The Ausi Told Me Collective operates as an activist and community-rooted extension of Professor June Bam-Hutchison's award-winning research. Instead of traditional academic publishing, the collective focuses on grassroots community engagement and ancestral reclamation across the Cape Flats. The purpose of the Ausi Told Me Collective is to restore dignity and ownership of indigenous knowledge to communities of Khoi and San descent. They focus on several key pillars: 

• Land Custodianship & Rituals: Reconnecting local communities to the earth through "Dream Walks," land rituals, and environmental reciprocity.
• Gender Justice & Healing: Partnering with human rights organizations (such as One Billion Rising South Africa) to run intersectional ceremonies that address systemic violence and empower local womxn.
• Intergenerational Transmission: Passing down ancient, matriarchal "herstories", specifically centered around the Ausidi (female knowledge-keepers) to local youth to counteract historical erasure.

Media and Digital Archiving Projects

While the collective primarily relies on somatic and experiential practices like physical community salons, nature tracking, and localized storytelling, their work frequently intersects with digital multimedia archiving. As part of this, they produce a podcast series and host webinars that share the traditional knowledge of the Ausidi with a wider audience. You can find the latest podcasts and webinars on this page.

In this recording from the Ausi Told Me: Fire Stories & Dream Walks series, knowledge holder Veera van Sitters sits with fellow Ausidi at Rondevlei Nature Reserve in Cape Town, sorting through freshly gathered plants as she shares a piece of traditional knowledge passed down through her family. Introducing herself — an Adams by birth, a van Sitters by marriage — she slips into Afrikaans partway through, laughing that "the Cape is stitched into" her and sometimes comes out that way. What follows is a warm, practical lesson in an old Cape Flats remedy: an olive oil massage used to soothe babies who are restless or "oorkry," carried out with careful attention to how the legs are always rubbed firm, the arms drawn straight and smoothed outward, and the whole body worked gently, almost like drawing out a weight, until the child settles into calm sleep. Recorded on 3 October 2024 as part of a CERT project with the Ausi Told Me Collective, the piece stands as a living example of the indigenous knowledge around plants, healing, and care that continues to move between generations of women on the Cape Flats.