Dreams Do Come True

Dreams Do Come True

When I first come to UMthombo, one of my dreams was to have children’s paintings and drawings exhibited in one of the most popular galleries in South Africa and to have a travelling exhibition around the world. Earlier this year, UMthombo had the privilege of working with The Human Elephant Foundation, working closely with Andries Botha, a very successful artist in South Africa and known internationally. The children were given the opportunity to tell their stories through the medium of drawing. The children used an elephant as a metaphor to tell their stories of an unforgettable event that had happened in their lives, as we all know the elephant never forgets! The drawings were taken down to Andries Botha’s studio and he then responded to them in very small scaled drawings that were framed together with the children’s drawings.

My dream came true, as these drawings were taken down to Cape Town to be in a group show with Admore ceramics and Andries Botha’s life size elephant sculpture in the South Gallery. The exhibition was opened by Andries Botha on 12th March 2009, and Bernice Stott from UMthombo had the chance to tell people about the great work that we do at UMthombo, during her speech on the opening night.

I really enjoyed the process of working with the children towards creating the Cape Town exhibition and trying different kinds of mediums. We decided to use fine liners as the medium for our final pieces as they were simpler to use than water colour and other mediums. I would like to thank the Human Elephant Foundation for making this exhibition possible; all the people who were present at the show; and all the individuals who supported us.

Ceramic Design

It was about time we introduced three dimensional studies in our work with the children. We felt that ceramic design was a good place to start! We bought ready-made tea sets and allowed the children to paint them with glazes. The same method has been introduced to Life Space through Biza who is in charge, and I have taken him through the whole process. I am hoping to take the ceramic design further by making our own objects and pieces of art. I am interested in introducing slab work, coiling method, mosaics, wheel barrow, mould making, relief sculptures and casting methods to both Safe Space and Life Space. For the older children in Life Space, this ceramic design can work as an income generating activity, if mastered and taught well.

Drama and Music

Drama and music is one of the ‘hottest’ programs happening within the arts at UMthombo! We normally have our drama sessions at Safe Space, but now have taken them outside to the streets and sometimes we go to the Botanic Gardens. The drama programme is being led by two well trained and practising drama professionals from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) - Abi and Fran. This program runs once a week every Monday for the next 3 months. A play will be written, based on the life of street children, and performed by UKZN students at the Grahamstown Arts Festival in July. We have seen some really good street life-based plays with some of the girls at Safe Space. These plays have been written by the children themselves and directed by Abi and Fran.

After some time, I decided to ‘marry’ the two mediums of music and drama, so we bought in a UK-born musician and trumpet player, Liz Price, to help establish the music as a programme.

We took the music to the streets and had random recordings outdoors and indoors. We have spent some time rehearsing with the children since last year (2008) and their dream has come true this year. Their songs were recorded on a CD while singing with the accompaniment of professionally composed beats and instruments. After all the trouble we have gone through with the children recording in a very noisy space, WE HAVE OFFICIALLY RELEASED AN AUDIO CD WITH 42 TRACKS! The CD is not for sale, but it is for children to take back to their homes when they finally decide to leave the streets.

After the recordings with Liz and the children, we decided to bring more musicians on board to help us prepare and motivate the children for the big music performance we had at the Botanic Gardens. Liz bought in more musicians, Brian Watts, Joseph Omo, Njeza Dlamini, Richard Ellis, and Ian Dun to Safe Space to entertain the children and prepare them for their stage performance. On 18th April, T. Bone Hlane worked on the children’s performance in preparation for the big event at the Botanic Gardens.

The children had such fun and listened to inspiring music played by these artists. They also had a chance to experiment with different kinds of musical instruments and interact with some of the staff members on the dance floor.

It didn’t just end at Safe Space, but we took the music to Life Space as well, the younger youth of Life Space interacted with the young children of Safe Space and 14 other musicians. Liz and Brian had invited them to coach those who were interested in performing on Saturday.

The children were being taught how to play instruments such as the keyboard; they had professional dancers prepare them for the ‘big day’; and poets helping them prepare for their poetic performances.

All the fun we experienced with the children led to a very successful music concert at the Botanic Gardens on 18th April 2009, which was televised by the SABC 1 and YO-TV. They televised the show and interviewed Liz and 4 other children together with Mxolisi. I must say, I was amazed by the response we got from people and schools such as the Addington Primary School.

As a creative programmes co-ordinator for the organization, I felt it was a privilege to be interviewed on television with the children. Thank you to all the KwaZulu-Natal and Bat Centre artists for supporting UMthombo; and to Liz and Brian for helping organize such a huge and inspiring event.

Shield Programme

The shield program is one of my favourite programs at the moment; I like it because the children get a chance to tell me about their goals, their past, and the feelings of presently being on the streets. Each person gets a big sheet of paper with a drawing of an African shield, divided into three columns. In the first column appears the phrase ‘past,’ the second column, the phrase ‘present’ and the third column, the phrase ‘future.’ For each of these columns, a person has to draw or write anything about their life relating to each column.

The picture above was drawn by Sanele about his past. He says he will always remember his Mom who passed away in 2007, ‘She used to shout a lot when I didn’t wash my school shirt’. This is one of the many pictures drawn by the children, talking about their lives and future dreams. The picture below was drawn by Nkululeko, his future plan is to have a house, a car and lots of children!

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO DELANI, thanks to Siyabonga Mngadi for making this birthday celebration possable: may God bless Delani with a better life, beatiful wife, lots of children and a nice job.

The Music Event

Music Makers Present Sounds Of Durban

Date: 18- 04- 2009
Place: Botanic Gardens
Donation: R20-00

Music Makers is the name of a concept that comes from the poem by O’Shaughnessy. What we are about is empowering performers to realise their potential as “movers and shakers” and to use and share their skills acquired through music to empower others. Through music we aim to create events that generate the spirit of interconnectedness, bringing together diverse groups of people and sharing the spirit of music-making: that of equality, listening to each other, community, and unity.

This concert is the culmination of work that has taken place over the past month and a half: starting with and ending with Street Children using the “Safe Space” created by the UMthombo. The nucleus of the idea is embedded in the concert in which street kids will be performing with musicians giving the opportunity for them to be visible and audible in a positive context other than the usual and allowing them the possibility to connect and vice versa with musicians.

The event was set up to celebrate the amazing response that we have had to this idea amongst the musical (and related artistic) community of Durban mostly through being around the wonderful BAT centre. Many performers have offered to participate. So many in fact that this event is something that can be repeated in some form at least quarterly.

We have musicians and performers of all ages and stages – uniquely mixing professional and amateur and many types of music.
Addington School Choir
UMthombo Street Children
Belly Dancers
Cartoon Chaos
Richard Ellis’s Drum Circle
Gum Boot Dancers and Steel Band from Ottiwa Boys Haven and
Ithemba Labantwana
Inspiring and uplifting poetry from all over Durban and beyond including: Thule, Sbu, Topaz, and children from Umthombo: rapping and singing
The Music Makers Big Band fun catchy interactive music with participation
Members of Batuka, Durban Afro Jazz Ensemble, Thulile Zama
and others TBC

Money raised will be going directly to UMthombo to generate income for similar events of a participatory, inclusive and community based nature, and to help Mxolisi Sithole the arts co- ordinator at UMthombo to try set up a solid music program within the organization. We have approached the amazing Clowns without Borders South Africa to work with us.

Suggested ticket price (by donation) R25 adults R20 concessions.
Future: schools interested in our band visiting the school, and or participating in future events please contact
It is possible to organise a tour of the Botanical Gardens to appreciate

To Musicians and performers inspired by this work are invited to join Facebook group “Sympathetic Vibrations”. Thanks to Liz Prize and Brian Watts for making this event possable.



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The Revolution will not be Televised, The Revolution is here...

The Arts 3rd edition

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.