Footsteps through Sacred Heart College

A mother of students who attended Sacred Heart College until recently returning to the UK has created a website to explain the history of the Brothers at the College in Johannesburg.

Caroline Kamana created the website ‘Footsteps through Sacred Heart College’ for her Masters in History of Art at the University of the Witwaterstrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.

It was part of her thesis titled ‘Footsteps through Sacred Heart College: Surfacing Archival Heritage through Walking and Mapping.’

“The Marist family and Sacred Heart College have touched our family deeply and we will be forever grateful for our time spent with them,” Caroline told the general house communications office on Oct. 29. “We returned to the UK just over two months ago and I miss the community very much.”

The aim of her research was to make known the information of archives, as well as architectural features located around the school that contain a part of the community’s story.

Through a virtual “walking tour,” Caroline hopes to raise awareness on the educational heritage of the Marist Brothers at Sacred Heart College.

In the conclusion of her research, Caroline affirms that the tour, which includes 40 stops, “provides an embodied way to create spaces for re-examination of a shared heritage in the specific sites that are shared by the community.”

The information was drawn from archives of the College, as well as from archives located throughout the city of Johannesburg such as the Catholic History Bureau, Museum Africa and the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation.

“The model could be reworked for any of the Marist schools in the country or indeed on a wider level,” she remarked.