The Alex Heritage Centre team is now optimistic that public participation and local ownership of the centre will be guaranteed.
In the article, Question of heritage, week ending 11 September, the team had expressed concern about the exclusion of Alex residents in the development of the centre.
It now seems possible that local residents’ roles would be to conduct tours that will inform the public and tourists of the true story of the township and, in the process, enable them to reap from the potential financial spin-offs.
The centre’s, Thabo Mopasi, said that at a meeting with the Joburg Development Agency, the national departments of tourism and of arts and culture, it was decided that financial resources would be allocated to the centre so it could document the history of the township for exhibitions.
Mopasi said his team and residents had been collecting information, artefacts, photographs, and oral and written narrations of the township’s history after the initial understanding many years ago that they would play this role in the development of the centre.
“The information was gathered from elderly people and from social, political and development activists who saw it as their responsibility to tell the real historical story, the vibes and challenges of Joburg’s oldest township from inception in 1905 until 2015 for the benefit of the current generation, visitors, students and historians, and for posterity,” said Mopasi.
He added that with budgetary support, the team would now be able to also factor in other components to help safeguard and manage the centre. “We will motivate for the creation of a Heritage Society Trust comprising respectable community leaders. Their role will be to safeguard the place, ensure the exhibitions are properly sourced, documented, patented, stored, maintained and managed, and to create an endowment fund to support archivists, researchers, administration, cleaners and security drawn from local people.”
He said the trust would be expected to draft and submit operational, management and budget plans to relevant government departments and other support agencies.
Mopasi said they hoped the centre, which had been scheduled for completion on 9 September, would be ready for handover before the end of the year.
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