The Three Pillars
Welcome back to the kARTwe Kronicles. This blog is designed to give you bite-size and timely updates on the development and evolution of the kARTwe Project. If you are new to this blog, please check out my introduction to and explanation of the objectives and context of the kARTwe Project HERE
In this edition of the kARTwe Kronicles I will show you how we are sympathetically transforming the biggest slum in Kampala into the biggest open-air art gallery in Uganda. Our strategic approach has three pillars. These are Art Training, Street Art and High Nutrition Feeding.
Art Training
Every Saturday, we offer workshops on painting and on drawing. There is a class specifically dedicated to younger children. This class is attended by many pupils from the Katwe Central Primary School. It also accommodates slum children and street children from the community.
The second art class is for adults. We draw attendees from the Katwe community. This is deliberate. We want to focus our efforts and impact in this community. We want to produce results in a clearly defined area.
Our third class focuses on creating art and beauty from recycling waste in the community. The imperative is to educate the community in the benefits of building and maintaining a clean environment. Maintaining a clean environment is vital to the crusade against poverty, because of the physical, mental and health effects of living in squalor. These classes are taught by dedicated professional artists.
Street Art
Street art is another form of visual creativity that is expressed on walls and on buildings, outdoors, in urban areas and in informal settlements. It has different rules and uses different materials. Street Art is a legal form of artistic expression.
The street artists are asked to use their talent to create a mural or painted effect on a wall outside. Many cities and towns have encouraged street art. They are creating new outdoor galleries for all to enjoy. An industrial building can become uplifted by street art designs and colourful murals. Street artists paint in broad daylight and sign their work acknowledging their artistic creations. Street art is also called Urban Art or Public Art to try and distinguish it from graffiti.
High Nutrition Feeding
Every student is given a high-nutrition meal, if the attend class. FAMMI blends, packages, and commercialises fortified foods for individuals and at-risk communities in Uganda. We are motivated by the fact that the quality of nutrition, in the first 1,000 days of a child’s life, largely determines what quality of future that child will have. Inadequate nutrition during this crucial period, both for the pregnant mother and her baby, can have a permanent effect on the child’s cognitive and physical development.
Our students attend class regularly because for many of them, this is the only meal that they will have for the day. The fortified meal that we supply is low on the Glyceamic Index. Energy is drip fed into the child over a long period of time. They are therefore able to concentrate for a longer period of time. The window of learning and productivity is extended.
All their lives they have been told that “You are poor therefore you are stupid.” Many have come to believe this mantra. On Saturday mornings they are given a stage – not a cage. They express themselves and unleash creativity and beauty that has lain dormant. They have a voice.
One person cannot change the world
but YOU can change the world for one person.