The Newham New Deal Partnership, an organisation founded in 2004 and aimed at community development and regeneration, is offering a series of workshops over Zoom to help people record their past histories and current events.

The workshops will take place in December, four sessions over two weeks:

1. History in the Making (Wednesday, 9December, 3pm-4.15 pm)

How is history made? It is made by us and the historical events we live through. COVID-19 has brought unprecedented changes and challenges to our lives: we are witnessing history in the making. How do you record the history of a pandemic while you’re busy living through it? How can you document your own and your family’s experience of the pandemic?

Museums and archives have already begun to source items that will help them interpret, in years to come, what it was like to live through COVID-19.

In this workshop you will have an opportunity to explore different ways of creating a personal narrative to document your own story in the way that museums or archives do.

2. Pictures, Objects and Stories (Friday 11 December, 3pm-4.15 pm)

In this session we will look into how museums work with everyday objects, photographs and stories to create an exhibition. You will have a chance to explore how to create your own story based on your family history, stories that happened in your community or something you want to pass on to the future generations, as well as understand how to take appropriate visual documentation.

3. Getting Started with Oral History (Wednesday, 16 December, 3pm-4.15 pm)

This session will give you an opportunity to add more voices to the story you’ve created so far. We will cover the key steps in the process of collecting oral histories, from planning to interview skills, options for recording, and organising your material and transcription.

4. Accessing archives and online (Friday, 18 December, 3pm -4.15 pm)

How can you provide a wider context to the research you have done so far? We will explore how to use online archives to find what we are interested in. This workshop will use examples from a local history project to enable you to carry on your own historical project from home.

For more information or to book your place at a workshop, contact Asia Wieloch at heritage@newhamndp.co.uk or call them on 02073 666343. If you’ve never used Zoom before, they can support you.

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