Last Saturday we finally had the sketch books ready to get our drawing project going! I was so excited! We have 15 sketch books in total and the dream would be to full all of them but filling 7-10 is also a good start. We started with drawing different African masks because they are quite quick to finish. I gave Evette and Claire their own books so that they can work on filling one whole book. Evette is doing mandala and animals, Claire’s theme has not been decided yet. Otherwise we have a book with masks and strong African women and another one with only masks. Ibra will do a book filled with pictures of different Kenyan tribes in their traditional clothing and jewellery. The other kids have been mixing the books, but I think George and Julius will get their own books to fill. I am happy to see that some of the kids want to work with the drawing also during other times than just the classes on Saturdays.
End of last week was stressful because we were finishing the Forum Syd application. Me and Venna worked on finishing it for the whole of last Monday from 8 in the morning until 11 in the evening. It was a stressful and exhausting day, but finally we did it and we submitted it in time. We were all off on Tuesday morning just to take some time to rest and clear out our heads, that was really what me and Venna especially needed.
Next big project for me is to start working on an application for the Swedish Institute Creative Force for a seed funding. The deadline is on January, so I will have plenty of time to work on that. The Creative Force funds projects that work on strengthening democracy, freedom of expression and democracy. The projects need to use media or arts in their work towards these goals. We are planning a project which offers the Kibera youth a platform for information and inspires them to find opportunities for success in their own communities. Many have dreams that stretch far outside their own living environments, which is of course a good thing, but the reality is also, that not everyone has the possibility to fill these dreams. For this reason, it is important to be able to find the opportunities in one’s own community. To find the things that are missing or that need to be fixed, and then turn those issues into possibilities to create a business and develop the community. The youth of Kibera has so much potential in them, that it is pointless to have people coming from outside to fix things, when the community is one hundred percent capable of doing it themselves.
The holiday period starts next week. I have heard that it is an intense time with a lot of kids and a lot of activities going on. My responsibilities will be drawing classes three times a week (Mondays, Tuesdays and Saturdays), life skills classes on Thursdays and photography classes on Fridays. The programme will last for 8 weeks in total. Time is running fast and when the holiday programme is over, it is already Christmas.
WALE WALE KENYA 