SAHO has commenced their very first Graduate Development Programme, a skills development intervention that was made possible through a partnership with the Culture, Arts, Tourism, Hospitality and Sports Sector Education and Training Authority (CATHSSETA).
This programme is designed for students to gain work experience in research and for graduates to become familiar with the use of the web as a tool for research, thus contributing to the development of content for the website. SAHO has in the past been approached by various university departments to place students at SAHO, where they can acquire skills and work experience doing archival research.
Internally, SAHO has also identified a need to employ and train more researchers, web designers and digital archivists as the organization has embarked on several major projects. To achieve this, SAHO secured funding from the CATHSSETA to implement a Graduate Development Programme for a period of 6 months, and through this, graduates from universities in the Western Cape will:
- Undertake research into South African history and build an online archive of documents, images and other audio-visual resources.
- Contribute to the web-design process; digitize documents and visual images for use as online resources.
- Contribute to the exhibitions and publications programmes where they will acquire design, layout and other publication skills.
Aidan Erasmus
Aidan Erasmus is currently a MA student in the History Department at the University of the Western Cape. He completed his B.A at UWC in 2010, and finished his B.A Honours (Cum Laude) in History at UWC in 2011.
During his Honours year, he was awarded the Andrew W Mellon Postgraduate Fellowship Award, and he presented his Honours essay at a joint University of the Western Cape, University of Cape Town, and University of Stellenbosch Honours Student Symposium in 2011, which was well received.
Aidan’s research interests include performance, music, youth popular culture, and broadly histories of art and culture both under apartheid, as well as in the post-apartheid.
Outside of his academic pursuits, he is an avid blues harmonica player, and often plays shows with the band Fingers In The Sky in and around Cape Town.
Ayanda Wiseman Nombila
Holds a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in History and Anthropology, and B.A. Hons (History). Both degrees were obtained in the University of the Western Cape (UWC). Also in the same university I am currently pursuing a structured Masters of History, with interest on the South African liberation struggle and the history of black anthropology scholarship in Southern Africa. My M.A. research thesis is titled “A Hidden Ethnographer: the anthropology and biography of ZK Mathews (1901-1968”. I wish to begin a PHD in anthropology in 2013, at the Makerere Institute of Social Research, Uganda.
Bianca van Laun
Bianca van Laun completed her Bachelor of Arts in 2008 which she graduated Suma Cum Laude. She then went on to do her Honours degree in history for which she investigated the role of the youth in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and argued for a reassessment of the use of the concept youth especially in terms of those involved in violence. She graduated Cum Laude. Bianca recently completed her Masters Thesis which dealt with questions of violence and historiography in relation to a Poqo uprising in the town of Paarl, South Africa, in 1962. Bianca has earned a spot on the Deans Merit List each semester since her first year at the University of the Western Cape. She was the recipient of an Abe Bailey Travel fellowship which meant spending three weeks in the UK. She was also a guest at the University of Tuebingen in Germany as a member of the Tuebingen/South Africa language and culture program in January 2009. In 2011 Bianca also spent a semester as an exchange student at the University of Basel, Switzerland.
Brenton Maart
Brenton Maart is an artist, writer and curator, and is currently working towards a PhD in Fine Art, conducted jointly through Centre for Curating the Archive at the Michaelis School of Fine Art and the Archive and Public Culture Initiative, University of Cape Town. His research develops the notions of inadvertent monuments, ruins and palimpsests of apartheid in buildings located in previous South African homelands. His study aims to generate – through photographic practice and archival ferreting – two bodies of material with which to work: a contemporary photographic archive of the architectural structures, and a collated digital archive of material relevant to the history of the buildings.
Maart holds an Advanced Diploma in Photography from the Market Photography Workshop,an M.A. in Fine Arts from the University of the Witwatersrand and an M.Sc. from Rhodes University achieved with distinction.
Previous professional positions include those as Director of the KZNSA Gallery,Exhibitions Curator at the Johannesburg Art Gallery, Curatorial Consultant at Freedom Park Trust and Curator of the Gauteng Provincial Legislature Art Collection.
Daliwonga Lester
Currently I am registered as an MPHIL student in Law majoring in Labour Law, at the University of the Western Cape (UWC). In 2010 I completed BA Degree majoring in History, Political Studies and Language and Communications, from (UWC). I hold an Honours Degree in Political Studies form UWC. My research Topic was on ANC, looking at the Factors that contributed to their poor performance during the 2011 Local Government Elections. I am currently a member of the Student Representative Council (SRC), I hold the portfolio of Community Outreach Officer.
Laylanie Snayer
I currently hold a Bachelor of Arts Degree, and majored in English and Language and Communication Studies at the University of the Western Cape. I have also just completed my Honours degree in Linguistics at the same university. My Honours degrees in Linguistics focused On Business and Organisational Communication Studies, Media Studies, Inter and Cross Cultural Studies, Discourse Analysis and Research. My research focused on hybridity and intertextuality in a political correct version of a chosen bedtime story. I am currently looking to begin my Masters degree next year and hope to pursue the same topic at this academic level.
Memory Biwa
Memory Biwa is Ph.D. candidate in History specializing in memory politics of genocide in southern Namibia and the Northern Cape. She conducted fieldwork research documenting forms of knowledge systems such as theatre, songs, dances, stories and various rituals used to convey identity, resistance and colonialism in southern Namibia/northern Cape. She liaised with documentary film-makers creating documentary footage and films to present information on Khoe history. Memory has experience in advising oral researchers as a Project Officer at the National Archives of Namibia. A diverse range of expertise includes professional and academic research,developing and organizing events, as well coordination and facilitation skills.
Ntombizodidi Mapapu
I’m currently doing my Masters in Philosophy in Law MPhil (Law) at the University of the Western Cape focussing on Gender Equality and Women’s Rights, Comparative Regional and International Development, International Humanitarian Law and International Trade. I currently hold a BA degree and a BA Honours Degree in Political Science from the University of the Western Cape. My honours degree mini-thesis was in International Relations more particularly on the International Political Economy. My mini thesis topic delved on South- South Co-operation the topic focussed on the role that the India, Brazil and South- Africa (IBSA) Tri-lateral alliance plays in multilateral international fora with the focus being on the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
Riska Koopman
I currently hold a Bachelor of Arts Degree, and majored in Political Science, Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Stellenbosch. I have also just completed a Diploma in Project Management at Cape Peninsula University of Technology.
I am currently applying at various institutions to begin my Honours degree next year in Political Science.
Xolelwa Kashe-Katiya
I studied towards a BSc. degree at the University of Cape Town and majored in Archaeology. After graduating, I went on to complete an Honours degree in Physical Anthropology at the University of Pretoria. In 2010, I was awarded a fellowship with the Archives and Public Culture Research Initiative, to complete an MPhil. in Heritage and Public Culture with the Centre for African Studies at the University of Cape Town. My research interests entail the use of archival material to engage with different ways of knowing about human remains in post-apartheid South Africa.
I have in the past twelve years worked as a Researcher and a Project Manager in donor-funded, public and also academic environments. For a long time my duties included overseeing the quality assurance of learning programmes and training provision in the cultural and creative industries. I have also worked in environments where I assisted in giving intellectual, political, and professional direction to a variety of projects. I am passionate about critical engagements with accepted ways of thinking about cultural heritage in South Africa.