Tell
your children where they come from
On Tuesday 24th
September, we will be celebrating Heritage Day here in South Africa. I’m sure
that many other countries around the world also celebrate their heritage. As
parents, we need to use this day to remind our children (and ourselves) of our
uniqueness, community and heritage. In our fast-paced, disposable, on-line,
social-media-savvy world, there seems to be a disinterest in anything ‘old’ –
like family photographs, artifacts and other memorabilia once handed down from
generation to generation, now called ‘junk’ and donated to charity shops at
best or thrown away at worst.
Our heritage starts with family.
Little children love looking at old family photographs and hearing the stories
about people they never have, and perhaps, never will meet. It also does you
good to reminisce those days when you were growing up, telling your children
about the things you used to do, and the games you used to play. You could even
introduce them to some of these games on Heritage Day.
Our heritage is not only about our
DNA, it’s also about where we worship – church, Sunday school, mosque or temple
– where children learn to sit still and pretend they’re listening to words of
wisdom that make no sense to them at all right now. It’s the park where we used
to play, the schools we went to, the colleges, universities or places of work
after school. This may have been the local service station or the dean’s
office. All the same, it’s your heritage.
The Big Stuff regarding our
national heritage are our historical buildings, museums, gardens and nature
reserves, monuments, and statues that stand idle, forever waiting to remind
generations of our descendants what their grandparents and great-grandparents
did to secure our future.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting
James Ball who was the speaker for a function at the Modderfontein Conservation
Society. James started The Heritage Portal. I encourage you to visit this site
on http://www.theheritageportal.co.za
to learn more about our heritage buildings and sites here in South Africa, and
meet with enthusiasts who are prepared to protect and even restore some of
these magnificent places.
Happy Heritage Day!
