Barry Streek was educated at Michaelhouse in Kwazulu-Natal where he wrote for and was a member of the board of the Beacon, a student run journal.

It was revealed in later years that the police special branch, with direct assistance from the university, had compiled a substantial file on Streek's anti-apartheid activities.

With Streek's prompting, NUSAS was seeking to raise the awareness of its predominantly 'white' membership of the conditions under which other South Africans lived and studied while at university, a necessary strategy since students belonging to different 'population groups' were effectively barred from one another's campuses.

Through SCAT he helped establish the civil society and trade union center at Community House where he was chairperson of the centre's board of directors.

[11] 25 years of Streek's long career as a political journalist was spent in the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Cape Town.

[7] The Cape Town Press Club initiated a scholarship for people from previously disadvantaged backgrounds to study journalism at Rhodes University.