SADACCA Archive

Formed as a place of peace and community for those of the Windrush generation, SADACCA, the Sheffield and District African and Caribbean Community Association, is a community centre based in the Wicker. It serves the needs of the local African and Caribbean community and has acted as a backdrop to important life events over decades. Building on the fantastic work completed by the previous year’s Live Project group, ‘Friends of SADACCA’, our Live Project group, ‘SADACCA Archive’ was enlisted to help curate the Bantu Archive, a digital and physical exhibition conveying the real stories of the African and Caribbean community in Sheffield.

The aim of SADACCA Archive was not to determine the history of the local community, but rather to carefully curate the stories that SADACCA has collected into engaging and informative digital and physical displays. And simultaneously, to facilitate the collection of new archive material by liaising with SADACCA’s members, researchers and University stakeholders. 

Despite the restrictions imposed by the COVID pandemic, our approach prioritised genuine public engagement and co-creation. By forging a trusting partnership with Rob Cotterell and Olivier Tsemo, SADACCA’s lead committee members, the Live Project team developed a series of immediate Physical Interventions, Digital Platforms, and design visions over the six-week project. This culminated in ‘The Archive Framework’, a ‘how to’ guide for the creation of a grassroots community archive, that uses the SADACCA Archive as a case study, and will benefit developing community archives for years to come.  

The late Marcus Garvey said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.” The Bantu Archive, in its nascent stage, is the start of a story that describes the unique and compelling history of the African and Caribbean community in Sheffield. The work completed during this project will act as a platform for future partnerships between the University of Sheffield and SADDACA, and acts as a catalyst for the growth of the Bantu Archive in the succeeding months and years.

“The most important thing is we are telling our story in our way, in our words.” – Rob Cotterell (SADACCA Chairman)

Credits

Student Team: 

Thelma Mbewe, Luke Smith, Felix Cousins, Mikey Serrano, Sasha Yeap, Shorsan Marian Alkali, Sophia Hutchinson, Wenxiu Zhang, Luke Morris, Ziyi Guo, Xin Liang, Han Yu, Jingyu Zhang, Alice Jenkins

Mentor:

Dan Jary