Brief history of SAHA

Established in 1988 by anti-apartheid activists, the South African History Archive (SAHA) is an independent human rights archive committed to documenting, supporting, and promoting greater awareness of historical and, since 1994, contemporary struggles for justice and accountability.

SAHA’s two core programmes are:

• the Freedom of Information Programme which is responsible for submitting access to information requests,  as well as lobbying and advocacy, raising awareness and conducting training to NGOs, CBOs and students around the use of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, 2000 (PAIA) to advance human rights in South Africa;
• the Struggles for Justice Programme which is responsible for developing and using SAHA’s archival collections to support broader reconciliation efforts in helping South Africans to develop the means to understand and come to terms with the past.

Notably, SAHA, through its educational, outreach and advocacy work across both programmes, has demonstrated a longstanding interest in the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The focus of its ongoing archival and information activism relating to dealing with the past has been derived directly from the recommendations made by the TRC itself. SAHA is particularly engaged in conducting ongoing truth recovery to uncover further evidence about unknown or unacknowledged aspects of South Africa’s past, and making the TRC archive more widely accessible¹, often in the face of little state engagement in continuing the reconciliation agenda begun by the TRC.

QUALIFICATIONS, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

This role requires a motivated self-starter with the ability to work independently and as part of a team to achieve timely, high quality outputs. The candidate should:

• Be a South African citizen and have a relevant post-graduate qualification;
• Be familiar with the non-government and human rights sectors in South Africa;
• Have experience conducting human rights research, including practical experience of working with print archival collections, compiling / analysing data and writing up research reports;
• Have a demonstrable interest in, and familiarity with transitional justice / dealing with the past theory and legal frameworks, and ability to map this theory to the South African context;
• Possess excellent research and writing skills;
• Experience supervising interns or junior researchers is highly desirable.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES