Pictures from our first workshops and projects

HIV/AIDs Projects

Mxolisi says: “My first month was for me to learn more about Umthombo Street Children, my time was spent mostly with the outreach team on the streets where the children hang out. It was quite an experience for me seeing different families on the street; the kids look after each other. They share whatever food they have, cook together. One group that really inspired me was the one in Winder Street, when we got there the children had pots on fire cooking breakfast. We had to stay a while before breakfast was served; we had fish, red meat, bread and juice. While having breakfast one of the boys there who had gone for a H.I.V test was telling us how happy he was because his result come out negative, it was also interesting listening to the other children’s responses.”

This experience, as well as other issues such as the number of girls getting pregnant on the streets, highlighted to Mxolisi the need for children on the streets to be taught more about the HIV/AIDs virus. A number of arts-based HIV/AIDs projects are being developed. Umthombo will be building partnerships with other organisations working in Durban around HIV/AIDs awareness (e.g. Umthombo is supporting the YAP (Young and Positive) Project to run a creative, education-based programme 3 times a week for street girls). We will also be running our own arts-based HIV/AIDs projects.

“The Umthombo AIDS art project aims to educate the children about HIV/AIDs while having fun. Through story telling and discussions I will interact with the kids and get to know them better. I will first educate the children about the virus and ask the children to draw for me what they think the virus might look like and why. I will then divide the children into groups of twos, where I will ask them to share any personal story with their partners. From that story telling I ask them to give each other symbols, for instance lets say if you were to give your partner an animal character what would that animal/ symbol be and why? I’m also hoping to develop a life map with the kids, starting from the present to the future using symbols. That way Umthombo can get to know what are the children’s goals and future plans besides being on the streets, and we get to assist them in making those dreams come true. At the end of the whole project the children would have learned more about HIV/AIDs, they will have life maps to live up to and symbols that they could be remembered with.”

Making a Plan

After spending around three weeks getting to know the Umthombo staff, meeting with some of the groups of street children and making links with other Durban-based arts organisations, Mxolisi met with some of the Umthombo staff to present a list of possible creative programmes. These included a mixture of skills-building and income-generating projects such as jewelery making and plant-pot mosaics, projects aimed at improving the environment around the Umthombo drop-in centre such as painting and DIY projects and therapeutic projects based around issues such as HIV/AIDS. The ideas for some of these projects came from the street children themselves. Mxolisi has also made connections with a number of organisations already running projects in Durban such as Arts for Humanity (www.afh.org.za) and the BAT Centre (www.batcentre.co.za).
Here is a list of some of the possible projects
• H.I.V and AIDs project
• Pot Plant Project
• Mirror Project
• Post Box project
• Fixing and Decorating of the Centre
• Fashion and Silkscreen printing
• Writing, Poetry, Dance and Music
• Jewelry workshop
• Decorating of the drop- in- centre kitchen and bathroom
• Decorating of Coat hangers
• Decorating of surfboards for the surfing team
• Making and decorating of ceramic pieces
• Exchange programs with other organizations and schools
• Postcards, envelopes, papermaking and letter head designs
• Individual workshops by the kids
• Girls beadwork workshop with kids from King George Hospital

Umthombo is currently in the process of obtaining a new 'Safe Space' which will eventually be the most appropriate place to run centre-based programmes. For this reason, it was thought best to postpone the centre-based projects until this new space has been secured.

Mxolisi says:
While doing outreach I’ve noticed that certain groups don’t mix up with certain groups and that most kids don’t want to be taken to the centre. So I have decided that the arts projects will go out to the kids - it will work as outreach. For the first month we will have the project being runned on the streets, but it would be nice to have our own art class as soon as we have a suitable space available [that way we can do more functional stuff with the kids, things like postcards, ceramic pieces, silkscreen printing, fashion and pot plants amongst many other things]. I hope that this arts projects will help the children to have fun, learn more about life skills, learn more about creativity, empower them, motivate the children and help them find ways of earning a living through creativity."