Tshiamo Petersen

Botswana

Born in 1985, Tshiamo Petersen grew up in a mixed-race, multi-cultural family. This placed her in a space where she learnt Setswana, English, Shekgalagadi and German as her mother tongues.

In 2009, Tshiamo graduated from the University of Botswana attaining merits for her research essay, Urban Legend: The Art of Oral Traditions in Modern Botswana, her performance in Clash of Cultures and for the sets she designed for a series of 10-minute plays produced to complete her BA (English).

The challenges that came with her unique heritage were, and still are, inspiration for her quest to find practical and contextual ways of understanding, acknowledging and accepting differences amongst people.

Her taking on a BA (Hon) in Applied Drama is the result of a constant personal struggle for acceptance, and the realisation that drama has the ability to strip away the imbalances within an individual and in society.

In the future, Tshiamo sees herself working in drama therapy, related to applying drama to marginalised groups’ issues, and to capacity development in HIV and AIDS education.