SAHA Exhibitions in the Classroom - Guides for Educators

These guides are based on a series of SAHA exhibition kits available for loan to heritage, educational and community organisations interested in hosting commemorative events and celebrations. 

Hlanganani Basebenzi

This guide is intended to help educators to use the exhibition as a starting point to commemorate Workers Day with their learners by considering:

• How the trade union movement historically not only secured better working and living conditions for black workers, but also played a central role in the struggle against apartheid.

• The struggles still faced by South African workers in a democratic society, from extremely low wages to hardships in the workplace - and the fractured state of the trade union movement in the country today.

The Future is Ours

In this booklet, we acknowledge the significant contribution made by the youth in the struggle against the oppressive apartheid state, for their own freedom and the freedom of South Africa. The exhibition kit and this booklet focuses largely on the 1970s and 1980s when youth made their voices heard, and played an active and substantial role in destabilising the apartheid state.

Women hold up half the sky

In this guide learners wiil be able to understand 

• the role of women in the struggle against apartheid

• threats to the rights of women and girl children today

When interacting with this exhibition, we should think about two different notions of ‘struggle’.

• The struggle: This is a term that refers to the political activism where people challenged and resisted against the system of apartheid. In this sense, the exhibition examines the important and often critical role played by women in the struggle against apartheid. They were activists in the political arena and challenged the apartheid state and its laws in a variety of ways. With the achievement of democracy, this women’s struggle became part of history.

• Women’s struggles: as mothers, grandmothers, daughters and wives, women have struggled to survive against harsh economic conditions; against gender discrimination; and against domestic violence. These are on-going struggles that women today continue to confront.