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CONTENTS COMMUNITY KNOWLEDGE PROJECT
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HISTORY 5 TERMS OF REFERENCE DRAFT
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PROJECT AIMS 6 COMMITTEE 7 PRINCIPLES 7 COMMITTEE STRUCTURE 8 ACCOUNTABILITY BOARD WORKING COMMITTEE 8
RESEARCH 9 THEMES 9 CRITERIA FOR THE RESEARCHES 9 RESEARCH UNITS 10 THE ARCHIVE 10
ADDENDUM 11 SOCIAL ENTERPRISE 11 CONFLICT RESOLUTION 11 EXTERNAL RESEARCH 11
REVOLUTION ROOM
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VANSA 14 ORGANAGRAM 12-13 CONTACTS 14
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COMMUNITY KNOWLEDGE PROJECT The Community Knowledge Project has been established by a group of residents with in partnership with VANSA. The project is aimed at creating an environment where residents drive and determine the collection of various types of content that would benefit and add value to broader understanding of Cosmo City. The research projects will assist in the establishing and serve as part of a community archive. The content collected is accessible to all the residents of Cosmo City.
HISTORY The project is in its early development stages and has been developed by a number of community members, including the Cosmo City Critical Friends. The project seeks to engage in the creative and participatory practices in the community. Developed through an intensive 4 day workshop, which was the culmination of a 5 month process, that included the CCCF, a groups of 20 youth, 10 representatives from various Civic Forums, District Six Museum and facilitation by Swiss Artists: Microsillons and Tilo Steireif. This group collectively developed a project that will provide research grants to fellow community members to research community histories and current questions around Cosmo City. The project will include proposal writing and research training and will facilitate the process of a community committee who will drive and manage the project and select proposed research projects for support. The project includes a Cosmo City Critical Friends (CCCF) group made up of local leadership and politically non-aligned residents who serve as project advisors, and facilitators, helping to shape the project in a way that better applies to the community. This process has enabled greater communication between the Revolution Room team and those involved in the project from Cosmo City, but has also enabled colearning for the community leaders, the artists and VANSA. The CCCF added an additional group, Youth Critical Friends. They play a similar role as the CCCF, with a focus on the youth and bring this voice into more of the planning and thinking of the project.
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TERMS OF REFERENCE DRAFT The Community Knowledge Project has been established by a group of residents in partnership with VANSA. The project is aimed at facilitating an environment where residents drive and determine the collection of various types of content that would benefit and add value to broader understanding of Cosmo City. The research projects will assist in the establishing and serve as part of a community archive. The content collected is accessible to all the residents of Cosmo City, the content will therefore be subject to continues development and scrutiny.
PROJECT AIMS 1. Generate new perspectives and influence local culture, creating spaces to actively draw on diverse groups of people in Cosmo City. 2. Accommodate diverse perspectives, to create awareness around difference with the observance of acceptance and tolerance. 3. Project scale must be humble and relevant. Humble and relevant means that it is a prerequisite for the generated resources to be accessible and easily understood by all members of the community who are interested. 4. The project is open to residents of Cosmo city. A resident is defined as a person who lives (owns or rents) or works in Cosmo City. This person could be any age, gender, race or nationality. 5. The project must accept, acknowledge contributions and response for all the different resident and organisations that make up the multiple communities of Cosmo City. 6. The processes need to be collective and inclusive. 7. The project will have positive social impact through skills transferal and the production of knowledge. 8. The project will create new relationships for the residents of Cosmo City to their own environment through the research and inclusion. 9. Facilitate a national conversation around reconciliation: use this as an opportunity to create a national conversation pertaining to successes and failures of Cosmo City and the correlation to South Africa race-relations or democratic progress.
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COMMITTEE The Steering Committee and Working Committee are important to presence and accessibility of the project. Both will serve important roles in the working of the project as it progresses. The Steering Committee will protect the broader interests and concerns affecting a cross section of residents. The committee will facilitate and mediate the impact these have on the project and its relationship to Cosmo City. The Working Committee is responsible for facilitating and assisting the research units with their project. They will also over see the managements of content and updating of the archive across the various sites. They will also be responsible for creating feedback for the Steering Committee.
PRINCIPLES 1. The committee should serve the larger community of Cosmo City 2. The committee is accountable to the “community” 3. No committee member can gain personally or further their own financial interests through participation in the project, with out declaring it to larger committee. 4. The committee is there to accept or decline the research projects in line with research criteria. 5. The structure of the committee should always represent the diversity of Cosmo City and be gender/age/race balanced. 6. The committee has to encompass a range of Cosmo organisations and involve people who are not members affiliated with any civic structure. 7. The committee could integrate outside experts through developing a network. Experts could be brought in to support the given research unit proposal. The experts should be different for each research unit. 8. Decisions are made by reaching consensus, through discussion. 9. If consensus is not reached a vote should be taken and with a quorum 80% the committee need to agree, not to reject research proposals. 10. Changes to the “TERMS OF REFERENCE” need to follow the same
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process outlined for the selection of research. 11. The steering and working committee are there to advise the researcher units; helping to develop and build their project, provide support (material, up skilling). 12. Research material will be shared/ broadcasted once screened for sensitive subject matter. This done by the Steering committee.
COMMITTEE STRUCTURE ACCOUNTABILITY BOARD (Will not be remunerated for their time) 10 from Civic structure representatives 4 Cosmo critical friends representatives 3 Youth critical friends representatives 3 Non Affiliated Residents
WORKING COMMITTEE (Will be remunerated for their time) The committee will be up-skilled in proposal writing, various research methodologies and archival strategies and processes. Their role will be to facilitate and assist the research units with the research projects. They will have access to various resources and external experts to cofacilitate where required.. SAHA and Freedom Park will facilitate some of the training.
STRUCTURE • Combination of two youth/ one resident • Research expert (resident if possible)
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RESEARCH THEMES The research themes are broad but can be combined within the context of the project. History: The history of Cosmo City: Sgodiphola and Riverbend Communities, Skosana Family, Van Tonder Family and other farmers. Current Affairs and new developments. Built Environment: This the way in which people uses space ie. Live, work, and recreate on a day-to-day basis. Eg: Green belt, Back yarding , Urban vs peri-urban and infrastructure. Migration: The movement (typically over long distances) by people from one place to another with the intention of settling temporarily or permanently in the new location. Eg: African Diaspora, Economic migration. Culture: Music, Language, Traditional culture, Contemporary culture.
CRITERIA FOR THE RESEARCHES 1. The research can be conducted in any language and needs to produce an outcome. This can take different forms, but would need to be presented publicly. 2. The research must be a resource (if possibly, long term) for Cosmo residents. 3. The research must be sustainable and manageable, have an adequate and appropriate scale. 4. The research must be aware of limitation around the content and use of language, around racism, sexism, xenophobia or violence 5. The research must be initiated by Cosmo residents (experts nature of project - can involve people from the outside later, if similar competences don’t exist in Cosmo). 6. The result of the research (at different stages) must be digitized for the archives.
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RESEARCH UNITS • • • • •
2 – 5 people in unit gender/race/age mix 6 – 8 projects for the year R 4-5000 budget per research unit. Equipment/resources supplied by VANSA
THE ARCHIVE The archive will hold all the content generated by each of the research units. The content will be available to all residents. Careful consideration will be given to the access of material that contains sensitive subjects matter and the identities of the people involved. Conditions of accessibility and content for the public archive: 1. summary of content (English, Zulu, Sotho) 2. documentation of public moments 3. skills development tool kit (proposal writing/research methods) 4. all the proposed projects Conditions of accessibility and content for the project archive: 1. summary of content (English, Zulu, Sotho) 2. documentation of public moments 3. all research material generated in original language 4. all the proposed projects 5. skills development tool kit (proposal writing/research methods)
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ADDENDUM SOCIAL ENTERPRISE Social Enterprise or opportunities generated out of content generated by the project are supported. There has to be a benefit or return to project, but this needs to be discussed on case by case bases.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION Conflict resolution strategy needs to be put in place if there is a need, current recommendations: • In the working committee a member ccf and two steering committee will mediate • In the Steering committee, VANSA and an external representative will be chosen by the steering committee will mediate • If conflict persists a conflict resolution workshop will be held
EXTERNAL RESEARCH • • • •
Frame inclusion of independent research Set principles – value Term of inclusion Control types of research that are included
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Revolution Room The Revolution Room project seeks to explore new ways that artist lead projects and organisations can mediate and reflect on their process in the public realm, through participatory practice and interventions in ‘common space’. The broader project has developed, over an extended period, out of considered collaborations between artists, citizens, local and international museum professionals in specific communities. In South Africa the project has involved the organisation and artists working with local partners/collaborator in developing projects in Cosmo City, a post-apartheid urban settlement in the North-West of Johannesburg. Similar projects are being implemented in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
VANSA The Visual Arts Network of South Africa (VANSA) was initiated by leading figures in the visual arts sector from across South Africa in 2003. People felt that the visual arts - unlike the film, performing arts, music, and publishing sectors - lacked a body that could tackle industry issues: from the need to address historical imbalances in access to opportunities in the visual arts, through to the need to attract more public investment and funding for the sector. Growth, Transformation and Opportunity were the three key ideas that motivated the organisation. CONTACTS: Vaughn Sadie vaughn@vansa.co.za 083 778 8835
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