Become a founding member of the Frontline States Liberation Archives
Somewhere in Zambia, a man who once carried food, medicine and military supplies for ZPRA fighters is now in his seventies.
In rural Zimbabwe, a woman who cooked for guerrillas and warned them when Rhodesian soldiers approached tells her story only when her grandchildren ask.
In Maputo, Dar es Salaam, Lusaka, Francistown and Luanda, the people who sheltered, transported, treated and buried Southern Africa’s liberation fighters are growing older.
Every month, some of these witnesses die.
And when they die, parts of our history disappear with them because their experiences were never recorded, their photographs were never digitised, and their stories never entered the official archives.
CITE intends to change that. And we need your help.
Become a Foundational Member of Frontline,
donate by the end of October.
Why become a member? Click here.
Newsletter readers get free monthly updates from the
Frontline States Liberation Archive
New histories of the Southern Africa liberation moments, recorded every month by the people who lived them
This August, we are launching the Frontline States Liberation Archives, a regional historical project dedicated to documenting the liberation of Zimbabwe and Southern Africa through the voices of the people who fought, supported and survived the struggle.
The platform will bring together the existing ZPRA Liberation Archives and the histories of liberation movements and frontline communities across Southern Africa.
Why become a Foundational Member?
By becoming a Foundational Member, you will be supporting our work documenting the history of the Southern Africa liberation movements, capturing the stories of those involved while we still can.
Foundational Members, who join before the end of October 2026, will help to shape the way this project evolves. They will:
- Receive a special monthly behind-the-scenes email
- See stories we collect before they are published
- Be invited to regular insider events
It will document the experiences of combatants, women guerrillas, refugees, political detainees, military commanders, villagers, couriers and families separated by war.
It will also follow the liberation struggle beyond Zimbabwe’s borders, recording how it took place across Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Angola. Namibia, South Africa and other countries that became homes, training grounds, transit routes and battlefields for Southern Africa’s liberation movements.
This is not only the history of political leaders and military commanders.
It is also the history of the woman who hid fighters in her kitchen, the child who grew up in a refugee camp, the driver who transported weapons across a border, the nurse who treated the injured and the village that buried young men whose families never knew where they died.
These stories belong in the historical record.
Latest Frontline stories
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CITE launches Frontline States Liberation Archives3rd August 2026 -
The archive within: ZPRA memory, history, and the everyday30th July 2026 -
Editorial: End of a chapter and new beginnings30th July 2026
Why this archive matters now
For decades, much of Southern Africa’s liberation history has been told through official speeches, political biographies and state institutions.
Those records are important, but they are incomplete.
Thousands of ordinary people participated in the struggle without ever appearing in a history book. Others have photographs, letters, diaries and memories stored in boxes, suitcases and family homes.
Some families know only fragments of what their parents or grandparents experienced.
A father left Zimbabwe at sixteen and returned years later as a soldier, but never explained what happened in between.
A grandmother supported fighters passing through her village, but her role was never acknowledged.
A family grew up abroad with half a story that nobody ever finished.
The Frontline States Liberation Archives will help preserve these memories before they disappear.
Through interviews, documentaries, photographs, maps, written testimonies and digitised documents, the archive will create a public record that can be used by families, young people, journalists, historians, researchers and academics across the region.
Over 100 videos in our archive
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Why we are asking you to join
History does not wait for funding cycles.
Every interview requires research, travel, recording equipment, transport and time. Every photograph must be carefully scanned and preserved before it fades. Every document must be catalogued, translated and placed in its proper historical background.
The work also requires training a new generation of young historians, filmmakers and researchers who can continue recording stories across Southern Africa.
That is why CITE is inviting the public to become members of the Frontline States Liberation Archives.
Membership contributions will support recording expeditions, documentary production, archive digitisation and the training of young researchers throughout the region.
Members will also get closer to the work.
They will receive a Newsletter every month, access to a new interview, documentary, or archival collection, invitations to members-only conversations with veterans, witnesses, and historians, and opportunities to help determine which stories and locations the archive should investigate next.
Most importantly, members will become part of a community pledged to preserving the history of Southern Africa’s liberation.
History should not disappear behind a paywall
Our promise is simple: the archive will never disappear behind a paywall.
A large part of the Frontline States Liberation Archives will remain freely accessible because this history belongs to everyone.
Membership is not about owning the history. It is about helping to preserve it.
Those who contribute will make it possible for families, schools, communities and researchers to access stories which might otherwise have been lost forever.
Become a founding member
People who join during the first 60 days of the launch will become founding members for life.
Founding members will have their names recognised on the archive and their contributions acknowledged in the first collections, interviews and documentaries produced under the Frontline States Liberation Archives.
If your grandmother fed fighters passing through her village, this is her archive.
If your father went into exile as a teenager and returned as a soldier, this is his archive.
If your family sheltered refugees in Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzania or Angola, this is your archive.
And if you grew up with fragments of a liberation story that nobody ever completed, this archive belongs to you too.
The witnesses are still with us.
But the window is closing.
Join the Frontline. Preserve the history. Pass it on.
Sign up for the Frontline States Liberation Archives newsletter and be among the first to receive membership information, new archival releases and invitations to upcoming conversations.
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