Story tellers ignite historical flames
Dynamic story tellers keep oral traditions alive.
DRIVEN by their passion to keep oral traditions alive, a team of 24 story-tellers spent a week travelling across KZN to gather stories from historical and cultural places.
These dynamic young story tellers have been trained by Africa!Ignite, a non-profit rural development organisation, to capture the stories of their communities and relay them to an audience.
Wilna Botha, CEO of Africa!Ignite, said they believe stories are powerful and significant. “We see value in giving people; particularly individuals and groups from rural and marginalised communities whose powerful stories are so often unheard of, opportunities to share their stories with the world. The aim of the entire story tellers project is to keep the oral traditions alive and to not lose the stories of our ancestors,” said Botha.
“The aim of this tour was to expose the story tellers to the places they may have only heard about through their stories.We are the Department of Arts and Culture’s story-telling partners and are now in the third year of teams of young story-tellers travelling from one library to the next, where they pitch bright ‘story-tents’ and perform/act out children’s stories as well as stories of KZN, followed by reading, games etc. as a catalyst to get children and adults to want to read and write,” added Botha.
The dynamic group called the ‘Telling stories of KZN’ team (based in the north, east, west and south of the province) also includes story-tellers from the WOWZULU Tourism Marketplaces in Inanda, St Lucia, Isandlawana in the Battlefields and on the South Coast. The team started their journey in Durban at the Kwa Muhle Museum where Steven Kotze, a historian and researcher based at Kwa Muhle, took them through some of the greater stories of KZN. They also visited the Ohlange Institute, Groutville, Luthuli Museum, Stanger, Eshowe and the Nelson Mandela Capture Site, travelling in the footsteps of kings and warriors, struggle heroes and icons of history.
For more information on Africa!Ignite and their exciting projects, visit www.africaignite.co.za
