Private funding is required to record the stories of the military veterans from the South African Defence Force (SADF)
The Stories of the SADF Military Veterans Foundation NPC, Registration number 2019/466755/08 (the Project Ambassador) promotes this project and conducts fund raisings so that it can instruct the SADF Military Veterans Interviews Proprietary Limited, Registration number 2020/041167/07 (the Production Company) to film interviews with military veterans and their loved ones. It also sources existing material which can be utilised for the purpose of the project. These interviews and material are then edited into clips which are preserved on the public site under the different topics for viewing by the general public. This project is not funded with government funds. Until government funding can be secured this project will have to rely on a funding model based on the goodwill and support of military veterans and the general public who subscribe to the membership site to sponsor the publication of a clip on the public site.
Recognition for your support of the project.
The member site for The Stories of the SADF Military Veterans website is where the subscribers can preview the clips of the interviews which are not published on the public site of the website yet, and access thereto is gained by subscribing to the member site and paying the membership fees.
- Your membership fee allows you access with a username and password to the member site where you can preview the next 64 clips before the public can see it.
- Your membership fee also allows one of these 64 clips to be transferred from the member site to the public site where the general public can view it, while this transferred clip gets replaced with a new clip to keep the total clips available on the member site at a constantly changing 64 clips.
When this clip appears on the public site your name as sponsor of this clip will be added to the information relating to the clip to give you recognition for your contribution to this project, unless you prefer your support to be made anonymously.
Guidelines to help with the preparation for the interview to tell your story
The interview will not consist of one long uninterrupted interview but of several short individual interviews consisting of single stories of 30 seconds up to 5 to 7 minutes on the 16 topics set out below. This gives the story teller some respite with breaks between the interviews to gather his thoughts and prepare himself for the next interview. Some stories cannot be told within 5 or 7 minutes and those stories too will be accommodated. Other stories can, as in the case of a story about a military operation or exercise, be broken down into different segments like stories about the planning, movement to the target, the attack, consolidation after the battle, etc.
These stories will, after the producers completed the editing thereof, get uploaded on a website where the stories of our SADF military veterans will be preserved permanently. These stories are stored specifically in this shortened format instead of long winding interviews in order to keep the attention of the viewers, and also not to deplete their data with on long story. The story teller may tell as many stories per topic as he wishes. This is an opportunity for the story teller to get off his chests all that he wanted to after all these years, and also to paint a realistic picture to the general public of what it was to be a soldier in the South African Defence Force. If the story teller thinks of more stories to tell after the first interview we will ensure that this is attended to.
Your personal background and overview of your career or time spent in uniform in the SADF/SANDF
The very first interview will start where the story teller tells who he is, where and when he was born, who his people are, how he ended up in the SADF/SANDF – as national serviceman, volunteer or career soldier with information about the Citizen Force or commandos too and where he is now in terms of his journey through life.
Next will follow a short summary of your military service – which year he reported to his first unit, how old he was then, where the unit was, which corps this unit fitted into, what was done at that unit, the people he met at the unit and the staff members who served at that unit. He can give a short description of each unit where he served with reference to the years when he served there, as well mentioning the names of the people with whom you served.
The different topics for your stories
The pointers with each of the topics here below will assist you with your preparations to tell your story before the camera. Please peruse these points and ponder about it while you organise your thoughts for the interview, but you are more than welcome to use your own pointers to tell your story.
The purpose of these pointers is to help you refresh your memory, verify the names of places, bases and buddies (try and name as many of them as you can remember in your story), check up on dates, confirm timelines and facts to ensure that you are at ease with these facts when your interview is recorded.