Educators and Community
Based Facilitators
Photographer: Unknown
Learning Possibilities
The District Six Museum is a useful extension of the classroom or community learning experience. Visually appealing, the Digging Deeper exhibition encourages learners to be curious about a recent past to which they may or may not have a direct family or community link.
Educators are advised to prepare learners in advance to help them to navigate through the layered oral testimonies, documentary evidence, and audio-visual materials. Our ex-resident education officers offer intimate guided visits which learners love. They leave with more than facts: they leave having engaged with the knowledge and spirit of a place that Apartheid destroyed, but that lives on in the memories and personal stories of former residents. These memories and stories are passed on to many others and continue to be associated with the empty spaces and fragments left behind after the bulldozers moved out. Traces are still evident in the fragments of architecture left standing.
Many areas of forced removals have become gentrified
A visit to the District Six Museum is also an opportunity for community
To make a booking for a learning institution or community
Who are our current
Ex-resident Storytellers?
For many years, Noor Ebrahim and Joe Schaffers have been introducing learners – young and old alike – to the history, culture and social life of District Six, life under Apartheid, and forced removals in general. They have recently been joined by Susan Lewis and Aboubarker Brown (returnees), and Ruth Jeftha, Farahnaaz Gilfelleon, Jasmina Salie and Moegammat Benjamin (claimants).
Mlandeli Mbiko has recently joined the team to share his experience of Apartheid Pass Laws with learners. He is a heritage practitioner developing the concept for a Heritage Precinct in a township called Nyanga.
Building the repertoire of available stories of people who lived under Apartheid, continues to be an important strand which the Museum will continue to develop and grow. We are constantly on the lookout for more former residents of District Six and other sites of forced removals who have experiences of the pass laws and influx control to join this team of storytellers.
Aboubarker Brown
Aboubarker Brown was born at 181 Hanover Street in District Six. He attended Trafalgar Junior and later Trafalgar High School. He was a very good baker, and also played for Rosebuds Rugby Football Club. In his story, Aboubarker will speak about the many things that he misses about District Six, especially the togetherness of people in the community. He was 26 years old when the Group Areas Act forced him to move. He is one of the successful land claimants and has moved back to District Six as part of the process of restitution and restoration of the community.
Ruth Jeftha
Ruth was born in June of 1945 in the Bo-Kaap, and her family moved to 35 Stone Street in District Six when she was three years old. She was the third of eleven children. They lived in a big communal house in Stone Street. Later they moved to Bloemhof Flats after the house in Stone Street was sold.
Links to publications and videos of storytellers:
Who are the facilitators of learning at the Museum?
The Education Department is coordinated by Mandy Sanger, a former
The Museum also
What does it cost learners to visit the museum?
Learners from the African continent
- General visit: R5 per learner
- Site visit: R5 per learner
Customised education programmes: R5 per learner for each additional session
Learners from other countries
- General visit: R25 per learner
- Site visit: R25 per learner
Customised education programmes: R15 per learner for each additional session
