the HERITAGE AMBASSADOR PROGRAMME the HERITAGE AMBASSADOR PROGRAMME District Six Museum 25A Buitenkant Street Cape Town 8000 P.O. Box 10178 Caledon Square 7905 Tel: 27 (0)21 4667200 Fax: 27 (0)21 4667210 [email protected] [email protected] www.districtsix.co.za District Six Museum Homecoming Centre Sacks Futeran Building 15A Buitenkant Street Cape Town 8000 the ©District Six Museum 2012 Acknowledgements Additional publication research and coordination: Nadine Christians HERITAGE Design and layout: Graeme Arendse Photographs: District Six Museum staff members. Additional photographs supplied by Leslie Witz (Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum) Exhibition invitation design: Gerald Wells AMBASSADOR Funding: The National Heritage Council International travel: Funding sourced by Nelson Mandela Museum; Arab Resource Centre for Popular Arts PROGRAMME CONTENTS 1. Introduction 7 10. Programme Facilitation and 35 Reflections 2. About the National Heritage 9 Council 11. The Exhibition: Lwandle 41 Migrant Labour Museum 3. Message from the District Six 11 Museum 12. The Exhibition: District Six Museum 43 4. Message from Lwandle 13 Migrant Labour Museum 13. Statement from Two 45 Museums: Response to the violent attacks against foreigners! 5. Overview: The District Six 17 Museum’s Heritage Ambassador Programme 14. Working with the Stories of 47 Elsies River 6. The Beginning: Background 21 and early HAP experiences 15. Youth Exploring the ‘Living 49 Legends’ of Elsies River: Their stories 7. Baluleka! Youth Network: An exchange programme for youth 23 with adults, about memory, social 16. The Future 66 justice and expressive arts 17. News and Updates 68 8. Recruitment and Participation: for the entire 25 programme 18. Partner Profiles 70 9. Youth Talking Back: Reflections on the process 29 INTRODUCTION MANDY SANgER he main purpose of this In this publication we will also shed publication is to report lighton on the other secondary, but not the Heritage Ambassador less important, partnerships that TProgramme (HAP) of the were developed in the process of District Six Museum that consisted recruiting youth to participate in the of a number of partnership projects workshops that took place in the inner going as far back as 2006, funded by city during the period 2006 to 2009. the National Heritage Council. Our Young people from schools in Cape primary partnership was with the Town, from Lwandle / Strand and from Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum in community based organisations such an exploration of the themes of migrantas PeaceJam (Heideveld, Guguletu, labour and forced removals in the Maitland, Khayelitsha, Manenberg, shaping of Cape Town and its popularMitchell’s Plain), Comart (Elsies identities. We chose to privilege theseRiver), Umbon’Omhle (Langa) and the socio-political and economic themesChildrens’ Resource Centre/Movement as important ways of seeing the past (national), embarked on a series of in order to raise consciousness of the learning journeys that aimed to bridge varied ways in which communities can the false boundaries inherited from be formed and described amongst apartheid and which were only tweaked young people interested in thinking during our democratic years. about heritage. Our programme offered an important alternative to the manyA number of new partnership heritage projects that use the idea of possibilities emerged during the course limited cultural identities or racialised of this Heritage Ambassador Programme. communities as lenses through which For example, participants attended the to examine the past and the forces annual Mandela Museum Heritage and that shape us. Many young peopleLeadership camps in Qunu, Eastern are encouraged to study the field Cape,of a young anti-racism Ambassador heritage at high schools, as a potentialwas invited by the Nelson Mandela future business activity to generateMuseum to participate in a heritage products for a tourist market. They areeducation programme at the Bergen- taught to package the stories of their Belsen Concentration Camp Memorial ‘community’ as curios in ways that can in Germany, and I facilitated a 10-day generate an income. To think in other workshop (a contracted version of the ways about heritage and its relation to Heritage Ambassador Programme) at the tourism is seen as foolhardy and not Al-Jana/ARCPA summer encounter with worthy of investment of any kind – a Palestinian refugees and marginalised wasteful enterprise! youth in Lebanon. 6 7 ABOUT the NATIONAL HERITAGE COUNCIL The National Heritage Council funded our entire Heritage Ambassador project with our primary partner the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum. They also provided ongoing feedback and monitoring. he National Heritage Council The National Heritage Council, a of South Africa is a government Schedule 3A public entity that came into institution that is responsible existence through an amendment of the Tfor the preservation of the Cultural Laws Second Amendment Act country’s heritage. In its seven years 69 of 2001, was officially constituted of existence, it has managed to place through the National Heritage Council heritage as a priority for nation building Act 11 of 1999, assented to on 14 April, and national identity. The important 1999 and officially proclaimed on 26 areas that the NHC focuses on are February, 2004. policy development for the sector to meet its transformation goals, public Vision and Mission awareness and education, knowledge Our vision is to build a nation proud of production in heritage subjects that its heritage. were previously neglected, as well as Our mission is to transform, protect making funding available to projects and promote South African heritage for that place heritage as a socio-economic sustainable development. resource. From the National Heritage Council website: http://www.nhc.org.za 8 9 MESSAgE from the DISTRICT SIX MUSEUM District Six Museum and Youth Director: BONITA BENNETT he words ‘youth’ and were able to create something new. ‘museums’ do not always Through careful facilitation they were go easily together. Youth,guided into understanding the need T understandably, come with to balance personal success with preconceived ideas about museums collaborative group achievements; and their embeddedness in the past; between arguing their point strongly museums have preconceived ideas while listening carefully to the voices about youth as being disinterested in of others; between strengthening their the past, as being in need of convincing own weak points while not allowing that the past matters. their strengths to overpower others. Maybe it’s the particular nature of our The outcome, you will agree, has been museums (ie Lwandle and District Six wonderful. Not only in the tangible Museums) that have made these two outputs which we gathered together potentially opposing entities seem to to admire and celebrate, but also in the have a close natural fit with each other. residual learning about a different way of being in community with each other. The young people who have been involved with the various components I am proud that our museums have of the Heritage Ambassador been able to provide that nurturing Programmes described in this space. I am proud that this is at the document, have been nothing short core of our mission and purpose. I of inspiring. They have shattered thebelieve strongly that the Heritage mould which describes the youth of Ambassador Programmes have played today as being selfish, consumer driven a role – albeit small – in enhancing and narrowly focused on themselves. the skills and confidence that young With the energy of youth, they have people need in order to improve their displayed a maturity of focus which is life chances and circumstances. usually associated with age. As you will gather from the programme description Building on the strong foundations laid in this publication, they have managed by the elders who have gone before, to tap into their own inner resources, we are inspired by their embracing challenged their own assumptions of their pasts and their commitment about young people who came from to extending themselves beyond the backgrounds and circumstances which challenges and demands of the present. were different to their own, and they 10 11 MESSAgE from LWANDLE MIGRANT LABOUR MUSEUM Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum and Youth Chairperson of the Board: LESLIE WITZ he Lwandle Migrant Labour no longer with the Museum but, under Museum is very excited about the leadership of our educational officer, the partnership with the Mr Lunga Smile, and with the support of TDistrict Six Museum around an staff member, Nobungcwalisa Ngcani, Ambassador Programme. this initiative gathered momentum. From the side of Lwandle we were Lwandle Museum was the first museum eager to work with the District Six established in a Western Cape township. Museum as it is recognised both It was officially opened on Workers' Day nationally and internationally as being (1 May) 2000 and commemorates the at the cutting-edge of ideas and debates migrant labour system. It researches, about museums in post-apartheid South collects and displays histories of hostel Africa. We were thus very pleased life in Lwandle and in South Africa. that this had been formalised in a collaborative Ambassador Programme. Since the beginning of 2006 the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum has Participation in this partnership is been developing a partnership with the absolutely key to the development of District Six Museum. This has largely the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum. been around initial approaches that This programme is part of a broader set the manager at the time, Mr Mbulelo of initiatives which has involved meeting Mrubata, made about instituting a with representatives from schools, the Museum education programme. He Western Cape Education Department, saw the need to work much more museum educationalists, the Institute closely with schools in the Somerset for Justice and Reconciliation and West-Strand area (where Lwandle is academics from local universities. located) to generate an interest in the Although the Museum has limited Museum and to make effective use of resources we want to encourage the its educational resources.