Memory, Arts and Healing

This cluster of projects is community-based initiatives aimed at targeting participants representing different levels of society to ensure an inclusive approach to memory and healing. The following projects form part of the cluster: Memory, Arts and Culture Project, School Oral History Project, Ashley Kriel Memorial Lecture, Memory Project and Community Healing Project.


Memory, Arts and Culture:

Memory, Arts and Culture

The Memory, Arts and Culture project draws on various art genres to share the memories expressed in the folktales, stories and songs of marginalized communities. The project engages with the oral history and tradition of three specific communities in the Western , Northern and Eastern Cape.

      
Memory Project :

Memory Project

Communities of the Western Cape remain a clear manifestation of the divisions entrenched via the Group Areas Act. Geographical divides have sadly translated into deep structural, social and psychological cleavages. Public spaces remain charged with tensions of the past. And so we are faced with a lack of collective ownership – a lack of collective ownership of public spaces, and a lack of collective ownership of memory/history.
The Memory Project was birthed as a response to this apartheid hang-over and aims to create living spaces that acknowledge the full range of diverse memories. It is the hope that through acknowledging where we come from we may begin to craft new identities that truly do represent the diversity that is Cape Town.

      
Schools Oral History Project:

Schools Oral History Project

This project fosters the ability of high school learners to acquire skills to participate in the collective writing, development, and presentation of individual and community history.

      
The Ashley Kriel Memorial Youth Lecture: The Board of the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and the Senate of the University of the Western Cape have jointly decided to honour Ashley Kriel by instituting an annual memorial lecture addressing the challenges of youth leadership in communities across the country. Before he was brutally killed, he tirelessly engaged the young people around him in Bonteheuwel where he lived and in the broader Cape area. We remember his example in order to inspire us to respond to the many young people falling by the wayside in our communities today. the challenge of developing a youth leadership

Ashley Kriel Annual Memorial Youth Lecture

In partnership with the University of the Western Cape, this lecture focuses on developing a youth leadership and a sense of history and identity – to make young people aware that they have outstanding role models who provided leadership through tough times.

      

The Community Healing Project

comhealbridge.jpg

What is community healing?

  • Record, memorialize and celebrate local histories.
  • Explore positive ways to deal with dysfunctional legacies of the past.
  • Establish ways of working together in and between historically divided communities.
  • Create viable development initiatives amongst participants. 

The process is characterized by relationship-building, interrogating and celebrating local identities, promoting social cohesion and seeking links between healing and economic development.

      
FEATURED PUBLICATION
Stories op die wind: n Handleiding vir opvoeders van Noord-Kaapse volksverhale. 2006
Stories op die wind