starving person
need it more? And, if so, how many sandwiches would be the most socially just amount to distribute between the fit winner and the
starving hungry person? is it more ‘socially just’ if the sandwiches were given out based on the person’s ‘need’? This would mean that
sometimes it is right to give ‘more’ to those marginalised members of society than those that don’t need as much. This would be the
‘equitable’ and ‘socially just’ thing to do.
Questions
1. Describe the term ‘equality’. Equity is when everyone is given the same opportunity in life (eg: access to fresh water,
education, food and the basics of life)
2. Describe the the term ‘social justice’. Social justice is when the marginalised groups are given priority to basic needs
over others which already are established and in less need.
3. Could African governments do more to promote ‘social justice’ in Africa? How? And would they?
African governments could do a variety of actions to promote social justice in Africa. For example, through improvement
in institutions which represent the vast amount of citizens needs, they need to listen to the civil protests, and support
on-going public participation and engagement between business, government and civil society. They need to provide
access to justice, good governance, accountability, transparency, socio-economic rights, an active citizenry and a strong
and effective civil society. But governments will not do this, people need to stand up and make them end corruption.
The people must speak up and get involved in gaining their own social justice, the youth need to stand up and make
governments accountable. To do this, the people need to get inspiration and get confident, stand up for social justice.
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