Some of the establishment owners listed with us don't only provide quality accommodation, but also use their qualifications to help others set themselves up.
One such person is Hedwich Tulp who is involved in the healing process of our nation as the media liasion officer for the Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory (DACPM). The DACPM is an organization which runs history and memory excursions and trains former liberation fighters to become excursion leaders. They take national as well as international visitors to sites that are etched into the memories of people who live on the Cape Flats: a journey through District Six, past the Trojan Horse in Athlone, Langa and the Gugulethu Seven.
The excursions have opened up spaces for ex-liberation soldiers and former freedom fighters to start the process of healing and reconstruction. The tours also create the opportunity for others to listen and interact; to have an experience that brings awareness and understanding of what so many went through during the liberation struggle and the struggle of today: the struggle for jobs.
We regularly have groups of students from the University of Washington (USA) on our two-day workshops and for both, the excursion facilitators and the students, this journey is all about exchanging, understanding across socio-cultural borders, says DACPM-director Yazir Henri.
Yazir Henri is the co-founder and director of the Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory. Since 1997, the centre has worked with former combatants, torture survivors and political prisoners. Henri joined Umkhonto We Sizwe (MK), the military wing of
the African National Conference at age 16, when the apartheid government still held power over South Africa. He received
military training in Angola and the Soviet Union and returned to South Africa as an MK officer. After his imprisonement and later ambivalent testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, he re-defined himself as a poet, writer and peace activist. Yazir was part of the Veterans of Inter-communal Violence seminar series, sponsored by the Clowes Center for Conflict and Dialogue Studies and the Comparative History of Ideas Program at the University of Washington in 2006.
This Journey of Remembrance reminds one that Cape Town 's urban geography remains deeply affected by the Apartheid legacy that divided its people structurally, socially and historically. It is an experience across Cape Town 's hidden boundaries and an exploration to understand the fault lines of South Africa 's part that must be transcended.
By standing, pausing and reflecting at the sites of remembrance, we listen to the echoes of the many young people who continue to live in the hearts and minds of their communities. Our story-telling during the journey is a memorial to those who were
lost during the war for liberation. It is through the eyes of those who lived this experience and survived it that this journey communicates a more comprehensive picture of the realities of Cape Town, as it is, today, says Mzi Sgidi, ex liberation fighter.
The four excursion leaders that are employed at DACPM are all pro-actively involved in designing and updating narratives and markers of heritage in and around the Cape Flats. Heritage is always placed in the foreground on our excursions. That same heritage that was neglected in the past. Therefore you find few monuments or plaques on the Cape Flats, explains Yazir Henri. The DACPM yearly selects 40 ex-combatants to go through the course. The centre aims to place all of the graduates in the tourism and heritage industry in and around Cape Town.
“Most stories that are told are very individual, very personal. And - also important - they are told with dignity.“
For more information contact:
- Hedwich Tulp
- Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory
- Tel: +2721 448 5760
- Fax: +2721 448 6817
- DACPM website
