Dali Tambo’s speech at the Drama for Life Fundraiser Event 2011
August 16, 2011
Dali Tambo’s speech at the Drama for Life Fundraiser Event July 28, 2011:
“Ladies and Gentleman,
for an occasion such as tonight’s Drama for Life annual fundraiser my role is simply to welcome you all here and to delay as little as possible the onset of our Patron Edwin Cameron’s address to you and of course the main event – Pieter Dirk Uys will entertain and educate us as only he can. We also have the great John Kani in the audience and Sibongile Khumalo two Powerful Patrons of drama for life.
So let me brief. We gather here tonight ladies and gentleman in my view to do two essential things.
The first is to encourage, acknowledge and celebrate the men and women who have built Drama for Life into the powerful agent of social transformation it is today. We wish I believe, to encourage Warren Nebe, Lonwabo and his collegues, to say to them we know you face challenges, recession, tight budgets, low salaries, long hours and the highs and lows of academic life but we know also why you stay the course. It is because you are more than just educators you are creative humanitarians.
We wish to acknowledge ladies and gentlemen that through the dedicated efforts of the teaching staff, faculty and students in the Applied Drama and Theatre Studies programme, in research as well as other activities, they have successfully created a world class model of drama education, drama therapy, theatre for development and theatre activism – particularly in relation to social challenges such as the scourge of HIV AIDS.
As those who have interacted with them know the teaching staff come from diverse disciplines ranging from the dramatic arts, sociology and psychology to Human Rights. Some come from theatrical backgrounds and have taken theatre into education, others from academia and have instilled a research based educational discipline into theatre and into Drama for Life’s fight against HIV AIDS.
Since 2006 Drama for Life has pioneered the application of drama and theatre studies, through its honours and masters programme and its record is impressive. In 2008 which was the first year students attended, they had 29 post graduate students from nine African nations.
In 2009, 20 students from 10 African states completed their Drama for Life programme. In 2010, fifteen completed and this year 17 students are enrolled in the Drama for Life programme. Who are these students and why do we ask you to support their scholarship programs? What do they become having completed?
They become social workers, each of these students is through Drama for Life empowered to return to their country or community with the tools and methodology to make an immediate and tangible difference in their people’s lives.
They become disciples of the discipline of applied drama and theatre studies, they are theatre practitioners but they also become educators and agents of social change, and advancement.
They become health workers in that their work seeks to prevent the spread of HIV AIDS to provide a different form of counseling for those who already are HIV positive that is enabling to communities, that gives them the tools to grapple with HIVs manifold consequences.
They become psychologists in that through the dramatic arts and the educative participation of their audiences they incite thoughtfulness, reflection, introspection and often force us to examine our attitudes to others, and to issues of HIV, gender, sexuality, race, class, and culture. In other words they provide a different form of therapy for those infected and affected by the virus.
They seek to change the psychology or mindset of their audiences so as to empower them to improve the quality of their lives and make the right choices.
And ladies and gentlemen the gift that Warren and his colleagues impart to their students and through them to society, to people across the continent, is a gift that keeps on giving. It is skills transfer at its finest, there is something almost biblical about it, in that one of Warren’s ‘disciples’ will in turn and in time, produce many others, wherever they go, until they form legions of cultural warriors carrying the message of prevention, tolerance and compassion and pioneering the field of what some call Entertainment Education. Each one trains others to train others. In terms of the education Rand cost benefit ratio, its serious value for money.
Each student on completion has also been given the capacity to empower ordinary people to become agents of their own social change and of their own betterment.
Each student can become a disciple of democracy as their activities reinforce and strengthen democratic practice and processes at a local community level.
We are here to celebrate them ladies and gentlemen, because it takes heaps of self belief to do what the teaching staff and students do, an enlightened spirit and a progressive soul, a depth of intellect combined with a joie de vivre and creative ingenuity.
May we as a sign of our gratitude give them all a round of applause. So Warren and your comrades please consider yourselves encouraged, acknowledged and celebrated.
The second purpose of our assembly here tonight is to raise funds for the Drama for Life Scholarship program and the Drama for Life site partnerships. To date Drama for Life has been very generously funded by the German International Corporation and the Goethe Institute, and I would like to express our sincere gratitude for their support.
Thank you for being socially progressive, thank you for being visionary and for displaying the value you place on education, the dramatic arts and the people of Africa through your generous donations.
Please give them a round of applause.
As I’ve said ladies and gentleman, our purpose tonight is to raise funds so that Drama for Life can sustain and grow its student numbers.
As with many scholarship programs, AIDS – related programs and avant – garde teaching methods Drama For Life is faced with the challenge of raising money to enable the continuation and expansion of its honourable endeavours.
Ladies and Gentleman a wise educationalist named Paulo Freire who was one of the pioneers of participatory education said:
“Knowledge is not acquired merely through abstract, rational thought or idealism but by experiencing, interacting and reflecting on the material world in which we live.” He goes on to say that “Knowledge begins with the awareness of knowing little .... and knowing that they know little, people are prepared to know more.”
His concepts inspired participatory education all over the world, and I am sure he is amongst those that still inspire the academic programs run by Drama for Life.
Like many of you here tonight I place a high value on the South African theatre industries role in our society. Theatre is perhaps one our greatest forms of expression as individuals, as cultures, as a nation, and one of our finest forms of entertainment.
But it is more than entertainment, theatre is and has always been a social tool, for mass education, to transmit messages and values that were or are fundamental to us.
We should perhaps recall that pre television, radio and cinema, theatre was the biggest form of mass cultural communication and entertainment and had been so for thousands of years whether as pagent, ritual, ceremony, right of passage or drama, theatre is part of human endeavour, social education and cohesion. So as I realised how Drama for Life has used the power of theatre, of participatory drama education I felt that here was an example of The Dramatic Arts at its finest, its most socially and educationally relevant – something to be supported.
I feel proud of Warren and Drama for Life because of the way they address socio-political and health issues especially in HIV/Aids education, prevention and rehabilitation but also Human Rights, social justice and environmental sustainability.
There is something very African about the multi-disciplinary way in which Drama for life uses theatre education to impact on social issues to deliver social messages and mass introspection.
Pre-colonial African theatre differed from the European Narrative theatre tradition, in that it was participatory, it had no stage or barriers between the actors and the audience. The audience sang acted and danced, with the performers, interacting and building a sense of community amongst the audience members.
I believe Drama for life has brilliantly taken this somewhat lost African theatrical tradition back to African communities through its arts activism, education and therapies.
It has through its integrated arts training, practice and research approach to health and socio-economic issues become in my view a “theatre of the oppressed”, empowering communities to take responsibility for and improve the quality of their lives.
In its HIV work - Drama for Life provides forums for individuals and society at large – to break the silence and talk about sex openly. To break the stigma and discrimination and allow people to be open about their status whilst encouraging those that do not know to be tested and find out.
In addition Drama for Life is seeking to expand its research training capacity with the aim of soon becoming Africa’s foremost research hub in integrated applied drama and theatre training, practice and research.
We are blessed to have amongst our Patrons two South African Icons who will take to the stage just now.
Pieter Dirk Uys is the epitomy of an artist who has always combined drama and performance art with social observation, and incisive social commentary and the skill with which he educates us about ourselves has made him precious to our whole nation.
Justice Edwin Cameron is about as distinguished as a person gets, a champion of human rights, an accomplished scholar and cherished citizen of our country.
Ladies and Gentlemen Drama for Life’s many activities, its postgraduate curriculum, festivals, conferences and projects, and its many activists, its Management Committee, its teaching staff, its students and alumni, are of great value to our society. And we need you to express the value you attribute to Drama for Life through your financial donation.
The Drama for Life activities are transformative and humanizing and the Drama for Life activists are distinguished educators and progressive humanists.
The work of Drama for Life is rooted in the struggle and interests of ordinary people Across Africa.
We ask those of you who can, to contribute, what you can to the Drama for Life Scholarship programme and all its activities and by so doing assist Drama for Life in becoming the leader in Africa with regard to Applied Drama and theatre studies and research. We ask you to support Drama for Life’s mission, its vision and its method, its staff and its students.
And I wish ladies and Gentlemen as I welcome you to our annual fundraiser to recommend Drama for Life to be a recipient of your philanthropic indulgence and financial gift.
Thank you.”