Office Management and Technology students learnt about the realities of forced removals during a workshop at the District Six Museum.
The workshop, which was supported by Professor Anthony Staak, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning, was jointly planned with the District Six Museum so as to build on the content of the Diversity Management 1 course.
The full day workshop provided students with an opportunity to have a simulated experience of the impact of the past.
Mandie Richards, senior lecturer and the subject’s co-ordinator, explained that the content of the subject’s curriculum lends itself to providing safe spaces for students to interact with each other, and pursue dialogue which is essential for students not only to understand the complexities of transformation, but also to discuss them honestly and transparently without any hidden agendas.
Richards added that the workshop continued to build upon the notion of affording opportunities for debate and sharing of ideas.
During the workshop students participated in various activities which allowed them to re-imagine the past and the city, and attempted to provide them not only with an experience of the inhumanities South Africans had to endure under the apartheid regime, but also to understand how apartheid created a socially and economically unequal society through various strategies.
Students explored multiple points concerning the history of District Six and learnt more about the land on which CPUT’s Cape Town Campus is built.
Students further explored forced removals around South Africa in places like Sophiatown in Johannesburg, South End in Port Elizabeth and Cato Manor in Durban and the emotional and psychological impact they had on millions of South Africans.
The feedback from the students re-affirmed the importance of calls for dialogue not only in tertiary institutions but in civil society as a whole.
Richards says the final part of the workshop, which concentrated on a diversity management plan, was integrated into the curriculum as a project during the course of the year.
She is currently exploring opportunities to engage all first year students in the Faculty of Business and Management Sciences in similar workshops and further collaborations with the District Six Museum.
