Michael Stern (educator) - Waterford School

Waterford School

Stern left South Africa for Swaziland to establish a new school in which students of all races could study together, with an emphasis on cooperation in community service. As a result of his efforts, Waterford School was born in 1963.

Stern and his school became famous across southern Africa. Nelson Mandela, still in prison, sent his daughters there. Desmond Tutu sent his children. Seretse Khama, the leader of Botswana, sent his son Ian, who would later become President of Botswana. The Tutu and Sisulu families also sent their children. Another Waterford boy, Fernando Honwana, became a trusted assistant to Samora Machel of Mozambique, helping him to act as go-between in negotiations between Margaret Thatcher’s administration and the emerging African government in Rhodesia, later Zimbabwe. Stern's educational accomplishment was based on the school's balance of boys (and later girls) of all races, tribes and religions.

In November 1995, Nelson Mandela presented Stern with a Founder’s Medal, saying in his speech that Stern's time at Waterford "demonstrated in the worst days of apartheid, that even those who were free to enjoy the privileges of the system could ally themselves with the oppressed in the interest of non-racialism in Southern Africa."

Stern was appointed OBE in 1968, and in 1999 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Sussex University.