Monday 16 December 2013

PLTJ Director Khadija Omar


KHADIJA OMAR RAMA

From the age of 24 Khadija Omar Rama led an immediate and very personal response to caring for people living with HIV/AIDS who had been abandoned by their families and ostracized by the community. Khadija’s goal was to offer support to people with AIDS during the final stages of their illness so they could die with peace and dignity. It focused on the nutritional, medicinal and psychosocial needs of these people, especially women.


Since 1994, the PLTJ operation has been greatly expanded to address the many social and economic problems arising from the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It is still focused on people abandoned as a result of their HIV status particularly women with AIDS and their orphaned children some of whom may be HIV positive and it remains an entirely community driven initiative under the leadership of Khadija.


PEPO LA TUMAINI JANGWANI is the most successful and enduring HIV AIDS initiative in the Isiolo area serving over 7,000 families. In 2005 Khadija was nominated by the UN for Woman of the Year for her work and in 2011 was nominated as one of six women in Kenya for the Humanitarian Award marking her long standing efforts in fighting against the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Isiolo.

www.pepolatumaini.com


" I see the SBK Collaborative initiative as a pioneering  global arts platform that will give unique opportunities to artists from all over the world to come together and make new discoveries of the art that is alive in our people. It is not an easy task to restore dignity to minority communities and enable them to feel empowered. Art can be a major tool to use, but first must come our humanism. I am looking forward to see how we all meet the challenge."

Monday 9 December 2013

Introducing Scott Moody...


Scott Moody is a serial entrepreneur and has founded several media and technology-related companies over the past two decades. His current passion revolves around the intersection of digital media, emerging technologies, and nonprofit fundraising. He is participating in the Muungamo Kibao project as a student with a goal of learning from the artists, the staff, and the community of people who benefit from Pepo La Tumaini Jangwani. As an experienced photographer and videographer, he will "digitize" the collaborative arts project and team with Sarafina and Khadija to explore ways technology can be utilized to increase global awareness and support for their efforts going forward.

"Although technologies, such as the Internet, have increased awareness of and support for nonprofits -- especially in the arena of emergency response giving, we are just scratching the surface when it comes to ways an always-connected world can dramatically expand the giving landscape. The four primary hurdles to increasing nonprofit support throughout the world are discovery, choice, trust, and empathy. By exploring ways technology and media can enable one-to-one relationships between individuals and non-profits, we can strive to create a world where giving is commonplace and cross-cultural empathy no longer requires comparing the cost of saving a life to the cost of a cup of coffee at Starbucks."

Sunday 8 December 2013


SPECIAL GUEST



Pax Nindi is a master musician of African Roots Reggae and a renowned Global carnival expert. He is currently Creative Director for Europe’s only purpose built Carnival Centre (UK Centre for Carnival Arts). He is also the Vice President of the World Carnival Commission (Canada) & CEO and founder of the Global Carnival Centre. As a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and an international carnival consultant, Pax is a keen advocate for the artform and holds talks and lectures around the world.


" Due to my self exile, I haven't been back home for over a decade and being involved with a Kenyan project is like going back home and sharing my knowledge. It is an opportunity to assist and collaborate with Kenyan creative minds and the students in the school who mean a lot to me having been involved with them from a distance. Its exciting that some of the arts will end up being showcased as part of my UK event in March "Global Carnival Showcase" where Kenya will be featured among carnival giants from Brazil, Trinidad and Venice. What most people are not aware is the carnival culture started in Africa and am so excited that some of the artistic content of this project will be that art form and believe the best carnival shall come from Africa if we continue initiatives such as this one. I  commend Kadija and Sarafina  for continuing the challenging work they are doing in Tumaini in these hard times"  



Thursday 5 December 2013


PARTICIPATING ARTISTS



Hanny Ahern is an interdisciplinary artist and designer from New York. Her design work is inspired by the venture into play as a means for finding design solutions. Her artwork is an investigation between disciplines both incongruous and patterned often blurring lines between disciplines and extending herself outside the comfort zone of materials and craft. Hanny is passionate about collaboration and implementing creative practices for cross disciplinary work. Joining the Muungamo Kibao project starts with a curiosity and willingness to dive in, engage, heal and build peace.

"I want to find out what happens when minds and hands from different cultures come together to discover there capacities for creating beauty, utility, narrative or celebration. The energy lies in not yet knowing what will be and I suspect we create something much greater than ourselves."


Joel Lukhovi, born and raised in Nairobi is a Kenyan photographer. As a self-taught photographer, with engineering background, Joel feels at home in his constant search for the unending patterns of life. Presently Joel's works oscillates between diverse mediums. He uses photography, literature and collaborative projects to address social issues. His work deals with liberation and identity. He maintains that without a visual identity we have no community, no support network and no movement. Another aspect of his practice is the ability to organise projects with artistic interventions to promote exchanges cutting across indigenous and the modern international platforms. 

"I would like to participate in the project as part of my communal photography and collaborative projects that I so often engage myself in. I believe it is important as artists to work and interact on the same platform so as to expand our thinking and develop the manner in which stories can be told in a honest manner."



Boyd Hill AKA ‘Solo One’ has been practicing graffiti based art since the mid Eighties in the Midlands.  He has built up over 20yrs experience in painting commissions, organizing graffiti events and delivering youth workshops all around the UK and internationally in South Africa and Adu Dhabi.He has been one of the most prolific UK graffiti artists in recent times. His work is an energetic and abstract view of the world incorporating many different influences from tribal art to traditional graffiti lettering.
He uses lots of different mediums to create multi-layered works, which are very individual in style and content. Currently his outdoor gallery is on the Stockwell Park Estate in Brixton, which is painted every few days. Solo One continues to make art for the street and has exhibited in Azerbaijan, Cape Town, New York and Tokyo. He continues to keep a low profile within the Street art scene and creates collectable one off pieces from his studio in South London.
"I believe the main aim of working with the youth is to teach creativity with a back to basics approach to art by creating dialogue and encouraging young people to use their imagination. The most important thing you can do is to pass on your skills and ideas to others because often the idea you first had will come back improved. ."




Lionel Richie Okeyo Garang is a young Kenyan artist, half Tanzanian with Kenyan and Sudanese roots. After secondary school Lionel started his artistic career by drawing graffiti on the p.s.v vehicles known as Matatus
around Nairobi. He then got an internship at the national museum of Kenya where he started
making sculptures fiber glass matt and resin. He now has a studio at Kuona art centre and practices painting and sculpture. Most of his sculptures (masks) are made using wood, metal, plastics and empty spray cans.

"I would like to work with the children of Pepo La Tumaini Jangwani and teach them about art. I am looking forward to collaborate, share, work and exchange ideas with the other international artists."