Using art to bring about change

It has been said now and again that art plays a crucial role in the development of any country.

Different art forms have been used in disseminating key messages which have brought about change.

But while art is valued in other countries where it is given the much needed respect, in the country the creative sector is yet to gain this respect.

The creative sector still plays second fiddle in a lot of areas and this is even noted with the way the Culture Department is tossed around during cabinet reshuffles moving from one ministry to the other.

In the absence of the Arts Council which the creative industry is fighting for at the moment, arts associations in the country are operating on their own without funding since they do not get any subvention.

They have all along been relying on funding from the Cultural Support Scheme spearheaded by Copyright Society of Malawi (Cosoma) and funded by the Royal Norwegian Embassy.

The private sector has to some extent also shied away from oiling the creative industry let alone utilising them in their different programmes.

But while others have failed to do so, some have surely appreciated the arts and gone on to work with different artists as well as created platforms aimed at unearthing different talents.

There are organisations which are currently doing well on the ground using art to bring about change.

One of the organisations currently making strides utilising art in its programmes is Art and Global Health Centre Africa.

The organisation among others fosters creative leaders and uses participatory methodologies, collaboration and the transformative power of the arts to deliver its programming in different areas.

Art and Global Health Centre Programme Manager for our Students with Dreams initiative, Rodney Likaku said art is always key in their programmes and that they are currently utilising it through their three main programmes namely Students with Dreams which fosters creative leadership in local college partners, Make Art/Stop Aids – which uses drama as a platform to discuss the HIV/Aids pandemic in rural areas and Umunthu – which uses film as a catalyst for conversation around different issues in the country.

He further said that their model is participatory and not prescriptive.

“That is to say that we use artistic approaches that facilitate discourse on solving community challenges that intersect social and health problems. We believe in community, people and social inclusion like many other organisations,” he said.

Likaku said they just prefer to approach challenging issues, both new and old, from a creative and artistic perspective.

“We don’t see problems as geographical, which is to say that we must act locally but think globally in our undertakings. Perhaps that could begin to inform why we are called “Art and Global Health,” said the programme manager.

On Students with Dreams, Likaku said the programme fosters creative leadership through creativity and collaboration.

“Students in partner colleges in Malawi design innovative projects in response to challenges that they see in society. Their projects stem from their own passions, disciplines and challenges that they have identified,” he said.

It is thus through the Students with Dreams programme that one of the University of Malawi law students Madalo Banda has managed to earn the prestigious Queen’s award for her project Loud Link.

According to Likaku, Madalo has since left to receive the Queen’s Young Leaders Award.

“The project was a student driven initiative which Madalo created with her partner Lekodi Magombo. The British Council in Malawi in collaboration with Art and Global Health Centre support this award fully, because we realise that fostering youth leadership based on collaboration and creativity is what we need to prototype and develop the future Malawi,” he said.

According to available information, after completing the first year of her Loud Ink project, Madalo joined Art and Global Health Centre team at the level of mentoring the new cohort of Students with Dreams at Chanco.

She started the Loud Link project with Lekodi in order to intersect their passion in writing to open a platform in secondary schools for different child/adolescent and human rights issues.

Through this platform, learners using their writing talent, write stories addressing some of the challenges that they experience everyday from corruption, poverty, education, gender, sex and sexuality.

“These stories will be published in an anthology Loud Link:Writing Wrong to be distributed in Malawi,” said Likaku.

Madalo says through the Students with Dreams, she has improved herself.

“I feel I have improved in my ability to connect with a larger audience and identify solutions to different problems,” she said.

He said that Students with Dreams is a rich platform that challenges students to be creative.

“The programme is the first of its kind in Malawi. As I said it allows college students to intersect, design thinking, leadership skills and passion for their fields of study to create innovative solutions to the challenges they see in the society,” said Likaku.

He said that through this programme they select students that exhibit leadership skills are creative and artistic.

The Queen’s Young Leaders Award programme discovers, celebrates and supports exceptional young people from across the Commonwealth, leaving a lasting legacy for Her Majesty the Queen.

The award recognises and celebrates exceptional people aged 18 to 29 years.

Likaku said having incorporated arts in their programmes they have managed to write a success story through the Students with Dreams model which has seen Madalo earning the Queen’s Young Leaders Award.

He also added that the model has been adopted by the World Arts and Cultures Department at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

“We worked with an amazing TEDx Lilongwe Team where I spoke on the language of poverty and how youth leadership is a critical component to the development of Malawi. We have been in productive conversations with other teams and organisations to foreground the youth agenda in policy making, education and research,” he said.

He said Art and Global Health Centre will continue to link arts to different programmes which they have taken as instrumental and that this has seen them working with Mhub, Segul Family Foundation and the social Impact Advisory Committee in Malawi, DFID, Festival of Ideas, Lake of Stars and the Children’s Festival in Lilongwe which debuted last year and its second edition will be held on Sunday in Lilongwe.

He noted that though they are making progress, the challenge is deconstructing a fractured national system that advocates that youth are the “future of tomorrow” and yet— paradoxically —does not generate platforms for them to develop their social, entrepreneurial and creative skills.

“There are few opportunities and resources for young people who must be trained based on gaps they must fill in the future of Malawi; not as a reaction to social and economic problems from the last decade. It is trying to achieve this balance between theory and praxis that has been a challenge,” he said.

Likaku said as an organisation, they are constantly learning and evolving based on new experiences.

“We are proud that young people are not taking charge of others, but of themselves and their lives. Everyday these young people are doing incredible things, in and out of the spotlight, and as a country we need to recognise and celebrate them,” he said.

Likaku called on the youths to utilise their potential and not to sit on their talents adding that they should work extra hard and strive as much as possible to be creative.

“Let me also say it here that as an organisation, we are proud of Madalo. She is a microcosm of the young leaders we would like to prototype for different sectors in Malawi; who use creative and collaborative methods for development,” said Likaku.

He added that they have had other young leaders go through Students with Dreams that share the same values with the current Global Health Corps Programme Assistant in Malawi, Isabel Kumwembe; the co-founder of Little Big Prints, Elita Chambimda; Keep Fit Malawi Programme Manager, Bentry Yangairo; and the co-creators of Zaluso.com, Macpherson Ndalama and Akulu Lipenga.