Municipality to continue funding South End Museum

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality’s sports department has agreed to fund the South End Museum for a further three years.

This will come at a cost of R750,000 a year.

Councillors approved the request during a sports, recreation, arts and culture meeting on Tuesday last week.

However, this still needs approval from the mayoral committee and council before the funds can be paid over.

A historical landmark, the South End Museum is a cultural institution that has preserved the history of the metro over the years.

In her report, sports, arts and culture  executive director Noxolo Nqwazi said museum officials had approached the municipality for funding.

“It is a museum that has positioned itself strategically in the municipality to research, archive, preserve, conserve and actively advocate for the heritage of displaced groups of people due to the implementation of the Group Areas Act of 1950 and it’s a community cultural institution and not government subsidised,” Nqwazi said.

This will be the third time the municipality enters into a funding agreement with the South End Museum.

The previous agreement between 2015 and 2018 mainly focused on the collection and research of oral histories in the metro under the project name Searching for Histories.

Oral histories collected included the northern areas and Korsten veterans, Mfengu graves research and Walmer township residents.

The second leg, between July 2018 and June 2021, focused on exhibitions and booklets to share and showcase the oral histories gathered.

This was, however, disrupted by Covid-19.

Addressing the pandemic, Nqwazi urged event organisers in the metro to come up with alternative methods or hosting events rather than just cancelling them.

Nqwazi noted that because of restrictions on gatherings, some event organisers opted to cancel events rather than having reduced numbers of guests.

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