JOB CREATION PROGRAMME

Training & Skills

In the job creation initiative, 20 members of the local community are employed as trainee craftspeople, guides and caterers. Training has included instruction in computer skills, heritage, crafts, life skills, first aid, entrepreneurship, book-keeping, guiding, expression and customer care, catering and nature conservation.

This programme is administered through the Krakadouw Trust, established with funds from the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, and run from the property adjacent to the UCT Living Landscape Centre in Park Street. The garages of this property have recently been converted into a workshop and craft outlet that serve as the focal point for craft sales, catering and guided tours of local rock paintings.

The project has realised its first income in the form of sales of books, tours and crafts during the August and September 2002 spring flower season.

GUIDING AND ROCK ART

Guide Training Programme

The Cederberg Mountains effectively form an outdoor gallery. Rock art is so abundant and detailed that the Living Landscape Project has developed a guide training programme. We believe preservation and appreciation is fostered by sound understanding. The Warmhoek Rock Art Trail formed the specific focus of our initial guide training programme but we have been called on to train guides in other areas of the Cederberg.

The archeology and ethnography allow for a deeper understanding of rock art and this can be imparted by trained guides.

Our guides are made aware of how fragile a part of our cultural heritage these paintings are and how the law operates to protect them. We explain the age and significance of the paintings and instigate discussion surrounding the techniques used, the sources of the paints and the identities of the painters. We encourage our guides to put forward their own opinions on these issues.

Reading the presence of the past

At the rock art sites, we address the broader topic of hunter-gatherer presence in the landscape and how we can use traces - such as the art - to "read" that presence even today. Beginning with an explanation of precolonial times in Clanwilliam, we explain the significance of Archaeology for the understanding of early people. We draw the learners' attention to the use of words derived from now extinct indigenous languages to name parts of the landscape. Guides are encouraged to use these names to visualise the experience of hunter-gatherers in the landscape. Where did they stay? What did they eat? What sorts of items did they leave behind in their living places that we can study?