A Lobatse Heritage Centre

Lobatsi station railway station c. 1900
Lobatsi station railway station c. 1900

Needing to make one significant correction after last week’s comment does allow me to make a few more suggestions regarding a long overdue Lobatse Heritage Centre. But first things first. The owner and developer of the Barclays Bank building was Mr MS Ebrahim not Mr MH Joosob.

Two others of that interesting family were also present when it was formally opened in 1950, Mr HS Ebrahim and the young Ajam Ebrahim. Those who make the moves towards setting up a Heritage Centre should resist any notions that this would be the same as a museum. Museums have collections of artefacts which have to be securely, appropriately stored, researched and expensively displayed. Heritage Centres have no artefacts.

A Lobatse Centre would need someone, perhaps several people, all voluntary and part-time who together relish a challenge, are inquisitive, capable of doing small scale research, imaginative, almost certainly locally born and/or familiar with the town, able to communicate verbally and in writing, be comfortable with people of all backgrounds and races and be computer capable. With all this, paper qualifications become irrelevant. It will only be possible to establish a Heritage Centre if sufficient support is forthcoming from within the town. An office would need means of communicating – a Mac, a printer, phone and so on. Tools such as Facebook could be helpful.

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