South African History Online (SAHO)

Über uns

South African History Online (SAHO), is a non-profit organisation which was established in 2000, to address the bias in the way South Africa’s and Africa’s history and heritage, was represented under colonialism and apartheid in our educational, cultural and heritage institutions.

SAHO's mission is to break the silence of our past and to create the most comprehensive online encyclopedia of South African history and culture.

SAHO’s flagship project is its online encyclopaedia and archive of South African and African History. The SAHO website has grown into one of the largest website on the African continent. The website has become to promote research and a place for people to tell their own stories and to strengthen the teaching and learning of history on the continent.

SAHO’s Values
SAHO is committed to promoting democracy and non-racialism and the building of just societies and to ensure that knowledge is free, accessible, and contributes to a critical engagement with our past and towards development.

Projects
• South African and African History Website: SAHO’s flagship project is its website, which comprises a vast archive and repository of articles and educational resources that is added to weekly. The articles on its website are well-referenced and widely acknowledged for their accuracy. Articles on the website are linked to a growing archive of documents, journal articles, online books, photographs, videos and audio clips.
• Classroom: SAHO’s School Education Programme revolves around its online History Classroom project, supplemented by a number of other programmes aimed at strengthening the teaching and learning of history.
• Higher Education Partnership and Student Internship Programme: Unlike Wikipedia, SAHO is committed to building partnerships with institutions of higher education so that we can draw on and contribute to knowledge production that supports teaching and learning and to ensure the integrity of our content.
• Publications, Exhibitions and Conferences: SAHO runs a small publishing press, which includes a programme to publish the memoirs of anti-apartheid activists as part of our “Lives of Courage” publication series. We have also curated joint exhibitions and conferences with our partner institutions.
• Mafika Gwala Annual Lecture: In 2016, SAHO launched the annual Mafika Gwala Lecture in partnership with the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and the National Institute of Humanities and Social Science (NIHSS). Since 2017, as part of the annual lecture programme, we began a schools essay writing competition with 14 schools in Hammarsdale township outside Durban.
• Community Histories: One of SAHO’s major objectives is the promotion of a history that recognises the importance of gathering oral histories of individuals and that of compiling histories of communities and the role that ordinary people played in the making of democratic South Africa. SAHO also runs a programme to help community history and social advocacy groups to build and maintain their own websites.

Omar Badsha is the Founder and CEO of South African History Online (SAHO).

For other net participants we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of our work.