Flip started his career as a labour relations officer at Eskom. In 1990, following the changes in the country, he decided to join the Mine Workers’ Union (MWU) to help build a strong Afrikaner movement. During his honours in labour relations, Flip began to do a study on international trade unions. He looked at the role Christian trade unions played in Europe to rebuild their countries after the Second World War. He also examined the role played by the Polish anti-communist trade union, Solidarity, in the fall of communism. He was particularly interested in the Israeli trade union movement, the Histadrut. After a visit to Israel and meetings with the Christian trade union movements in the Netherlands and Flanders, he was convinced that the MWU could be developed into a family of organisations to protect Afrikaners and Afrikaans in a new, ANC dominated dispensation.
After his election as head of the MWU he began to assemble a strong team of leaders to systematically turn this strategy into practice. His recipe was “creative innovation based on proven values”. The first step involved expanding MWU into Solidarity by recreating and modernising the trade union and then expanding it to the entire workforce. Thereafter, Solidarity was expanded into the Solidarity Movement with several institutions in the fields of work, civil rights, Afrikaans as language and culture, social, finances, training and media.
Flip is the chairperson of AfriForum and Solidarity Helping Hand and the vice-chairperson of Pretoria FM. He is a trustee of the Dagbreek Trust and the Trust for Afrikaans Education. He also serves as a director on the boards of Akademia, SBM (Solidarity’s investment company), Kanton properties and the FAK (the Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations). He is also involved at several other institutions, trusts and community organisations. He is a member of the South African Academy for Science and Art (SAAWK) and was a board member of the North-West University for three terms.
The Solidarity Movement has also entered into partnerships with numerous Afrikaans organisations and thereby helped to develop organisations such as the Erfenisstigting (‘Heritage Foundation’) to preserve historical monuments. Numerous projects to promote Afrikaans are undertaken, such as the assistance provided to independent community radio stations, including Pretoria FM.
The Community Structures Division currently consists of two medical support projects and three community centres, namely Ons Plek in the Strand, Derdepoort and Volksrust. The three community centres were established to provide safe kindergarten and/or after-school care in the respective communities. The community centres are currently accommodating a total of 158 children in the respective after-school centres, while Ons Plek in the Strand has 9 pre-school children and Ons Plek in Volksrust has 16 pre-school children in the pre-primary school.
Ons Winkels is Solidarity Helping Hand’s donation shops. There are 120 shops nationwide where members of the public can donate second-hand items such as furniture, kitchenware, linen and clothing. The shops receive the donations and sell high quality items at affordable prices to the public.
An agricultural network for family farmers that strives to look after the interests of family farmers by protecting and promoting their rights.
A community-based radio station and news service
The Begrond Institute is a Christian research institute that assists the Afrikaans language and culture community in obtaining biblical answers to important life questions.
Ajani is a registered private company that offers placement opportunities to artisan students in particular.
Wolkskool, a cloud-based school, is a product of the Support Centre for Schools (SCS), a non-profit organisation comprising a team of education experts, that strives to help ensure quality education through medium of Afrikaans. Wolkskool offers a platform where learners have 24-hour access to video classes, exam papers, worksheets with memorandums and online assessments.
Kanton is a property investment company established by the Solidarity Movement. The Solidarity Movement’s properties form the basis of the portfolio that will be further expanded through development.
Kanton is a partnership between culture and capital and focuses on providing sustainable property solutions at a good return to institutions in the Afrikaans community so that they can achieve their goals.
Maroela Media is an Afrikaans internet news hub where you can read everything about what matters in your world – whether you live in South Africa or live elsewhere and want to be part of the Afrikaans Maroela community. Maroela Media’s Christian character is at the heart of its editorial policy.
AfriForum Uitgewers (previously known as Kraal Uitgewers) is the proud publishing house of the Solidarity Movement and is the home of Afrikaans non-fiction, products related to the Afrikaner’s history, as well as other prime Afrikaans products. The publisher recently shifted its focus and will only publish internal publications of the Solidarity Movement from now on.
Akademia is a Christian higher education institution that plays a leading, open-minded and critical role in the current day university system.
Akademia strives to provide an academic home where both the mind and the heart are shaped with a view to a meaningful and free future.
Akademia is building on from what we have received from the past to pass it on to the next generation in a better condition.
Sol-Tech is an accredited, private vocational training college that is founded on Christian values and uses Afrikaans as medium of instruction.
Sol-Tech focuses on vocational training that leads to the acquisition of nationally recognised, useful qualifications. The qualification students obtain from Sol-Tech serves as a basis for further study and ultimately to obtain a recognised engineering qualification. Sol-Tech therefore has as its aim to realise young people’s future dreams as far as career development is concerned and does so through goal-specific training. Sol-Tech wants to be there today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to provide a service to young people.
The vision of the Support Centre for Schools (SCS) is to (help) ensure the future of Christian, Afrikaans education by helping to maintain quality education where it already exists and by helping to create new capacity where it is needed.
The SCS’s goal is to assist every Afrikaans medium school in the country to continue to offer world-class education in the future that keeps in pace with the latest research and international best practices.
SFS is an authorised financial services company that forms part of the Solidarity Movement. This institution’s vision is to promote the future financial wellbeing, financial security and sustainability of Afrikaans individuals and businesses. SFS does so by offering competitive financial services and products that are available in Afrikaans, while also offering excellent service, all with a view to a greater cause.
A fund to help promote the history of the Afrikaner.
A fund specifically aimed at building Solidarity’s training institutions.
A fund to oppose the unlawful implementation of affirmative action.
Solidarity Youth prepares young people for the labor market, stands up for their interests and help them to join the Network of Work. Solidarity Youth is a tool to help young people with career choices and is a home for young people.
Solidarity’s centre for continued learning is a training institution that offers continuing professional development to professionals. S-leer aims to assist working people to achieve their career goals through seminars, short courses, and by offering discussion opportunities and e-learning opportunities in which relevant themes are discussed and presented.
THE HELPING HAND STUDY TRUST (HHST) is an initiative of Solidarity Helping Hand and is a registered public charitable organisation that makes it possible for indigent Afrikaans students to study by granting interest-free study loans to them.
At the moment, the HHST manages more than 200 independent study funds on behalf of various donors and has already made it possible for more than 6 300 indigent students to study by having granted financial aid totalling R238 million.
De Goede Hoop is a modern, Afrikaans student residence that maintains high standards. It is situated in Pretoria.
De Goede Hoop offers a home to dynamic students with Christian values and a passion for Afrikaans; a home where you as a young person can share in healthy student traditions and live your student life to the full in self-confidence and to do so in Afrikaans.
AfriForum Youth is the official youth section of AfriForum, the civil rights initiative that forms part of the Solidarity Movement. AfriForum Youth is based on Christian principles and our goal is to promote independence among young Afrikaners and influence the realities in South Africa by launching campaigns and actively taking a stand for young people’s civil rights. AfriForum Youth’s essence includes the acquisition of cultural freedom and the expansion of the Christian democratic ideological framework.
AfriForum Uitgewers (voorheen bekend as Kraal Uitgewers) is die trotse uitgewershuis van die Solidariteit Beweging en die tuiste van Afrikaanse niefiksie, Afrikanergeskiedenis én prima Afrikaanse produkte. Dié uitgewer het tydens die 100 jaar-herdenking van die Anglo-Boereoorlog in 1999 ontstaan en aanvanklik gefokus op die publikasie van versamelaarsboeke oor dié oorlog.
AfriForumTV is a digital platform that is online and free of charge, offering visual content to members and non-members. Subscribers can explore various channels on their television set, computer or cell phone in the comfort of their own home by using the AfriForum TV App. AfriForumTV is yet another communication strategy to make the public aware of AfriForum news and events, but also to offer entertainment in the form of movies and fiction and reality series. This content will be provided by AfriForum TV itself, institutions within the Solidarity Movement and external content providers.
Forum Sekuriteit was founded to provide a leading, dynamic and effective security service in South Africa, thereby increasing safety in communities.
Solidarity Helping Hand focuses on social wellbeing and the organisation’s larger vision is to find solutions to address Afrikaner poverty.
Solidarity Helping Hand’s calling is to solve poverty through community development. Solidarity Helping Hand believes people have a responsibility towards each other and towards the community.
Solidarity Helping Hand is based on the ideas of the Afrikaner Helpmekaar* Movement of 1949, placing a specific focus on “help”, “togetherness” and “mutuality”.
*Helpmekaar, meaning to aid one another
The Federation of Afrikaans Cultural Associations was established back in 1929. Today, this Federation is still the organisation that allows Afrikaans-speaking people to be creative in their language and culture. It is a future-orientated cultural organisation offering a home for the Afrikaans language and culture and is proudly promoting the Afrikaner history in a positive way.
AfriForum is a civil rights organisation that mobilises Afrikaners, Afrikaans-speaking people and other minority groups in South Africa and protects their rights.
AfriForum is a non-governmental organisation – registered as a non-profit company – with the aim of protecting the rights of minorities. While the organisation functions according to the internationally-recognised principle of the protection of minorities, AfriForum specifically focuses on the rights of Afrikaners as a community living on the southernmost tip of the continent. Membership is not exclusive, and any person who can associate themselves with the contents of the organisation’s Civil Rights Manifest may join.
