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Khandallah History preserved for 100 years

Thursday, 24 September 2009 21:34

24 September 2009

Year 6 students from Cashmere Avenue School in Khandallah will today launch a website about the history of street names in Khandallah.

The website is part of Living Heritage, a free online programme for New Zealand schools that enables students to develop and publish an online resource about their community.

The website will be uploaded to the National Library where it'll be stored and preserved for 100 + years, as part of the Living Heritage collection.

A team of seven Cashmere Avenue students spent several months researching their local history (including during their school holidays) and have now published their findings on the Living Heritage website. The web story, which is rich in Khandallah history, was officially launched at the Khandallah Public Library today.

Lily, one of the student researchers, said they had learned a lot about the history of Khandallah. "We have learned about the people who used to live in our suburb over 100 years ago and how we came to have so many Indian street names."

AnneMaree Breen, the teacher in charge of the Living Heritage project at Cashmere Avenue School, said that the students found the project especially exciting because it was about the history of their own community and because they could use technology to present the results of their research on the web.

The librarians at the Khandallah Library discovered a book called The Streets Of My City written by F.L. Irvine-Smith and published in 1948 by A. H. and A. W. Reed and this was a valuable source of information. Representatives from the Onslow Historical Society also attended today's launch and commented how pleased they were to have assisted with the project.

Living Heritage is an initiative of the 2020 Communications Trust supported by CWA New Media, the National Library of New Zealand and the Government's Community Partnership Fund.

Laurence Zwimpfer of the 2020 Communications Trust attended the launch saying, "The students' enthusiasm today encapsulates what Living Heritage is about - allowing students to become storytellers by connecting them with the bigger world of research and the Internet."

Living Heritage was established in 2000. Since its inception, a total of 87 stories have been published by schools across the country, preserving local history and culture in a digital format.

The programme is free to all schools and incorporates the use of the Internet across a range of curriculum areas. For details visit the Living Heritage website.