volunteered to face German bullets, and as a guard of military installations, both in South West Africa and the Republic, was prepared to be the victim of their sabotage. Today, they are our masters and are considered the heroes, and I am called the coward. After the war he worked on a farm near Kalkfeld until he came back to Odibo and attended school at St Mary's Mission School to learn English. He had to change his religion from Lutheran to Anglican in order to be admitted. He completed Standard 6 but stayed on until 1950, graduating as a teacher, whereafter he successfully operated a store at Ondangwa. Toivo taught at St Cuthberth's School at Onamutayi and St. Mary's Odibo before travelling to South Africa for further studies in 1951. Political career Toivo left for Cape Town in 1951 and was employed as a railway police officer between 1952 and 1953. He joined political movements such as the Modern Youth Society (MYS), where he met Denis Goldberg. He became the deputy chairman of the MYS, which organised festivals, lectures, discussion groups and night schools for activists who pursued further education. He joined the African National Congress (ANC) at Cape Town in 1957. Later that year, he co-founded the Ovamboland People's Congress (OPC), forerunner of the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO). He also established close contacts with the two South African parties the Congress of Democrats and the Liberal Party. The OPC sought to fight for the rights of migrant workers, some of whom had defected from the South West African Native Labour Association (SWANLA). The organisation also mobilised against the incorporation of Namibia into South Africa, and therefore shared a political allegiance with other organisations in South Africa. In December 1958, Ya Toivo, with the assistance of Goldberg, sent a tape to Mburumba Kerina and Michael Scott documenting human rights violations in South West Africa, after Chief Hosea Kutako was refused permission by the South African authorities to represent his people at the United Nations. This was used to petition the United Nations. Consequently, he was deported from Cape Town, first to Keetmanshoop and Windhoek and later to Ovamboland, where he was placed under house arrest in his home village Okaloko. Toivo stayed in constant close contact with Leonard Auala from the Evangelical Lutheran Ovambo-Kavango Church (ELOC). Because of OPO's deep roots in the Ovambo people, ELOC subsequently gave its support