The Drum Cafe 2010 Peace Arts Festival/Conference updates

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The entire planning of the project have much considered and factored in sustainability, specifically how we intend to ensure the future viability and sustained impact of our artistic initiative.

Fund raising has never been an easy task and requires research, dedication, commitment and hard work. Our challenge has been and still is to persuade communities and donors on the true value and potential of the arts as a vehicle for social change.

The power of the arts is a potential tool that can be used to raise an issue, showcase an idea, communicate a message or campaign, channel people’s attention for a good cause, change a negative perception, inspire a community and positively influence a society.

We have been inspired by the fact that all around the world arts and heritage professionals are increasingly expected to fulfill a range of functions including strategic planning, governance, development, archiving and curation. Create a space and platform for cultures to express the need to encourage dialogue among cultures with a view to ensuring wider and balanced cultural exchanges in the world in favour of intercultural respect and a culture of peace; violence is increasing each day not only in our own country but all over the world, the conditions in which our societies live in due to the effects of violence are unacceptable and yet no serious organised cultural methods are put in place to address the vice

We have based this project on The General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, meeting in Paris from 3 to 21 October 2005 at its 33rd session which reaffirmed-
a. to protect and promote the diversity of cultural expressions;
b. to create the conditions for cultures to flourish and to freely interact in a mutually beneficial manner;
c. to encourage dialogue among cultures with a view to ensuring wider and balanced cultural exchanges in the world in favour of intercultural respect and a culture of peace;
d. to foster Interculturality in order to develop cultural interaction in the spirit of building bridges among peoples;
e. to promote respect for the diversity of cultural expressions and raise awareness of its value at the local, national and international levels;
f. to reaffirm the importance of the link between culture and development for all countries, particularly for developing countries, and to support actions undertaken nationally and internationally to secure recognition of the true value of this link;
g. to give recognition to the distinctive nature of cultural activities, goods and services as vehicles of identity, values and meaning;
For purposes of actualization, we had to take serious steps to assemble a technical team and since culture is one of the mainsprings of development, the cultural aspects of development are as important as its economic aspects, which individuals and peoples have the fundamental right to participate in and enjoy. We have involved every one from the old to the young, local leaders, cultural operators on different levels, cultural centers, decision makers, professionals of different disciplines, artists, local and international scholars and politicians.
We have spent three months traveling through the province of Nairobi, all the nine district, meeting people of different walks of life; We have auditioned artists and involved the district peace committees in the planning and programming of this festival.

We have put up the production team which started to work in February, which concentrate in auditioning of performing groups, planning for production and training. After our research, we decided that the drum café will identify groups through auditions and will facilitate trainings in various centres with major trainings taking place at the Go down arts centre, supported partly by the Go down centre
We have negotiated with various cultural centres on all possible partnerships including hosting of festival activities and co=sponsorships. These centres are Alliance francaise of Nairobi, Sarakasi Trust, Go down Arts centre, Kenya cultural centre, Liberty and the National Museum of Kenya. Provision program attached.

We are in consultation with cultural organisations such as Yaden which has proposed to bring in 5 performing groups from East Africa and the Theatre Company which is interested in presenting performances in slums; they are yet to confirm their funding.
We have got individuals and companies which are interested in presenting their films and documentaries; in fact films from Nigeria and Cameroon have been already posted.

Response from scholars who are interested in the conference, is also growing and some have already sent their abstracts; at the moment we have not decided on who will present, at this stage we are just collecting abstracts until the end of June.

We have been able to identify various organised groups and we have already started to work with them; among these groups are:

a) Community Based Organizations
b) Religious Organizations.
c) District Peace Committees.
d) Youth Organizations.
e) Women Groups.
f) District/provincial cultural officers.
g) Other forums! Leaders, Companies, Organizations, e.t.c.

We have confirmed the support from government and we have been working with government agencies in our auditions on district levels. Government through the ministry of national heritage and culture, the department of culture and the presidential permanent music commission have already pledged funding, also through the ministry of youth affairs and sports, the ministry of justice and national cohesion-(national cohesion and integration commission) have pledged funding and support in the conference and other forums in the slums and the amount will be known after the reading of the 2010-2011 Budget.

We are already working with the provincial administration – Nairobi province whose office has been of so much help in shaping this program. We have already consulted the provincial police office of Nairobi and the office of the Mayor of Nairobi.
We are also targeting other government departments which have already shown interest, such as the office of the prime minister.
We have already contacted Safari COM Kenya’s biggest telephone services provider, Coca-Cola and we are in talks with media houses for media partnerships.

We were granted support from Arts Move Africa to sponsor transportation of African participants and groups; and we have already advised all interested to apply for this offer.

We have put up a marketing team and are now on the ground to fund raise and promote the event. We write on a daily basis to individual and organisations for more possible partnerships and support.

We completed our auditions stage on this Saturday the 12 of June in Langata district then we embarked on trainings in district locations.

Otherwise all programs remain unchanged; I would still suggest that we run the whole program as earlier planned.

On international participation we already started to communicate with five artistic groups from India, Zimbabwe, Uganda, S.Africa and Congo.

We are satisfied by the work and support so far achieved and very confident that we shall have a very interesting and successful event.

SOME OF THE CONFERENCE PRESENTERS

SALIOU NDOUR
DOCTEUR EN SOCIOLOGIE
Chargé de Cours de Sociologie
Université Gaston Berger De Saint-Louis
Expert-culturel Afrique -Caraïbe - Pacifique (ACP)
BP 234 Saint-Louis (SENEGAL)
Port: 221 77 6468710 / 221 2343455
Fax: 221 33 9611884
courriel: salioundour@yahoo.fr
www.connectcp.org/SaliouNdour

Prof.Maurice Taonezvi Vambe
(PhD and Associate Professor)
University of South Africa,
Department of English Studies

Boaz Adhengo Bachelor of Arts Major in Political Science, Minor in Philosophy, Nairobi University

Ovais Shah
Acting-Secretary of the Board
Canadian National Committee
United Nations Development Fund for Women
Canada

Rosemary Nyaole-Kowuor
Lecturer, Communication Department
Daystar University

George Ngwane is a writer on Governance, Peace and Culture in Cameroon and Executive Director of AFRICAphonie. His two most recent books include ‘Settling Disputes in Africa –traditional basis for Conflict Resolution’ and ‘The Power in the Writer’ (www.gngwane.com)/ (www.Africaphonie.org
He is currently a Chevening Fellow doing Conflict Resolution at the University of York (UK).

Dr. Tim Murithi, is Head of Programme, with the Peace and Security Council Report Programme, at the Institute for Security Studies, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. a Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK; as a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Conflict Resolution, University of Cape Town, South Africa; and a Programme Officer at with the Programme in Peacemaking and Preventive Diplomacy, at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, in Geneva, Switzerland. He is the author of two books, The African Union: Pan-Africanism, Peacebuilding and Development (Ashgate Publishers, 2005) and The Ethics of Peacebuilding (Edinburgh University Press, 2009) and he is also on the international editorial board of the African Peace and Conflict Journal and the Journal of Peacebuilding and Development.

Ronald Elly Wanda
Writer/political scientist currently based in London