African Solidarity Learning Festival
A continent in conversation, learning and struggle.
About the Festival
The African Solidarity Learning Festival (ASLF) is Tshisimani’s annual gathering of organisers, artists and thinkers from across Africa. It’s a living classroom for movements — a week-long space where people come together to learn, share and dream about building a just and liberated continent.
Through storytelling, workshops, music, theatre and dialogue, the festival explores how movements can learn across borders, respond to crises, and strengthen solidarity. Each edition of the ASLF is rooted in people-centred Pan-Africanism — the belief that liberation must grow from the struggles and imaginations of ordinary people.
Our Purpose
- Exchange and learning: Create a space for activists to share experiences, tactics and lessons from their struggles.
- Build solidarity: Nurture connections among movements working for land, housing, gender, ecological and economic justice.
- Celebrate culture: Use art, song and theatre to express the spirit of resistance and hope that drives African struggles.
- Strengthen Pan-Africanism: Deepen cooperation and unity across regions and generations of activists.
A Journey Across the Continent
2022 – Foundations in Nairobi and Lusaka
The ASLF began as a vision — taking shape through planning exchanges in Kenya and Zambia where activists met to design a continent-wide space for movement learning and solidarity.
2023 – Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
The first full festival came to life in partnership with JULAWATA and Youth4Parliament, celebrating people-centred Pan-Africanism through dialogue, cultural performances and political education.
2024 – Maputo, Mozambique
Hosted with Alternactiva, Fórum Mulher and UNAC, the second edition drew over 60 participants from more than 12 countries. It focused on land, gender and agrarian struggles, deepening connections between rural and urban movements.
2025 – Accra, Ghana
The fourth edition, co-hosted with Democracy Hub, gathered youth organisers, feminist collectives and artist-activists from across Africa. It reflected the growing energy of a new generation confronting inequality and authoritarianism with creativity and courage.
Who Attends
Participants come from movements, community organisations, student networks and creative collectives across Africa — land defenders, housing activists, feminist organisers, environmental justice groups, and cultural workers. Together they form a continent-wide network of solidarity, collaboration and shared learning.
Why It Matters
The ASLF is more than a conference — it’s a movement space.
It builds bridges between struggles, connects ideas to action, and reminds us that freedom in one place depends on freedom everywhere.
Each year, new friendships are forged, new songs are written, and a shared vision for Africa’s future grows stronger.
Join the Next Festival
To learn more or partner with us for the next edition of the African Solidarity Learning Festival, contact info@tshisimani.org.za or visit our social media channels for updates.
“The festival is a reminder that solidarity is not an event — it’s a practice.”
2025: Ghana
To be confirmed…
2024: Mozambique
The 2024 African Solidarity Learning Festival, hosted in Maputo by TCAE alongside Alternactiva, UNAC, UNDE, and Forum Mulher, brought together social justice movements from across Africa to advance the outcomes of the 2023 Festival and strengthen People-Centred Pan-Africanism. Through arts, popular education, and cultural strategies, participants explored self-reliance, youth resistance to neoliberalism, land and gender politics, and cross-border solidarity. The weeklong programme included reflections on political contexts, visits to women-led farming cooperatives, and discussions on youth mobilisation, ecological justice, and feminist organising, culminating in a writing exercise led by South African poet Pralini Naidoo. While participants valued the sense of political grounding, connection, and shared learning, challenges such as bribery, poor infrastructure, and time constraints hindered deeper engagement. Key lessons highlighted the need for focused themes, better logistical planning, improved venue research, and fuller integration of the arts to enhance future festivals and foster enduring Pan-African solidarity.
2023: Tanzania
Following the success of the Learning Festival, Tshisimani was invited to the annual meeting of social movements in Dar es Salaam—an initiative begun in 2016 as a reflection platform after the expulsion of student activists from Makerere University. Held from 1–5 December at the UWAWAMA cooperative centre, the gathering brought together movements from Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa, and beyond to advance Pan-African solidarity through prefigurative approaches. Organized collaboratively and self-funded, participants shared accommodation, cooked together, and facilitated sessions designed to foster organic connections and mutual learning. Program highlights included a feminist convening for women activists, artistic exchanges, and a commemoration of Fidel Castro’s legacy. Key resolutions involved hosting the 2024 convening in Kenya, developing creative fundraising strategies such as a poetry anthology, building a solidarity pool to support under-resourced movements, and mentoring young women activists. For Tshisimani, the convening deepened its understanding of movement organizing under restrictive conditions and the educational support it can provide. Internally, 2023 marked a pivotal year with major restructuring due to funding constraints, prompting resilience and adaptability among staff. A new partnership with the University of the Western Cape provided office space and collaboration on joint initiatives, while Tshisimani continued its secretarial support for the African Solidarity Network. Despite financial challenges from a lost funder, new partnerships and funding were secured, ensuring sustainability. Strengthened by these experiences, Tshisimani remains committed to innovation, solidarity, and impact as it looks ahead with renewed resolve and gratitude to its team, partners, and supporters.
2022: Kenya & Zambia
The Tshisimani Centre for Activist Education, established in 2016 to advance political education for poor and working-class activists, expanded its focus in 2022 toward building cross-border solidarity and learning networks across Southern and Eastern Africa, supported by Luminate funding. As part of this effort, Tshisimani convened two regional planning meetings in Lusaka, Zambia (focused on land and ecological justice) and Nairobi, Kenya (focused on youth politics). The process involved extensive research and collaboration with partner organisations such as Youth4Parliament and the Mathare Social Justice Centre to co-design the gatherings. Participants from 11 African countries mapped political conditions, explored the impacts of corruption, repression, xenophobia, and ecological crises, and shared strategies for solidarity-based activism. The Lusaka discussions examined xenophobia as rooted in colonial legacies and neoliberalism, proposing campaigns, online platforms, and educational initiatives to counter it. Site visits in Nairobi and Lusaka deepened participants’ understanding of grassroots organising, art for liberation, and historical traditions of Pan-African solidarity. Both convenings led to the creation of regional steering committees to coordinate ongoing collaboration, webinars, and a 2023 festival of movements. Key lessons included the importance of security, gender inclusion, independence from NGO dominance, and the central role of arts, culture, and experiential learning in political education and movement building across the continent.
