South African History Online

South African History Online (SAHO) is a non-partisan people's history project. It was established in June 2000 as a non-profit Section 21 organisation, aiming to address the biased way in which the history and cultural heritage of South Africans was represented in our educational and cultural institutions.

SAHO's mission is to break the silence of our past and to create the most comprehensive online encyclopedia of South African history and culture. SAHO has committed itself to involve heritage and academic institutions as well as ordinary South Africans in rewriting our history and in that way contributing to reconciliation, the building of a common humanity and a non-racial, non sexist and democratic society.

Online Encyclopaedia of South African and African History

SAHO history website has, in its short history, become the largest and most comprehensive online website on South African history and culture. SAHO website is also unique in that it has community, schools and heritage institution outreach programmes enabling individuals and institutions to record their own and their communities' histories. The site has become a truly national, cultural and heritage asset, extensively used by educational and heritage institutions as well as the country's mass media. SAHO website has a huge international audience and is a tool to critically study our society.

One of our major features and ongoing projects is the history of the Liberation Struggle and the online Wall of Remembrance, which gives recognition to all those who played a role in our struggle for freedom, equality and democracy. SAHO website feeds into and complements the work done by other Heritage projects such as the Robben Island Museum, Freedom Park, Mandela Legacy Project and a host of community and tertiary based history projects.

SAHO aims to build links with academics in the rest of Africa to assist us in building a truly African history website that will create understanding of its history and its people across the continent and that will help eradicate ignorance and poverty, as well as promote democracy on the continent

Schools History Project

SAHO schools history project is made up of a number of inter-related projects aimed at popularizing and strengthening the teaching of the new history curriculum. This project is run in partnership with the Department of Education.

The Online History Classroom is the mainstay of SAHO's schools programme and allows learners and educators to download the entire new history curriculum that covers material from grade 4 to grade 12. The History Classroom is constantly being upgraded and a CD of the material is available for use by schools that do not have internet access.

Publication of Curriculum material: SAHO has designed and published books and CD's for the Department of Education to meet the needs of the country's new curriculum. These publications are intended particularly for those schools with no computers or internet access.

Teacher workshops: SAHO conducts workshops for history teachers on how to use the world wide web for research and how to produce and publish online their own multimedia lessons.

National Oral History Project: SAHO and the Department of Education jointly run the annual Chief Albert Luthuli Young Historians Prize. This is a national Oral History project, which invites learners and educators to undertake oral history projects on people who fought for freedom and those who are promoting democracy in their communities.

Student Internship Programme

SAHO initiated a student internship programme to provide history graduates with an opportunity to work as researchers and in multi-media, networking and publishing environment. Many of SAHO's staff who joined us asresearchers have gone on to do PHD's, becoming senior researchers and lecturers ... more info .

Community Project

SAHO has developed links with community based projects and provides communities with assistance and training to undertake oral history projects and in the use of the Internet to tell their own and their communities’ histories. This enables communities to market their community heritage sites, local histories, festivals etc. online.

As part of our community and website project we launched the 'Lives of Courage Campaign'. The campaign’s primary aim is to build an online “Wall of Remembrance”, and to involve communities and more specifically, school children to assist in the compilation of this information. The online “Wall of Remembrance” will include information on people who were imprisoned, banned, banished, detained, executed (in prison or by security forces), died in exile or in action within the country and who played a leading role in the trade union, women, youth and liberation organizations.

Publications

South African History Online has a printing and publications programme that showcases and promotes the works of South African historians, artists and photographers. SInce 2000, we have assembled, edited and published a series of books on history, culture and photography in partnership with local and international publishing partners ... more info .

Exhibitions

SAHO has an online and traveling exhibition programme. We have in the past six years organised a number of seminal exhibitions that have traveled locally and internationally. SAHO has also assisted artists and photographers with designing, printing and marketing of their work.

In additon we publish 'Web Galleries'. SAHO’s flagship project is its website, which includes information on artists and their work, the history of arts organisations, movements and cultural heritage. The website regularly features the work of South African artists and photographers in the form of a web gallery accompanied by a commentary and biographical details on the artists.

Cultural Exchange

SAHO has worked with the Department of Foreign Affairs and other NGO's to promote cultural links with Africa and the rest of the world. Contacts with art institutions in other African countries have been established and copies of SAHO’s publications have been donated to 150 libraries on the continent.

SAHO exhibitions have traveled inside South Africa, as well as to Ethiopia, Norway, USA, Canada, Argentina, Pakistan, Iran, Oman, Australia and Mexico.

Structure

South African History Online is governed by a Board of Directors.

For more information

Go to the website at http://www.sahistory.org.za/

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