You are invited to join Freedom Park and Tim Jenkins , for the screening of the underground network of Operation Vula,  an untold story. Freedom Park (the National Liberation Heritage Monument) , will on Friday 17 April 2015 at 18h00, screen the Vula Connection an untold story, in Cape Town’s Robben Island Office at the Waterfront.

The Vula Connection story narrates the secret underground communications network of Operation Vula. It is one of apartheid era’s untold stories, and at its center is an unusual hero, Tim Jenkin. He turns against his own government and the privileged lifestyle it guaranteed him, signing up with the black liberation movement that was banned in apartheid South Africa. Jenkin is caught and dispatched to a high security prison. But against all odds, his patience and meticulous attention to detail got him and two other prisoners through 10 locked doors to freedom.

This, however, is much more than an escape story. It’s about a man who plaid a pivotal role in taking on the Apartheid regime in the most unexpected way. Working from a non-descript London flat, he sets about designing a secret communications system which would enable a small group of highly skilled operatives to dodge the spies and penetrate South Africa’s borders.

The Pan African Archives (PAA), forms the underlying knowledge base of all the components of the Freedom Park. It is a space where the Park’s research data is stored, conserved and processed for the public consumption. It seeks to identify, collect and preserve original and unique records that document the history of the struggle and is an archive which is discursive and dialogic and much of its activities transform the material that is documented to engage with the public to make the archives as accessible as possible. One of the means in fulfilling this mandate is to conduct dialogues, hence the face to face communication with Tim Jenkin, which culminated in the screening of the Vula Connection, the Untold Story.

Freedom Park commemorates the heroes and the heroines of the liberation struggle, collaborating with Tim Jenkin in the screening of the Vula Connection, will assist all of us not to be oblivious of our past, present and the future as a country.

Logistics of the event:

Date: 17 April 2015
Venue: Robben Island Office Waterfront, Cape Town.
Time: 18h00-20h00

RSVP: Lydia Howard
Cell: 082 445 9162.
Email: Lydia@freedompark.co.za

Enquiries: Nomsa Khumalo
Cell: 071 502 3176
Email: Nomsa@freedompark.co.za

Issued by Government Communication and Information System on behalf of Freedom Park
16 April 2015