Intergenerational Oral History Project

Hidden Heritages

Hadithi C.I.C have received a grant of £98,895 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for a new intergenerational oral history project, Hidden Heritages, which will connect Sawston Village College, part of Anglian Learning, with South Asian heritage and migration stories, through training in oral history techniques. In addition, the project will create digital and learning resources for teachers, as well as produce digital and in-museum exhibitions.

Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports projects that connect people and communities with the UK’s heritage. The team will deliver heritage and oral history training to nearly 250 pupils to enable them to discover local and everyday migration history. Some pupils will partake in the advanced training course, which will delve deeper into oral history interviewing techniques, and include hands-on interviewing.

Building upon the success of Hadithi C.I.C’s previous intergenerational oral history project, Hidden Heritages Cambridgeshire, delivered in 2022, this new project will reach a wider audience by partnering with a local secondary school, Sawston Village College. The team will engage Year 8 and 9 pupils through a bespoke programme of training to bring to the classroom topics currently underrepresented. Stories of Cambridgeshire’s South Asian population have gone untold and unacknowledged for generations, which is why Hadithi C.I.C seeks to bring these to the foreground in this ambitious project.

Hadithi C.I.C Director, Maya Parmar, said: “We are thrilled to have received this support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Thanks to money raised by National Lottery players, we are excited to be able to develop previous project work in the Cambridgeshire region, upskilling young people and capturing the rich and diverse heritage of the county. At Hadithi C.I.C we are particularly passionate about revealing and preserving stories from the margins, and in this case, South Asian voices.”

Sarah Jackson-Buckley, Head of History at Sawston Village College, said: “Sawston Village College are very excited to take part in the Hidden Heritages project. While local history is already an important part of our curriculum, we are particularly excited that this project will give our pupils the opportunity to work closely with heritage organisations and historians to enrich their understanding of the subject outside of the classroom. We hope that Hidden Heritages will help us develop their interest in connecting with the local community and further inform our teaching of oral history.”