The Secret Thread is a strand of human history. It is a collection of connections between people. Sometimes it is the shimmering filament of an idea shared across continents. Sometimes it is the instant bond between strangers standing side-to-side in a crisis. Sometimes it is the whisper, the scribbled note or the handshake that starts someone on a journey through humanity.

A project called the Christian Fellowship Trust (CFT) wove this thread through thousands of lives, around the world, over many years. It started in 1964, with a meeting in the Rand Club in Johannesburg, South Africa, that led to a modest but remarkable 35-year effort to undermine apartheid from its roots up, in townships and informal settlements, in homes and churches around the world.

Throughout decades of severe repression, and despite the risks involved, the CFT enabled people working for a just, democratic and united South Africa to break out of their isolation from each other.

It brought together people with vision and commitment across international and individual boundaries, to build understanding and solidarity between South African and European communities.

The founders of CFT, who included businessman Sir Derrick Bailey and the visionary Dutch Reformed Church Minister Dr Beyers Naudé, had a simple but radical idea. They believed that giving people a chance to travel would broaden their horizons, deepen their perceptions, and strengthen them to challenge the theology of apartheid.

CFT gave grants and arranged programmes for some 300 people to travel on two- to three-month study tours, initially from South Africa to Europe and other parts of the world, and later from Europe to South Africa and Namibia. The list of grantees in both directions reflects a wide range of clergy and laity from diverse religious, social and racial backgrounds.

There were no strings attached – no requirements to change attitudes, professions, affiliations – just a request for a report describing their experiences. Many grantees became key leaders in the church and civil society, living out their commitment to build a new South Africa and to develop their communities. No one can know whether they would all have done this if they had never heard of CFT but most say that the exposure, insights and support they gained through their tours provided a spur to pursue their vision of freedom and democracy.