Does art really add value to people’s lives? Does art really innovate people? On a number of occasions I have worked with a group of street children, including a boy named Siyabonga. Like many street children Siyabonga had internalized society’s poor opinion of him as a street child. He had a belief that he was not capable of doing anything good and that he was stupid. He would not participate but would stay at the side and watch the rest of the group work. One day he decided to join the group and did a very beautiful art piece. The following day when I came to visit, everybody wanted to be friends with Siyabonga so he could help them with their work. Siyabonga had gained the respect he deserved; his attitude towards himself started changing. For me that is what art does: it adds value to a person’s life. I have worked with Siyabonga for the past five months and now, like many other child who have been part of the art program, he is finally back home to his uncle and community.
Some of the street children in Durban are involved in gangs. It is said that you cannot have the ‘26’ gang and ‘28’ gang under one roof as they do not get along. With the art program I have managed to work with both groups alongside each other. The battle between the two groups has not come to an end, but for some children the art program has worked as a renewal and reflection tool, motivating them to take a step further. They have left all the anger and hate aside: they have made peace with each other.
Art gives us a gift of life and for me that gift is significant – it gives meaning and relevance. Whenever a child I work with makes any kind of art piece it has meaning to that child and it is relevant to their current situation or their past. That particular piece is their voice on how they feel and sometimes their longing for help. Whatever they have made is their legacy, something that they are going to look back on in the future. That alone tells us that art is essential for human development; think about a world with no art, a world with no music, a world with no fashion and a world with no design: that world is dead.
UMthombo Safe Space
UMthombo safe space is a new space which is meant for boys under the age of 16 years and girls under the age of 18 years. It is the first therapeutic space for children living on the street in Durban, where they will come to attend life skills programs, have fun, relax, interact with our social worker, take a shower, have proper food and treatment for those children who are sick amongst many other things that children living on the streets need. We let the children mural their own space to make it more child friendly and lighten it up. Whatever the children decided to put on the wall had meaning and relevance to them.
They were free to paint anything they liked, but they were not allowed to paint their gang sign. Each day I would combine two different groups, which helped us to quicken things up. Two walls were reserved for specific themes, but the rest of the walls were open to the children to do anything they wanted. It wasn’t just me and the children out there painting: some of our staff members and volunteers were part of the team. Below its Osaviour our girls outreach worker next to her painting.
It wasn’t just Osaviour who participated, but almost all the staff members did: and I would like to thank everybody who did. Some days I will have some of the children working on the mural and some working on the bead working especially the girls: some of the girls get tired easily since we were working on hot days for 6 weeks. In some days we would not work on the mural we would go to Botanic gardens for bead working, I do that because I don’t want the kids to get bored of doing the same thing everyday. I like the Botanic gardens since it is far from the busy city centre, it keeps the children focused and at peace. The quietness of the place helps the children to reflect positively on their issues and respond well in everything we do.
We had two walls with a theme; the first wall was for children to express their feelings through portraiture and colour. At the centre of the portraits we have put a mirror so that the viewer can also be part of the children’s drawings. The children have expressed their feelings in different ways, some had sad faces and some had happy faces.
The second wall was for dreams, hopes and hunger. The people with big stomachs represented the children, so whatever was painted on those stomachs were the children’s hopes, dreams and their hunger.
By just looking at the mural without even talking to the children you learn a lot about them and their hopes and dreams. Even so, the mural is a piece of art and you can respond to it differently from the ways that I have portrayed.
Some of the children came in and expressed some of their experiences with UMthombo, for example: Dingani’s painting was about him leaving home, coming to the streets and going back home the UMthombo vehicle. He says: when you live on the streets you always moving. Your life is not stable; your bags must be packed at all times: because you never know when will the police arrive and chase you away. So the painting below represents him as a street child.
Then you find children like Andile who enjoy surfing, he says: working with UMthombo has made him realize his surfing talent: he wishes he could surf for ever.
The mural is not completely done yet, we have taken a pause just to focus on other things. Later on this year we hoping to move to the inside of the space and start mosaics in the bathrooms and restrooms and do some ceramic works.
Within the art program we have a culture that every time it is somebody’s birthday we buy that person a cake, snacks, drinks and food: we celebrate his or her birthday as a family. Thanks to Jasmine for introducing such culture. It happens while we were working on the mural that it was Xolane’s birthday, so we bought him cake and all the goodies that children like: and we all celebrated.
We have been focusing on music, dance, drama, poetry and writing. We were part of the schools program at the Bat Centre during the Poetry Africa event, and after that event we made a commitment that we were going to focus on music, poetry, dance, visual art and design. By the end of this project we hope to have a recorded a CD and video of all the activities - if we get the digital equipment. Below are the pictures of some of the children who are part of the arts program (music-based)amoungs many others, who we are hoping to produce a CD with.
The mural been a long walk, I would like to thank all the children who participated and the following people: Thulani, Eugene, Annabelle, Osaviour, Sipho, Biza, Mentoring group, Donation, Lindelani, Siyabonga, Robyn, Jasmine, Trudy and all our supporters especially Greenbelt and Amos Trust for helping UMthombo establish the arts. 
