Blessed,
I was invited to take a peek at the Youth AIDS and Arts Festival held at the Alliance Française in Gaborone on Wednesday 27th March 2013. The event was organised by the House of Yielding Fine Arts for Youth in association with the Alliance Française, Poetry Society UB, Gaborone Secondary School, Maru a Pula School, Mmegi, Monitor and the Daily News.
There were Creative Writing and Drama workshops held in the afternoon for some high school students from Gaborone Secondary School, Maru a Pula and others, followed by a drama showcase performed by the students. The workshops aimed to inform students about HIV and Aids in an interactive and accessible environment and to highlight art as a means of engaging with the subject and coming up with creative solutions to the problem. The drama pieces were centred on issues surrounding HIV and Aids including stigma and discrimination, violence against women and children, risks of multiple partners and necessary support systems in the form of family, friends and communities.
The House of Yielding Fine Arts for Youth is an NGO based in Gaborone Botswana. It has been established by a selection of poets, writers, office administrators and academics. The NGO is dedicated to fine arts, visual arts, performing arts and all forms of arts that children and youth are interested in. The organization uses arts as an avenue to strengthen available opportunities and raise awareness for the youth. They engage in varieties of art activities, workshops and conferences that cultivate art and literacy in urban and rural areas. Objectives of the Month Of Youth Against AIDS Workshop and Festival include to decrease the number of youth who get infected with HIV/AIDS and are uninformed about Arts; to increase the awareness of youth against the fight of HIV/AIDS and Arts; to strengthen the relationships among youth to work together using Arts as a tool to improve the behaviours of the youth within the community; and to encourage youth in and out of school to participate in being HIV/AIDS ambassadors in their schools and community. They intend to host other workshops related to this festival in the near future.
Personally, I felt that the workshops of the day had the right intention but could have used some fine tuning in order to fully reach their potential. The youth of today have a vast wealth of information available to them and do not need to be preached to or talked at. While there were valiant attempts by the workshop co-ordinators to engage with the students, the workshops could not seem to shake the ‘Classroom’ feel of teachers vs. students. There are many dramatic and creative writing techniques which could have been used to interact more directly with the students and shift the power balance so that every voice was equal. I believe the students could have been challenged more, poked and prodded to get the out of their shells and make them comfortable to talk openly about issues surrounding HIV and Aids. Obviously it is awkward discussing sex with peers and teachers present but I feel that open communication is the key to finding realistic solutions to the HIV and AIDS situation in our country.
The students responded well to the drama showcases after the workshops. The participatory nature of the pieces put action to all that had been discussed earlier during the day. I felt that a few moments in the pieces were a little preachy but on the whole the students seemed to really enjoy putting on a show for one another. A discussion after the pieces would have been hugely fruitful but unfortunately time constraints did not make that possible.
Later on, the Alliance Française played host to an Open Mic event where poets and performers came to share their work, centred on an HIV and AIDS awareness theme. The crowd was a little more mature and so was the content. The event was well attended; food and drink, as well as beautiful performances made sure the guests were well taken care of. There was a healthy mix of traditional Setswana poetry as well as English and great music to keep the audience entertained. Although it was a school night I kept thinking a lot of the students from that afternoon would have probably loved to see a show like that to give them something to aim for in their artistic pursuits.
All in all it was a fantastic day. I love the idea of the youth taking things into their own hands and deciding to share and engage one another through all artistic mediums as we move forward in the goal of one day having an HIV/AIDS free generation. The more feedback they get, the better the workshops, showcases and performances will get. Any and all platforms will give rise to new voices, and the thought of that definitely puts a whole bucket-load of Faith In My Jar. Many thanks to the House of Yielding Fine Arts For Youth for planning and executing such a positive Festival!
The House of Yielding Fine Arts for Youth is an NGO based in Gaborone Botswana. It has been established by a selection of poets, writers, office administrators and academics. The NGO is dedicated to fine arts, visual arts, performing arts and all forms of arts that children and youth are interested in. The organization uses arts as an avenue to strengthen available opportunities and raise awareness for the youth. They engage in varieties of art activities, workshops and conferences that cultivate art and literacy in urban and rural areas. Objectives of the Month Of Youth Against AIDS Workshop and Festival include to decrease the number of youth who get infected with HIV/AIDS and are uninformed about Arts; to increase the awareness of youth against the fight of HIV/AIDS and Arts; to strengthen the relationships among youth to work together using Arts as a tool to improve the behaviours of the youth within the community; and to encourage youth in and out of school to participate in being HIV/AIDS ambassadors in their schools and community. They intend to host other workshops related to this festival in the near future.
Personally, I felt that the workshops of the day had the right intention but could have used some fine tuning in order to fully reach their potential. The youth of today have a vast wealth of information available to them and do not need to be preached to or talked at. While there were valiant attempts by the workshop co-ordinators to engage with the students, the workshops could not seem to shake the ‘Classroom’ feel of teachers vs. students. There are many dramatic and creative writing techniques which could have been used to interact more directly with the students and shift the power balance so that every voice was equal. I believe the students could have been challenged more, poked and prodded to get the out of their shells and make them comfortable to talk openly about issues surrounding HIV and Aids. Obviously it is awkward discussing sex with peers and teachers present but I feel that open communication is the key to finding realistic solutions to the HIV and AIDS situation in our country.
The students responded well to the drama showcases after the workshops. The participatory nature of the pieces put action to all that had been discussed earlier during the day. I felt that a few moments in the pieces were a little preachy but on the whole the students seemed to really enjoy putting on a show for one another. A discussion after the pieces would have been hugely fruitful but unfortunately time constraints did not make that possible.
Later on, the Alliance Française played host to an Open Mic event where poets and performers came to share their work, centred on an HIV and AIDS awareness theme. The crowd was a little more mature and so was the content. The event was well attended; food and drink, as well as beautiful performances made sure the guests were well taken care of. There was a healthy mix of traditional Setswana poetry as well as English and great music to keep the audience entertained. Although it was a school night I kept thinking a lot of the students from that afternoon would have probably loved to see a show like that to give them something to aim for in their artistic pursuits.
All in all it was a fantastic day. I love the idea of the youth taking things into their own hands and deciding to share and engage one another through all artistic mediums as we move forward in the goal of one day having an HIV/AIDS free generation. The more feedback they get, the better the workshops, showcases and performances will get. Any and all platforms will give rise to new voices, and the thought of that definitely puts a whole bucket-load of Faith In My Jar. Many thanks to the House of Yielding Fine Arts For Youth for planning and executing such a positive Festival!
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