About the Site

Newsletters:

Registering means that you will be listed on our mailing list for the forthcoming newsletters that are sent out regularly every month to six weeks to keep interested people in touch with what is happening.

This website:

KPN is a project of, and strongly linked to, the Kalahari Peoples Fund - is designed to be just that bit in advance of a change that is rapidly taking place in even the most remote rural communities. High-speed connections are being installed and gradually improved. People speaking San languages are working on computers, communicating and learning through them. The Internet has arrived.

Launched in late July, 2008, the site has already proved to be a focus of interest. But this is just the beginning. It will take time to build confidence and skills in new writers. It will take time to collect and collate material that is currently stored all over the world, all over the web. So view this, please, as a starting point. We welcome contributions from anyone with an item of news, a photograph to share, a point to raise, a link to their own website to publicise; a story to tell.

Acknowledgements and thanks:
We would like to make special and particular mention of thanks to Craig and Damon Foster, who most kindly allowed us the use of the beautiful photographs displayed on the headings at the top of each page and elsewhere throughout the site. Their website can be found at: www.senseafrica.com and details of their books and films are on this site under the Culture button.

Three of the pictures in the banner featuring people come from other sources. Catherine Collett took the photograph of Tci!xo of Nyae Nyae (on the right hand side of the banner) and of the small girl smiling with her toy. The photograph of the boy on the left hand side was taken by Gregg Thompson at !Kwa ttu. Gregg’s picture was taken for the ReadRight Educational Supplement of the Sunday Times Newspaper and is used with the kind permission of ReadRight and Avusa Education who hold copyright.

Thanks also to Melissa Heckler, Marlene Winberg and Janette Deacon, who were highly supportive and encouraging when this project first began.

We would also like to acknowledge the help of Jay Heale (advice on copyright issues), Kevin Kidson and Hugh Clarke (advice on website), Snowball Effect, who accomplished the technical design with great style:www.snowball.co.za and Michelle Ladewiig of Leechie Marketing: www.leechie.co.za for handling the mailing of the newsletter. Thank you all!

Mission Statement:
This website provides a virtual space for networking and exchange of information among contemporary Kalahari communities and individuals throughout Southern Africa. On it, the San and other indigenous Kalahari dwellers speak in their own voices to each other and to interested people outside their communities.

For almost 200 years, information about Kalahari peoples came only from anthropologists, linguists, archaeologists, settlers and others who encountered Southern Africa’s indigenous peoples during the times of colonization. On www.kahaharipeoples.net, remote communities can speak to each other and dialogue with the outside world on all facets of their cultures.

Future cultural events and training opportunities can be posted and discussions can be held about local and world issues that impact San lives.  Finally, this site also provides a resource for educators and students around the world who wish to access reliable information about the Kalahari and its peoples.

Notes on this website

The two main functions of this site have been mentioned above:

1. To provide a place for the exchange of news, opinions, ideas – and stories – between the various groups and individuals who speak San languages.
2. To provide accurate information to people throughout the world who want information about San people. The Kalahari Peoples Fund has been supplying this information to everyone - from distinguished film producers to primary school children with projects - for many years now.

We will be holding a series of workshops in all the communities we can reach to encourage new writing, the recording of old histories, community news and issues and the exchange of information person-to-person in places both in and out of Africa.

For the Information section, our aim is to have a repository of articles where the answers to most questions about the San can be found - at different language levels so that a Grade Four child in New Zealand can find information on her own, but a researcher looking for film production information in Switzerland can look at archival material on their level too.

There will be more sections, more buttons to click on, as we proceed with this, but please look on this as just the beginning … the beginning of an important story.

Lesley Beake, Web Manager and Editor

Megan Biesele, Ph.D. Director Kalahari Peoples Fund

Please write to us with comments, suggestions, ideas – and criticisms too.
editor@kalaharipeoples.net