Summary of the All College Conference in 2014
In 2014, Khanya held its 2nd All College Conference (ACC). The conference that brought together the various constituencies that the College works and collaborates with. Over 70 social movement activists, staff and members of the board attended the 3-day conference.
The aims of the ACC 2014 were:
- A review of the strategic orientation adopted at the 2000 All College Conference
- A review of the programme and activities of the College
- over the last decade
- A discussion of the challenges of institution and
- organization building
Outcomes of the 2014 All College Conference
The conference had a number of important outcomes: Firstly, based on the deliberations of the conference the leadership team has produced a strategy paper that positions the College in the South African and international context in the next few years. The paper, “Khanya College: Perspectives, Positioning and Strategy Before and After Marikana” was completed and is in the process of being published for a wider distribution. Secondly, a proposal outlining the work of the College in the next 3 years was produced and discussed with some of the College’s donor partners. Thirdly, the Strategy Paper and the discussions in the conference led to the restructuring of Khanya’s programme for the next 3-5 years. Below is a summary of the strategic orientation emerging out of the conference, as well as the implications for programming in the next few years.
Khanya’s overall strategic position developments and the discussions at the All College Conference have led to the repositioning of the College from an exclusive focus on the activist layer among social movements, to an orientation towards the primary organisations of the working class. The College’s overall strategy paper has defined these as organisations involved in the daily reproduction of the working class, and that generates its solidaristic cultures, produce its leaders at a community level, and are reproduced spontaneously within the working class. Although the primary focus will be on these organisational forms, a secondary focus will continue to be on leadership development in the established organisations and movements, albeit with an emphasis on self-education through study groups and other platforms.
Programme Restructuring and Focus
In order to respond to the context, the recommendations of the external evaluation and to facilitate the focus towards the primary organisations of the working class, the programme structure of the College was consolidated and given a sharper focus. In particular, the College agreed with the recommendation to phase out its role as a secretariat of the Southern African Farmworker Network (SAFWN). On-going work with members of the network will continue through their participation in movement networks and study groups that Khanya and the movements themselves initiate.
Further, the programme structure has been streamlined and reorganised to respond to the orientation towards a focus on primary organisations. On one level, the College will work on three key programmes that provide scope for direct and on-going links to (and exposure to), the primary organisations within the various communities. These first programmes are the Home-based Carers (HBC), the Mass Advice Work (MAD) and youth work through Tsohang Batjha! (TB). These initiatives share a number of key features. While these programmes provide daily defence against the survival challenges of the working class (the MAD – challenge of daily access to rights; HBC – daily challenges posed by HIV/AIDS; TB – daily challenge posed by deteriorating education system and general capacities of the working class) and are therefore at the interface with a range of primary organisations of the working class, they also provide space for the transition to broad mass-based self- organisation within the working class.
The HBC provides the basis for a mass based health movement rooted in communities; MAD provides a basis for a mass-based and community driven legal rights movement; the TB provides a basis for a mass based youth movement that has the potential to lift youth self-esteem and confidence, youth self-employment and to originate a range of organisational forms among the youth.
A second tier of programming is made up of the Winter School, the Jozi Book Fair and the Forum of Activist (or Community) Journalists. [The FAJ is a writing and networking platform open to activists from various organisations that Khanya works with, as well as individuals interested in telling stories from their communities]. These interventions provide platforms for various self-initiatives, primary organisations and social movements within communities to come together, to share experiences, to publicise developments within communities and to enhance working class communities’ ability to respond to the challenges facing them at a broader societal level. These platforms play a catalytic role in facilitating on-going links between these self-initiatives through their facilitation of study groups, book clubs, and on-going networking, and thereby provide a bridge that allows inward looking primary organisational forms to transition to mass based transformative initiatives.
A third tier of Khanya’s programming is the provision of platforms for working class self-education. This programming tier is made up of various newsletters and Karibu (being developed as a national newspaper); study groups and book clubs; educational supplements such as Baithuti; and self publishing within the working class; documentation of experiences within the working class and sharing these through traditional and electronic media; and providing platforms for the development of a theoretical understanding of the world among which activists live and act.
These 3-tiered interventions or programmatic lines respond to the orientation towards primary organisations; they respond to the challenge of consolidating the three College programmes that have grown out of the last phase of its work and provide a space for them to move to a consolidation and advancement phase as recommended in the external evaluation. Consistent with the general strategic orientation, the programmes continue to provide space for leadership training among established movements, and the space to support campaigns by various social movements.