My Father’s Story
How USAID assistance during apartheid South Africa improved the lives of future generations
Thirty-five years ago, USAID provided an opportunity for students to overcome systemic racism in apartheid South Africa through the power of education.
Apartheid was a time when the South African Government enforced a system of racial segregation and discrimination against non-whites. As a Black South African, my father Sydney was denied the ability to finish his university degree. Fortunately, USAID stepped in to help with a program that prepared students to lead in post-apartheid South Africa and improved the lives of future generations.
“I transferred the opportunities that were given to me to my children,” Sydney said. “My story is one that proves that we can pass on the opportunities given to us to future generations.”
The South African Education Programme (SAEP) was a USAID-funded program created in 1979 to bring Black South African students to the United States for university education. By 1995, the program reached more than 1,500 students.
In 1980, my father was in his second year studying toward a bachelor’s of science at the University of Fort Hare in Eastern Cape Province. But after an uprising against the continued use of the Bantu Education curriculum, which exacerbated the conditions of apartheid, he and all other university students from the northern provinces of the country were blamed as culprits and expelled.
My father, who is from Transvaal, found himself at home, without a college to attend.
Two years later, he returned to Fort Hare to attempt to complete his bachelor of science degree, only to be met by a repeat of circumstances in which, after a student uprising, the authorities again expelled all students from the northern provinces from the university.
“At that point, sitting at home in August, I sadly realized that the only way I could further my education was to study outside of South Africa,” my father told me.
“In early 1983, I was browsing through the newspapers when I noticed an advertisement by the USAID-funded South African Education Programme (SAEP) for Black students who would like to study in the U.S. to apply,” he said. “I wasted no time and put all effort into ensuring that I did all they required to get on that program.”
By April 1983, SAEP informed my father that his application had been successful, and that he would be admitted to Pratt Institute in New York City to study chemical engineering.
“Given everything I had gone through up to that point, it was the greatest news ever,” said Sydney.
Fast forward 35 years later and over two decades after apartheid ended, I am now working for USAID in the Southern Africa Mission. The same organization that gave my father the opportunity to further his education. My father obtained his bachelor’s degree and came back to South Africa to build a life for my mother, brother, and myself.
“The program gave us hope, confidence and prepared us to lead in a post-apartheid South Africa,” explained Sydney.
By providing access to a university education abroad, USAID opened the door for my parents to do more for us than the average Black family affected by the systemic racism entrenched in the apartheid regime. My parents could afford my tertiary education, so that I could obtain a master’s degree in international relations.
As USAID celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, I can also celebrate on a personal level the profound and positive impact USAID has made in our family’s life. USAID has certainly made progress towards a world where every man, woman, and child can live with dignity and reach their full potential and I feel honored to play my role in continuing this legacy in Southern Africa.
About the Author
Nandipha P. Kunaka is a Development Outreach and Communications Specialist at USAID’s Southern Africa Regional Mission.
