Our Work
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“.Any Human anywhere will blossom in a hundred unexpected talents and capacities simply by being given the opportunity to do so”
Doris Lessing,
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OUR WORK
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ANNO'S AFRICA core team comprises a small group of Europe based creative professionals (artists, writers, musicians) who run the charity and give of their skills voluntarily alongside their normal paid careers. This core team is supplemented by a larger group of occasional, or one off master-class trainers, who constantly feed in fresh skills and ideas according to the needs of our programmes and their own availability.
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None of our European teaching staff is paid a salary for their work. Only basic charity cost, cheapest economy flights and subsistence-based communal living are paid for by the charity, to ensure that every penny we raise works as hard as it can for the children.
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Each of our projects is run in collaboration with existing African charities, shelters, orphanages or non-formal schools, which receive little or no Government support, to maximise our access to the children who need us most.
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Our small team works alongside a much larger group of locally recruited African artist/trainers and trainees, who do receive payment for their work, and who are able to update and expand their own skills as they teach, and continue running our programmes when the visiting trainers have left.
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The African trainers then go on to train their peers as new teachers and in this way it is hoped that the reach of ANNO'S AFRICA'S programmes will grow and grow, offering a sustainable arts education to ever greater numbers of children.
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Art group sketching expedition to the animal orphanage, with Emma, Babu, Hussein, Joni and Edgar.
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Each year ANNO'S AFRICA provides a three month supplementary arts education to teach children practical craft skills, which not only offer them the chance to be children – to paint and use clay, to sing, dance and stilt walk – but which also improves their chances of earning a living.
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Kadez heading a warm-up session with the drama group at Valley View School, Mathare.
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The workshops that Anno’s Africa provide offer many benefits for the children who participate in the project.
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To teach them practical crafts which will greatly
enhance their chances of paid work in the future.
(Particularly talented children will go on to
Advanced Anno’s Africa workshops and
we will endeavour to help them find work through
these newfound skills.)
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Theate Studies Group - mask making.
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To exercise their basic human right to enjoy their
childhood through creative play and the exploration
of their artistic talents and physical skills.
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Nathan teaching tight rope. |
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To explore their individual human potential and
creativity in a much broader sense; who they are,
what they think and believe, what they want for
their futures. This raising of their self awaremess
and what they are capable of achieving which will
impact on and enhance every aspect of their lives,
giving them the confidence and self esteem
to make changes and fight for a better future.
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Billy & Lulu performing with the music class at St John's, Majengo. |
Dance warm-up with Kebaye in Kibera.
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Anna's ballet class
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Children in the slums lack self confidence and have little understanding of their inner potential. They can tend to think that they need someone else to tell them what to do and how to do it... Therefore a huge priority of our work is directed towards the personal developement of the children into individuals who know how to draw on and nurture their imagination and inner potential and creativity so that they can become young adults who can develop their own thoughts and beliefs and know how to be self-starting, ingenious and entrepreneurial.
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Final open day and show at St John's, Majengo.
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However, is also a brutal reality that a significant proportion of the children we work with will not live to adulthood, as the child mortality rate is so very high, but Anno’s Africa provides these children with at least some shot at a ‘childhood’ and believes that it is the quality of life that counts, not the quantity. We want these children to have had fun on the journey, however short ....
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One such child was Victor Otieno who died from Malaria six weeks
after completing the art course in 2007. He was a hugely talented student. After the funeral his granny sent this message to ANNO'S AFRICA.
“Thank you. They were the happiest weeks of Victor’s life. At least he knew he was an artist before he died”
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It is for children like Victor that ANNO'S AFRICA really matters...
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OUR WORK TO DATE
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In 2007 Anno’s Africa ran a pilot project at St John’s charity school in the Majengo slum in Nairobi. We worked there for two months on a programme plan that we felt would best benefit as many as children as possible. About 150 kids from the school participated in a three day a week project with workshops in five major disciplines: Art Music Dance Drama and Circus skills (See Arts programmes link for details) .
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Mural painting at St John's.
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Acrobatics at St John's.
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We also held some “creative play” workshops at The Nest orphanage just outside the city on the edge of the Limuru tea plantations.
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Bee, Marie and Karen at The Nest.
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We had to postpone the Nairobi spring 2008 project in Nairobi as a result of the post election violence so we decided instead to go to Cape Town and hold an Easter holiday programme for some Aids orphans and other vulnerable children in the Nyanga township. This programme was funded from the Jane Birkin concert at the Round House and her donation from Hermes for her “Birkin Bag”. We went to South Africa at the invitation of ASAP – African Solutions to African Problems, a fellow charity who look after many thousands of needy children throughout the southern part of the country.
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Cape Town parade and show with Shane as MC.
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Later in 2008 we were finable able to return to Nairobi again and have just completed a second series of arts workshops this year which ran from mid October until Christmas 2008 which included two new schools, one in Mathare and the other in Kibera. These are the two slums which had been hit hardest by the inter-factional conflicts and are having to deal now with the added hardships of rising food costs, school closures and still the underlying fear of the violence erupting once again
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View from Valley View School.
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Mask making at St John's.
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Kenyan trainers: Irush, Krysteen and Sam.
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During the 2008 programme we worked with about 500 children from the three schools in Majengo, Mathare and Kibera.
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Natalia teaching silks to trainers.
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Still Life class.
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Advanced Art teachers, Steve & Francesca, in Kibera.
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FUTURE PLANS
KENYA
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In October 2009 workshops commence in Nairobi and run through until mid December.
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For the first six weeks these will as a general programme involving pupils from the three schools already engaged in the Anno’s Africa project, St John’s Majengo, St Juliet’s Kibera and Valley View Mathare. We plan to work with approximately 500 children in total with classes occurring at least two days a week in each school. This programme will be followed next Easter (2010) by a three week holiday programme involving the most talented children from all three schools, These children will attend daily classes in their subject with a view to concentrating their talents towards furthering a career in their particular field.
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These workshops will be held in five major disciplines and will be taught by a mixture of European and Kenyan trainers. Each main trainer will be supported by two local trainees made up of students who will eventually go on to become trainers themselves. This cascade model will be followed throughout the programme both in the training and administration areas. We will also include peer education within the classes from students who have completed a season of workshops and who want to come back to help as classroom assistants.
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DRAMA (Theatre Studies) – to include set and costume design, mime, improvisation, and classes employing some Boal participatory theatre and le Coq training systems.
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MUSIC - includes general music appreciation covering music from other countries and cultures, music theory and composition culminating in creating performance pieces, the creation of a “junk” band (with the participation of two trainers from STOMP), singing and harmony both choral and individually, and one- to-one guitar lessons for five pupils from each school. We will also encourage the children to form a school band to perform at local functions and for other schools so that they can start to be self supporting..
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ART - Two classes at each school, one introductory and one advanced for second year students who attended the 2008 programme, with master classes for both groups in different techniques from both local and visiting artists.
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DANCE (ballet, Salsa and traditional) - Two ballet classes at St Johns based on the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus from pre-primary and primary through to grades 1 to 3. Also there will be classes in contemporary and traditional dance run by local African trainers and a movement psychotherapy course for children who may need extra psycho/social help. This course will apply particularly to abused and educationally challenged children and will be run by a qualified therapist who has been working with the Kid’s Company in London.
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CIRCUS - classes in ariel silks, acrobatics, stilts and tightrope were part of last years programme at St John’s School but will now extend to Mathare and Kibera (where they have so far only experienced gymnastics and juggling) - with experienced trainers from Europe working alongside Kenyan acrobats. We will continue our liaison with the Sarakasi Foundation and will be adding flying trapeze, Chinese pole and clowning to the programmes where it is safe to do so – and will once again train Sarakasi acrobats in these new skills in exchange for them training the children from the schools after the Anno’s Africa programme has finished.. The emphasis in the Circus Arts programme is on imaginative circus/theatre and not just practical skills.
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Apart from the five disciplines mentioned above we are also in discussion with young film company in Nairobi - Tin Roof Productions - who have offered to run a film course for the children to study both the creative aspects of this craft (screen-writing, directing, art design etc ) as well as the technical side; editing, camera work, continuity and so on. They have volunteered their services free of charge and have access to digital film equipment and editing facilities. We may also include stills photography in this course.
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The workshops in Nairobi will culminate, as in last years programme, in a performance/show case day heralded by a parade through the community and finishing with a celebration when the children who have participated in the programme will be given certificates to congratulate them on completing the course..
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The purpose of these workshops is not only to give the children a chance to discover talents that they might otherwise not have a chance to explore - but also to equip the Kenyan teachers with the experience they need to be able to take ownership of the programme after we have disengaged. This sustainability is the core thinking behind Anno’s Africa with the eventual aim being for an all year programme that can run independently from the six week workshops and one that can be run by resident trainers. We will continue to support the schools financially so that they can run weekly classes in the form of Friday or Saturday arts clubs and encourage them to interact with each other and create self funding projects such as performing junk bands, and crafts that can be sold to bring income for art supplies etc.
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In 2010 we would like to start a series of workshops in the slums in the five satellite towns west of the city. These workshops would be operate for one day in each town and would concentrate mainly on visual arts, crafts and drama - extending to the other disciplines the following year.
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We will also start up programmes in two rural schools in Kenya - already identified.
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These extra programmes in Kenya will possibly entail three teams working concurrently so it will be essential to identify and work with new trainers this year in order for them to be ready to run some of the workshops themselves. We will also need a permanent project manager in Kenya by this time.
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Projects in other countries.
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We will investigate setting up programmes in Port Elizabeth, South Africa in conjunction with Shane Botha a youth worker with a street kids programme who was a music/dance trainer for Anno’s Africa Cape Town project.
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Shane Botha on the oil drums
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We are in discussions about starting projects with Street children in Ethiopia for the thousands of orphans and vulnerable children living on the streets of Addis Ababa .... .
We also are planning on starting up art workshops in Southern Sudan at the school that has been built by Valentino ( subject of the David Eggars book “What is the What”) who has returned to his home town of Mariel Bei and funded the new secondary school which should be completed this year.. It will start with just a visual arts programme and will be funded from the One Fine Day Foundation.
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We are visiting two orphanages in Northern Uganda where we have established connections, with a view to starting up a “returning child soldiers” programme. This project will concentrate on visual arts, circus and movement psychotherapy and then expand to include drama and music when it is established,
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