ZIFF: Gang drama could fund dream trip for Hornsey arts group

A VIBRANT Hornsey arts club will perform their own play tonight to raise funds to send young people on a volunteering trip to Tanzania.

Kori Arts hopes to take 16 of its young artists to Tanzania on June 27 to work with orphans as part of a special film festival project, but are £5,000 short of their goal.

Using a combination of poetry and theatre, Gang Initiation Clinic tells the story of young men living on housing estates, who turn to gangs for belonging and acceptance but end up destroying their lives.

Kori said it hopes to raise as much as possible from the performance.

Odiri Ighamre, Kori Arts managing director, said: "They are an incredible, inspiring group of young people who are all determined to go. This is a real community effort and we will keep fundraising until the last second."

If successful, the young people will spend a month in the coastal African country, using a variety of art forms to empower the orphans to do their own live performance at Zanzibar International Film Festival.

They will also be thrown out of their comfort zones, as Swahili is the main spoken language.

The trip's aim is to develop a pack for other young people to run similar trips, as well as the benefits the experience will bring for themselves.

Kori also plan to document their adventure by filming and writing.

Group member Anthony Brown, 17, said: "I can't wait to go, I feel so stressed here. I want a new experience teaching children, and them teaching me."

He added: "I want to become a better man. When I come back I can use this experience to be a better person."

Lydia Newman, 22, dramatist and youth worker, was part of the first group of young people to visit Tanzania in 2008.

She said: "I'm really excited to go and work with young people from a different environment. I’m frustrated with the young people over here.

"It’s completely different and it will refresh my energy. It’s going to be amazing."

Even though she has been before, she is confident she will not have the same experience as last time.

Lydia said: "It will give me a greater appreciation for life. The children there are thirsty and are happy to learn.

"I had tears in my eyes when I heard that they were still playing out drama games and that they still remembered them. It just shows that we need to keep inputting."

After the trip the young people will share what they have learnt with their schools, colleges, universities and the wider community.

"This trip will sharpen their leadership skills and will culturally enrich them by learning the politics and history behind Africa," said Ms Ighamre.

To support the young people of Kori Arts, Gang Initiation Clinic will be performed tonight at Moors Cafe, in Crouch End, at 7.30pm.

Tickets cost £10.

For more information, contact Odiri Ighamre on 020 8889 2863.


Source:Haringey Independent

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Africa Spirit at the Fez Festival

SUNDAY, JUNE 06, 2010
Sunday at the Fes Festival has been a musical celebration of Africa. The afternoon concert under the oak at the Batha Museum took the audience on a voyage to the spice-filled isle of Zanzibar.

The virtuoso qanoun player, Rajab Suleiman, and his ensemble of bass and percussion played the ngoma rhythms of traditional songs as well as classical Arab pieces. The music had all the elements of Asia, Arabia, Africa and the Indian Ocean that make up the population of the island of Zanzibar. Suleiman is the musical director of the Culture Musical Club in Zanzibar. As a teacher at the Dhow Countries Music Academy he interprets just about anything from jazz to Bach.


Accompanying the trio was the legendary taarab singer, Shakila Saidi (pictured above). Saidi was the doyenne of the famous Black Star Musical Club in Tanga on the coast of Tanzania in the 1970s, and then joined the Taarab Orchestra in the 1980s. Taarab is the musical ecstasy that all Arabic singers strive to achieve. In Zanzibar, with its slave-trade background, the Swahili taarab is a mixture of eastern, Egyptian, Indian and Swahili music and forms the basis of dance rhythms such as the samba and rumba.

This was a languid afternoon of compelling rhythms and music easy to listen to - and hot enough to conjure up vanilla- and clove-scented beaches with swaying palm trees

Zanzibaris overcome cultural barriers to seek family planning services

More people are turning to family planning in Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar as the government seeks to improve access to reproductive healthcare. Funding, however, remains a challenge.

“We have been moving on well in the recent months as the turn-up for family planning by both men and women is impressive. Acquiring enough contraceptives for our clients remains the biggest challenge,” Hanuni Ibrahim Sogora, the director for family planning in Zanzibar’s Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, told IRIN.

Health officials say a culture of polygamy and low male contraceptive use has limited the number of women accessing reproductive healthcare services.

"The major problem is a lack of male involvement in family planning. For example, if a mother comes to the clinic with her baby, there is no harm if the husband can escort her because whatever information is given is important for both,” Kassim Issa Kirobo of the Zanzibar reproductive health programme, told IRIN. “The men say we are busy looking for a livelihood.”

Kirobo, the programme's behaviour change officer in charge of communication and information, said: "The women may also want to use the [family planning] services but the men have the last word."

Regarding low male contraceptive use, Kirobo said: "People say, why do I need to use a condom with my wife?

“There is a view that condoms are just for STI [sexually transmitted infections] control, not for preventing pregnancies,” he said. “If there was a contraceptive for men, besides condoms, maybe that would work.”

Shortages

However, in the past three years, there has been a positive uptake of the services, according to Sogora.

"The number of women and men going for family planning has been growing. We now frequently have implants and Depo-Provera out of stock because of the growing demand,” she said.

Implants are tiny rods containing hormones that are inserted under the skin to prevent pregnancy. Depo-Provera is a form of birth control whereby a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone is injected every three months.

Sogora said over-reliance on donor funding was a problem, with the government only providing a small amount of funds.

Population growth

The population growth rate on the islands is 3.1 percent, says the chief government statistician, with 1.2 million people in 2008 from 981,750 in 2002, according to a demographic survey citing Zanzibar's 2002 census. Immigration is also a factor.

Mzee K. Juma of the municipal council said the average household size in the Zanzibar municipality was 5.6 persons, with the population growth rate higher there at 4.5 percent.

Modern contraceptive use in Tanzania increased from 17 percent in 1999 to 20 percent in 2004-2005 among married women. Unmet family planning needs remain, however, especially in rural areas.

Attitude change

Across Zanzibar, health officials are involved in awareness-raising to enhance the use of reproductive health services and religious leaders are being trained to reach the men.

Some men are changing their attitude. Ahmed Mussa, 41, said: “Previously, I was anti-family planning, but last year [2009] I accepted the idea after having four children in a short period of six years.

“[When] my wife decided to go for family planning, I supported her and [I ] think we can now decide to either remain with the four children or have two more with the required gaps."

Sabah Salum, a mother of two, said: “I think it is good to help mothers plan their family. It is tiresome to have children almost every year.”

Islam is the main religion in Zanzibar.

Issa Zidy, an Islamic scholar and lecturer at the State University of Zanzibar, said: "Islam encourages family planning because it promotes having another baby after two to three years."

But even for those who plan their families, challenges remain.

According to 2009 health estimates, the maternal mortality rate in Zanzibar was 377 per 100,000 live births. The deaths were mainly due to severe bleeding and eclampsia, exacerbated by inadequately skilled attendants and lack of facilities in primary healthcare units.

Challenges

Kirobo noted that rural primary healthcare centres often lacked comprehensive delivery facilities, with women needing caesarian services being transferred to towns.

Delivery costs are a barrier. "People say if I go to the TBA [traditional birth attendant] I do not have to pay anything," Kirobo said.

He said the government was training TBAs and providing life-saving skills to maternity ward attendants.

Asha Aboud Mzee, secretary of the Catalyst Organization for Women’s Progress in Zanzibar, said other challenges facing women included HIV/AIDS, domestic violence and poor representation in decision-making.

"Sometimes at the Shehia [lowest administration] level, we find few of the committee members are women; there is no one to talk about women’s and children’s issues."

Zanzibar recently passed a law seeking to increase female representation in parliament.

"We don’t just want numbers; we want to send [women] to parliament who will actually represent us. [They] should understand women’s problems, not just sit [in parliament] and listen. Women have many needs,” Mzee said.