An accomplished visual theatre artist and puppeteer, Gary Friedman has over twenty-five years of experience in puppetry-in-education and development, television, and live theatre production. He has been involved in the design and implementation of health education and development programmes throughout Africa, Canada, Australia and Europe (1987 to 1997); was the co-producer of a daily educational children's television series in which he also performed the main puppet character, Malume, who travelled South Africa interviewing children about their lives; and has produced and performed two successful visual theatre productions in South Africa, Kenya, and Australia during the past few years.
"Nafsi" is the Swahili word for "soul". The group name, Nafsi Afrika, can be translated as: "we are the soul of Africa and we have Africa deep within our souls." Nafsi is proud to be creating solutions to some of the enormous socio-economic problems facing people in Kenya through the use of acrobatics, dance, and theatrical performances. Nafsi Afrika was formed in the year 2000 by seven members, each from very poor backgrounds. The objectives of the group are to use their artistic talents to raise awareness about community issues through the platform of performance; to act as role models and social activists for the community; to tap into and preserve talent and culture; to address idleness, social injustices, and poverty; and to form arts related projects to rehabilitate disadvantaged children.
This video produced by MTV's Staying Alive Foundation shows the inspiring work done by Kenya-based Rising Voices grantee REPACTED. See more videos of the REPACTED project and read the most recent posts by their bloggers by taking a look at the REPACTED category of Rising Voices. http://rising.globalvoicesonline.org/projects/repacted-kenya/
It has been two years since Rising Voices awarded its first round of five outreach grants to project in Sierra Leone, Colombia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, and India. Those first five grantees were then joined by five more projects in December 2007. This video reflects on all that the first 10 projects have accomplished.
The Center for Digital Storytelling partners with organizations large and small, around the world, to develop digital storytelling initiatives tailored to meet local needs and respond to local issues. They have traveled to 45 states in the U.S. and 5 provinces in Canada and 33 countries around the world, helping organizations to create their own workshop, production, and distribution processes.
Sonke Gender Justice and the Center for Digital Storytelling's Silence Speaks <http://www.silencespeaks.org/> initiative are working together to enable young people and adults affected by violence and HIV and AIDS to share their stories. From cities to rural villages, the project offers participants a rare opportunity to talk about their own experiences and bear witness to the lives of others, in a supportive setting. Through intensive, participatory video production workshops, they are bringing rarely-heard voices and images into the civic arena. Their hope is to deepen existing conversations about gender norms and the spread of these twin epidemics, by highlighting every-day voices of courage, survival, and action.
Malgorzata Malak participated in a 3-month internship in a local Mozambican organisation, Kindlimuka from August - November 2008. Her sending organisation was GLEN.
During the internship, together with her partner, Verena Allinger, she made a documentary about HIV/AIDS issue in Mozambique. The film is called "Vida Positiva", and is an outline of the situation there, including reasons for the spread of HIV/AIDS, national prevention strategies, projects run by NGOs, ways of treating the disease, and personal stories of HIV-positive people and their relatives.
Why has HIV spread so much in Mozambique, reaching the level of 16% of the population? How do people react? Organizations, government, doctors, healers? Is the African potato a healing method? How does an HIV-positive person feel? What are his/her dreams? How should we talk to children at school about HIV and sex?
Watch this movie, "Vida Positiva", for some answers!