February 1, 2005
By Ndaba Dlamini
VISITORS to Alexandra will get a chance to learn more about the history and heritage of the township when the Mandela Yard Interpretation Centre opens in the first half of 2005, despite delays in its construction.
The R7-million centre will house an interactive exhibition telling "the story of the people, places, events and ideas that have shaped Alexandra" over the last 100 years, as well as a community archive and resource centre "documenting the diverse aspects of Alexandra's history and heritage".
According to project coordinator, Zodwa Tlale, the building has been designed so that visitors will walk through the story, pausing to look out over Alexandra at strategic intervals, relating past to present "very directly".Visitors will also be able to access information through interactive computers located in the exhibition space and in the community archive and heritage resource centre.
The community archive will include material such as oral history interviews, photographs, newspaper articles and documents collected by the Alexandra Social History Project. The project will also attempt to write the history of Alexandra, a feat that will be undertaken through "rigorous community-based historical investigation".
After completion, Alex's history will be archived in the Alexandra Interpretation Centre in various forms, including a book, visual materials, audio and photographic materials.
Located on the corner of Seventh and Hofmeyer streets, on a site opposite the room Nelson Mandela occupied in the 1940s when he first moved from the Eastern Cape to Johannesburg, the centre will offer visitor facilities such as a tourism information office, a restaurant and retail outlets. Here visitors can purchase locally produced craft items and other memorabilia of their visit to Alexandra.
The facilities are earmarked to be operated by local entrepreneurs, an arrangement that is expected to create much needed employment and economic development opportunities in a township that has a high level of unemployment (60 percent according to an October 2000 survey).
Meeting and training rooms will also be integrated into the centre where heritage and tourism related programmes will be conducted. The rooms will be available for use by other community organisations as well.
Funded by the Gauteng Tourism Authority, the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism and the Alexandra Renewal Project, construction of the project started in June 2004 after a two year delay due to delays in moving people from the site and logistical problems, according to Tlale.
However, construction of the centre stopped just before December 2004 when construction workers went on holiday.
"At the moment, there are delays in acquiring building materials. The steel structure of the centre is already in place and we are waiting for a consignment of bricks to complete the structure. Work will resume as soon as the material becomes available," explains Tlale.
Due to these delays, people have started to vandalise the construction equipment, Tlale says. "The crane that is used to put together the steel structure has been damaged by some unscrupulous individuals and this has been a setback. The centre belongs to the people of Alexandra and they should have a sense of ownership towards the project."
The project has been meeting fortnightly with residents to keep them "abreast of developments", says Tlale.
"Alex residents are really looking forward to completion of the centre. Alex will become a tourist destination."
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