Beyond slogans: A critical reflection on harambee and Ubuntu from a South African Black social worker

I write this reflection as a South African Black social worker, as Babe Kazi, the woman-father, the aunt whose responsibility in the family is not only to nurture, but also to question, to correct, to warn, and to speak uncomfortable truths for the good of the collective. In African families, Babe Kazi does not remain silent when things are celebrated without being properly examined. She speaks because she loves. She challenges because she cares.

It is from this position that I reflect on the 2026 World Social Work Day theme, Co-Building Hope and Harmony: A Harambee Call to Unite a Divided Society, promoted by the International Federation of Social Workers, the International Association of Schools of Social Work, and the International Council on Social Welfare.

World Social Work Day is being commemorated globally this year under this theme. Nothing can be changed now. But reflection must not stop because celebration has begun. In African households, we can ululate and still ask hard questions. We can celebrate and still correct. That is the spirit in which this reflection is offered.

Moral appeal and emotional resonance

The theme speaks beautifully. It speaks of hope, harmony, solidarity, and pulling together. As social workers who walk daily with pain, poverty, trauma, and injustice, we are naturally drawn to such language. It affirms why many of us entered this profession in the first place. The idea of walking alongside communities resonates deeply with African relational values. It reflects the ethics of care, mutuality, and interdependence that many of us were raised with. In this sense, the theme honours important dimensions of social work practice. For many practitioners, especially in under-resourced contexts, this language provides emotional energy and moral encouragement. That should not be dismissed.

African knowledge: Welcome, but incomplete

As a Black African social worker, I appreciate the continued effort to centre African Indigenous knowledge and language in global discourse. The use of harambee is not accidental. It reflects an awareness that Africa has something valuable to contribute to global social work thinking. However, it is not enough to simply mention African concepts. How they are used matters. Harambee is presented mainly as a general call for cooperation. It is detached from its historical, political, and philosophical roots. More importantly, it is not clearly located within Ubuntu, which is the deeper African ethical and philosophical system from which practices such as harambee emerge.

Ubuntu is not just about togetherness. It is about reciprocity, justice, moral responsibility, accountability, and restoring broken relationships. It insists that my humanity is tied to yours, but also that I am responsible when I benefit from your suffering. Without grounding harambee in Ubuntu, the theme risks turning African philosophy into a motivational slogan. It becomes something to decorate global agendas, rather than a serious knowledge system that can reshape how social work thinks and acts.

Power, inequality, and uncomfortable truths

As Babe Kazi, I must speak here. Our societies are not divided because people forgot how to love each other. They are divided because of land dispossession, racial capitalism, colonial borders, extractive economies, gender oppression, and political corruption. They are divided because some benefit while others are sacrificed. When we speak only of harmony and unity without naming these structures, we are being polite in the face of injustice.

In South Africa, we were told to reconcile while wealth remained in the same hands. We were told to forgive while inequality deepened. We were told to move on while townships remained overcrowded and under-resourced. We know very well that harmony can be used to silence demands for justice. A theme that calls for pulling together must also ask: Who is pulling? Who is being pulled? Who is sitting comfortably while others carry the load?

The risk of depoliticising social work

The theme celebrates empathy, partnership, and cooperation. These are important. But social work is not only about being kind. It is also about being brave. In many countries, social workers are forced to manage poverty instead of challenging it. We are expected to provide counselling instead of demanding housing. We are asked to build resilience instead of confronting austerity. We are trained to cope rather than to resist.

When themes focus mainly on hope and harmony, they can unintentionally reinforce this depoliticisation. They can make us forget that social work is also about advocacy, protest, policy struggle, and institutional reform. As African social workers, we come from histories of resistance. Our profession was shaped in struggle. We dishonour that history when we reduce ourselves to comforters only.

Romanticising African concepts

Harambee and Ubuntu are powerful, but they are not simple. They have been used for community solidarity, but also for political control. They have been mobilised for liberation, but also for patronage. When global discourse presents them only in positive terms, it produces a romantic Africa that does not exist. It selects what is convenient and ignores what is difficult. True respect means engaging African knowledge seriously, critically, and contextually. It means allowing African scholars and practitioners to define, debate, and reinterpret these concepts themselves.

The invisible burden on social workers

The theme presents social workers as builders of hope and guardians of harmony. This sounds empowering, but it also places heavy moral pressure on practitioners who are already exhausted. Many social workers in the Global South work with high caseloads, low salaries, limited supervision, and emotional burnout. We operate in systems that are underfunded and overregulated. We are expected to perform miracles with empty hands. When global themes emphasise hope without addressing working conditions, they risk individualising systemic failure. They suggest that if only social workers tried harder, society would be healed.

Towards deeper reflection and future growth

As we commemorate World Social Work Day this year, this reflection is not meant to dismiss the theme. It is meant to deepen it. From the position of Babe Kazi, I say: we must grow beyond beautiful words.

Future themes must:

• Clearly situate harambee within Ubuntu and African philosophical systems
• Engage honestly with power, inequality, and political economy
• Recognise struggle and resistance as part of social change
• Avoid romanticising African concepts
• Centre African and Indigenous scholars in knowledge production
• Balance moral inspiration with structural analysis

So this year, we will celebrate. We will march. We will speak. We will affirm our profession. But like Babe Kazi, we will also watch carefully, question courageously, and speak honestly. Because loving the profession means refusing to let it become comfortable with injustice.