The South African Committee for Higher Education (SACHED) was founded in 1959 as an innovative response to the crisis in university education brought about by the National Party government's move to enforce apartheid at university level.
A group of academics, learners, church people and others committed themselves to struggle against the effects of these laws in a practical way, by attempting to provide access to tertiary education for young black people which would be outside the apartheid framework but within the law to ensure survival.
The International Defence and Aid Fund (IDAF) was established in 1956 by Canon L John Collins of St Paul’s Cathedral, London. Its mission was to work towards a peaceful solution to the problem of apartheid through raising and distributing funding to victims of apartheid laws, especially political prisoners and their families.
It was in the trials of anti-apartheid activists that the fund’s most significant contribution was made. IDAF paid for the legal defence of hundreds of people accused of trying to bring down apartheid and also supported their families even after some of them were imprisoned.
IDAF developed a substantial research facility that made information about apartheid readily accessible for the international public, especially for organisations working to dismantle the system of apartheid such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the United Nations Special Committee Against Apartheid.
Finding Aids
IDAF Archive
Related archival collections
Cowley House Papers (BC1039)
Thomas Winslow/ Trauma Centre for Victims of Violence and Torture Papers (BC1210)