Taking a tune from the 2013 National Heritage
Month theme, "reclaiming, restoring and celebrating our living
heritage" the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality partnered with
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan university Anthropology Students and the youth of
Uitenhage to repair and clean the Langa Memorial Site in Uitenhage, Kwalanga on
Wednesday (11 September 2013).
The project was a start of a number of
projects that the municipality will embark on during the Heritage Month. A
huge enthusiasm was displayed as the students and the youth rolled their
sleeves to work on the historic site.
The aim of the repairs and
cleaning was to mobilise youth to work with the municipality to clean
and preserve the country’s National Heritage sites. It was also to
instil pride within our communities to take care of our rich heritage
especially as the country celebrates National Heritage Month.
The Langa Memorial is one of the Heritage
Sites around the City that have experienced vandalism. Present and leading
the repairs and cleaning was Ward 50 Councillor Zolani Ncwadi.
Vuyo Dlamini, a first year Tourism student at
NMMU expressed his desire for further developments to be made so that South
Africans can be taught of their history. His understanding or interpretation of
heritage is that it is memorial sites like the Langa Memorial which are
“preserved and protected for future generations.”
The key to preserving our
country’s heritage he says “is to look at it as a marathon; preservation of our
heritage will not come over night. It is a marathon everyone should be involved
in.”
On the 21st of March 1985 a group
of people from Langa gathered to march to Kwanobuhle just 10 km’s away to
attend a commemorative service of the 25 year anniversary of the Sharpeville
Massacre. The commemorative service had been banned by the police resulting in
the shooting of between 20 and 43 people by the apartheid police.
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