Environmental Scan

"Robben Island - Cape Town, South Africa" by South African Tourism is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The African continent has a few island communities, including Makoko in Nigeria, Ganvié in the Bénin Republic, Nzulezo and Dodi in Ghana, and the Robben Island in South Africa. Among these island settlements, Robben Island boasts the oldest in history and the well digitized island settlement in Africa. Dodi, Ganvié, and Nzulezo, for instance, have online presence in the form of websites for promoting eco-tourism and YouTube videos for showcasing these communities and their histories. However, these online exhibitions are incomparable to the RIM’s digitization project, which displays a 3D view of Robben Island and its historic features, and contains rich archival and oral history collections, including the Prisoner Stories archives. As we’ve mentioned elsewhere in this document, two other RIM digital projects are their interactive timeline and map. Although Ganvié, Nzulezo, and Robben Island are all UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Robben Island retains ​​its distinctiveness not in terms of its multilayered and interactive website that narrates histories across historic timelines but also through its new and ongoing cutting-edge digital project such as the “Unboxing Mayibuye: Access to Digital Heritage Project.” The “Unboxing Mayibuye” project reflects RIM’s commitment to preserving cultural heritage through digitization - an initiative that neatly aligns with the goals of our proposed community forum project.