Phase 1 September -December 2023
As part of our residency at Javett-UP we were tasked with developing a toolkit for them as a deliverable to the UNESCO Office for Southern Africa. The project was building on the outcomes of the ongoing National Liberation Movements Heritage Programme implemented by the UNESCO Office for Southern Africa, as these provided opportunity to develop a dynamic pedagogical framework for museums and cultural centres, engage communities more meaningfully, and ultimately deepen public knowledge of the intertwined histories and heritage of Southern African National Liberation Movements.
ARAC’s responsibility was to:
- Coordinate the formation of an 8-person working group made up of education, museum and cultural professionals, civil society members and local community leaders from the Southern African countries in collaboration with Javett-UP.
- Design, in consultation with UNESCO and Javett-UP, the Regional Symposium’s participant list and programme, as well as set the agenda for the consultative meetings.
- Draft a methodological framework based on the consultation meetings with the working group, to be presented to Javett-UP and UNESCO.
- Facilitate a workshop based on the findings of the consultation meetings during a one-day Regional Symposium.
- Finalise the methodological framework taking into consideration the feedback provided by the participants of the one-day Regional Symposium and submit to UNESCO for editing and feedback.
This project was facilitated through a collaboration between the Johannesburg and Maseru working groups who were supported by:
Livingstone Muchefa (Zimbabwe), Anawana Haloba (Zambia), Lerato Motshwarakgole (Botswana), David Andrew (South Africa), Bopane Rampeta (Lesotho), Emmanuel Ngwira (Malawi), Nashilongweshipwe Mushaandja (Namibia), Emilia Potenza (South Africa) (Not Physical) and Khulekani Msweli (Swaziland). The missing presence of people from Mozambique and Angola, not to mention the DRC, was due to resource constraints not a lack of will.
We carried on forward, counting on the research and the knowledge coming from ICOM members who joined us virtually, as well as a group of Community Members: Marthinus Roodt, Lerato Themba Khuzwayo - Capital Arts Revolution, Tracy Murinik - A R C H I V E: African Repository for the Collation of Historical, Interpretive Visual Explorations., Alison Kearney - Museum Under Erasure Project Tšeliso Monaheng - Writer and photographer, to even things out.To read a little bit more about who was present for the symposium and the things they talked about, you can download the programme below.
The toolkit will be launched soon and made available online through open source. It was developed using the Unchronological Timeline method as as pedagogical approach.
