Education in Exile

SOMAFCO, the ANC school in Tanzania, 1978 to 1992

This book re-lives the exile experience of many South Africans from 1978 to 1992 at the Solomon Mahlangu Freedom College (SOMAFCO). Much is known about the youth who fled South Africa to join Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK). Less is known about the many who left the country to receive education and vocational training and to be part of a unique, self-reliant community at the ANC settlements of Mazimbu and Dakawa, near Morogoro in Tanzania. This latter group of mainly young people were equally freedom fighters, dedicated to preparing themselves for service to the struggle and for reconstruction and development in a free nation.

At SOMAFCO were gathered young people and their teachers, who had been obliged to flee a country whose regime had attempted to miseducate its youth and then turned viciously on them when they resisted. In the difficult conditions of exile this remarkable school sustained and developed an education based on principles of equal opportunity, non-discrimination and the dignity and unity of mental and manual labour. SOMAFCO was a beacon of hope. South Africans from all backgrounds, and solidarity workers from many parts of the world, showed at Mazimbu and Dakawa what a new educational system might be and what new ways of thinking about teaching and learning could achieve.