Culture and HIV/AIDS

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Title of project

‘Break the Silence’ awareness campaign

Organisation

Kwa Mashu Community Advancement Projects of Positive Arts (K-CAP)

Country/region

South Africa, Kwa Mashu Township, Durban

Project focus

The K-Cap project works in the township of Kwa Mashu to:

• change "passive culture" among young people, helping them to learn to secure their existence in the social economical environment in Kwa Mashu and play their active role in future leadership;
• prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS by providing access of appropriate and meaningful information, raising awareness and encouraging discussion across Kwa Mashu through a series of drama campaigns prioritising young people, youth in families infected and affected and the community;
• raise awareness among the youth of Kwa Mashu Township area of Durban that HIV/AIDS is affecting these communities and can be beaten through education, and through breaking the silence for people both infected and affected in the community.
• break down the barriers that are promoting the spread of this disease, i.e. stigma, denial and prejudice;
• equip youth with proper skills and knowledge influencing them to make positive changes in their lives.

Background

Kwa Mashu is Durban’s oldest township, some 18 km from the city, created by the forced removal of Africans from Cator Manor under apartheid. It is now a sprawling township with an estimated population of 1.5 million people and an estimated unemployment rate of over 80% among youth. A significant percentage of younger people are HIV positive.

Kwa Mashu Community Advancement Projects (K-CAP of Positive Arts) is a youth integrated arts and multimedia empowerment organisation founded in October 1993. Since 1994 K-CAP has been providing intensive workshops in drama, music, dance and multimedia skills (video, graphics and visual arts education).

Kwa Mashu was the home town of Gugu Dlamini, the first activist to publicly confirm that she was HIV positive. This had drastic consequences for her and her family resulting in her being stoned to death in 1999. It was an incident no-one wanted to publicly discuss for many obvious reasons. A play was written and produced telling the story of her tragic death, and for the first time the term “break the silence” was used in the context of the struggle against HIV/AIDS in Kwa Mashu.

The current K-CAP project was launched in 2004 with the purpose of empowering disadvantaged youth in various integrated arts and multimedia advancement skills that would increase career opportunities, job creation and practical knowledge.

In September 2002, K-CAP established the Ekhaya Multi-Arts Centre (EMAC) in the heart of Kwa Mashu; it was opened by the then Deputy President Jacob Zuma in 2003. The EMAC Centre has a 340-seat performance theatre, a technically advanced recording studio, fully equipped video-editing facilities, a multimedia resource information / archive / training centre, a convertible dance studio / 40-seater conference room, a craft workshop, and an open air Zulu enclosure arena.

These facilities are at the heart of the K-CAP project and are used to create training, skills and work opportunities for the township’s youth.

Level of cultural intervention used in the project

Culture as Context: In the late 1960s people were forcibly removed from Umkhumbami (Cator Manor) and settled in Kwa Mashu. The forced removal and subsequent disorientation has led to a legacy of violence – within families, the community and political factions – and high levels of crime, rape and murder. Add to this high unemployment and, according to some estimates, incidents of HIV/AIDS at close to 40% among young people and it is clear why K-CAP refers to its work as an “offensive”, a challenge to a dysfunctional culture born of the apartheid years, poverty and political and criminal violence.

Culture as Expression: Working with disaffected youth requires a strong engagement with youth culture. K-CAP supports the musical, filmmaking and performance ambitions of young people through training and access to resources such as recording studios.

Culture as Content: The songs, hip hop, dance, dramas, films and music made by young people focus on their everyday experiences as shack dwellers, gang members, and survivors in the township, and deal with their sexuality, their HIV status, their sense of injustice, and their hopes for the future.

Edmund Mhlongo with Nonhlanhla, HIV Positive, at the Breaking the Silence Project Event, Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre, 2007 (courtesy of Edmund Mhlongo)

Activities

The project has been conceived as a process, not as a series of discrete events. All the activities are designed to accumulate knowledge, skills and experience that can be continually fed back into the process, shaping and informing the project’s direction. Project activities aim to build on existing talents, enhance resources, share knowledge and expertise, and break the stigma and silence surrounding HIV/AIDS and the tackling of violence. Key activities include:

HIV/AIDS Multimedia Creative Education for Youth – trains 20 youths in multimedia skills which includes making a video documentary. They also are empowered in computer graphics skills which enable them to be able to produce quality-designed posters of creative messages. The aim is for the trainees to gain employment in the creative industries.

The drama “Breaking The Silence” – a creative awareness play about real stigma and breaking silence experiences of youth in Kwa Mashu. 15 youths in the project are given skills in acting and singing – which later allows them to compose and record songs in an album format.

The Kwa Mashu Family AIDS Awareness Concert is a satellite music concert that encourages, supports and spearheads the breaking of silence and conquering of stigma. Each concert reaches between 5-10,000 residents and youth of Kwa Mashu. During these concerts, linked to major historic dates, youth in the project exhibit products/outcomes of their project work.

The concerts have also led to a twinning with Antwerp. 10-15 young people from Antwerp have been given the opportunity to live and work in Kwa Mashu, experience township life and share culture and experience.

Minky Khumalo, K-CAP Poet, reciting the poem “Jabulani South Africa–Tear Down the Walls of Silence” at the Breaking the Silence Project Event, Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre, 2007 (courtesy of Edmund Mhlongo)

Outcomes

At any one time 15-20 young people are taking part in the multimedia training programme. K-CAP also works with schools reaching about 10,000 young learners.

There have been several drama and musical productions, festivals, concerts, dance performances and art and graphics exhibitions (see activities above).

In addition several local bands have been formed and recorded CDs of their music,q which are available commercially.

Feedback

None reported

Evaluation

There has been no evaluation to date.

Future Plans

The project, based at K-CAP’s Ekhaya Multi Arts Centre (EMAC), is set to expand into a prevention awareness and health education programme for youth. The central goal continues to be to challenge the “passive culture” amongst young people by making them learn to secure their futures within the socio-economic environment of Kwa Mashu, and play an active role in future leadership. It aims to achieve this by generating increased awareness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic through use of integrated arts approach and the development of a youth AIDS aware volunteers network in Kwa Mashu with the ability to engage in international exchange programmes.

Donors

Christian Aid, Peace & Reconstruction Foundation (PRF), AFRISUN-KZN, National Lottery Foundation and WAR Child Foundation (Netherlands). OD Norway, SAIH Norway.

Start Date

While K-CAP has been in existence since 1993, the current phase of the project, incorporating work on HIV/AIDS, began in 2004 operating from its new base at the Ekhaya Multi-Arts Centre (EMAC).

Sources

Sonwabile Poswa (Snoux)
Edward Mhlongo

Contact

Edward Mhlongo
Kwa Mashu Community Advancement Projects of Positive Arts
B25 Giya Road Kwa Mashu, 4360 Durban

+27 31 504 6970
kcap@mweb.co.za

www.ekhayartcentre.co.za and www.kcap.co.za

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.