PCTW TV Monitor They stand their ground installation

Tv monitor added to the They stand their ground against gender-based violence exhibition

As part of Phone call to the world project a tv monitor was added to the They stand their ground against gender based violence exhibition hosted at the Old Court House Museum, Durban Local History Museums. ARROWSA chair Luthando Ngema  met the Durban Local History Museum staff at the exhibition and they discussed the importance of the exhibition. Videos of original work created by ARROWSA Bechet and South Roots International youth that links to the exhibition is played on the tv monitor. The tv was funded by the British Council as facilitated by Scottish Youth Theatre.

#phonecalltotheworld #togetherforourplanet #reverberation #creation #artforsocialchange

Production day edited by Vincent Salanji ARROWSA - Phone Call to the World

Phone call to the World production day 

with ARROWSA Bechet 

and SRI 

at Bechet High Durban

Video edited by Vincent Salanji of ARROWSA 

@arrowsa.artpeace @southrootsint. @scottishyouththeatre #ARROWSABechet #ARROWSA #SouthRootsInternational #Scottishyouththeatre #PhoneCalltotheWorld #COP26 #Togetherforourplanet #TheClimateConnection 

In this together

In this together video!!

by ARROWSA featuring Sue Livia van Wyk

Including art works by ARROWSA, South Roots International and Indra Congress Gorse Hill Studios

Including video footage by Shanette Martin and Vincent Salanji

Mouth organ played by Felipe Pozo of Indra Congress Shef

Edited by Devin Carter

 

Watch this space for an exciting announcement tomorrow on Earth Day! 

#TheClimateConnection #COP26 #TogetherForOurPlanet

ARROWSA 2006

ARROWSA website to be launched soon! 

Funded by National Arts Council  

Looking forward to the video below appearing on the ARROWSA website about ARROWSA's beginnings. The video was created by ARROWSA alumni, Africa Ngcobo, about his trip to the UK 

with ARROWSA in 2006 that included arts activities and a theatre performance and the impact that 

it all had on him.   

Catharsis, expression through the arts and gender-based violence

Nicole Sacco of South Roots International

(Partially funded by National Arts Council South Africa)

Nicole Sacco of South Roots International  led a skills transference online session that focused on catharsis.

Catharsis - The term itself comes from the Greek katharsis meaning "purification" or "cleansing." (Cherry. 2021).

"what’s important in this process is catharsis that leads to some sort of restoration or renewal. What we want is to bring about some form of positive change to our lives."

Nicole started with a relaxation exercise that focused on relaxing the muscles in the face through the use of the fingertips of both hands.

She then shared a technique for identifying how one is thinking, feeling and behaving when coping with difficult emotions.  She did this through the drawing of a figure and text associated to the head, heart and feet (inside-and-outside). Nicole associated it to the participants' thinking, feeling and actions when COVID-19 started in 2020 and if and how this the thinking, emotions and actions had shifted in 2021. 

Rianna of Gorsehill Studios Indra Manchester, UK discusses her drawing and writings that express her thinking, feeling and actions on COVID-19 and how these have changed over the year.

Nicole then moved onto a role play activity based on gender-based violence.  Below are her notes:

The activity:

We will have 5 breakout rooms (depending on number of participants). There are 5 characters: the victim, perpetrator, a family member, a neighbour and maybe a policeman or a doctor.

Each group will be assigned a character and then they will be writing a story for that character. I have questions prepared like: 

-who is this? 

- what is their background? 

- what is their current situation? What happened? 

- what is the solution in their mind?

In writing the story of the character, the idea is that participants tell a story/write from their personal experience.

Once the story is written, they will present in a creative way. Like a short drama, poem, etc. 

(Everyone’s video off except those who are ‘on stage’.)

 

References:

Cherry, K. 2021. The Role of Catharsis in Psychology. Dotdash. 17-03-2021, https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-catharsis-2794968. 

The session ended with a breathing relaxation exercise and a discussion of what resources were available should participants need any counselling.

The impact of the role play was confirmed by some participants referring to this session as one of their highlights in the project as it made them think about the issues around gender-based violence from all perspectives.

Selby of South Roots International joins in the discussion from Namibia where he is working with a community.

Tips for taking photos and videos with your phone

by Devin Carter  ( www.devincarter.co.za )

(Partially funded by National Arts Council, South Africa)

Professional Cinematographer, Devin Carter, led an online session with the participants from the South to North and SAUKINDIA projects from ARROWSA and South Roots International in South Africa and SHEF in India and UK Indra in Manchester. The objective of the session was for the participants to learn skills that would help them film their own or one of the other participants interviews on what their highlight was of the Scarecrow project, what art form was used and what personal or social change it inspired. The interviews are then representations of the participants own research of the impact of the project and are to be edited into a video.

Devin's session was interactive and as such was informative and fun! Below are Devin's notes from the session that include his tips.

ARROW SESSION/WORKSHOP:

HOW TO BETTER USE YOUR PHONE FOR MAKING VIDEOS

TECHNICAL SET UP OF YOUR PHONE:

- All settings apply for both photography and video

- File Size:

- 16/9 is video standard

- go into camera settings to find how to change resolution/video size etc.

- frame size options (resolution) may be mentioned for example:

- 1280x720

- 1980x1080

- 3840x2680

- big numbers equal better quality!

- best quality for upload/presentation

- sharper images when shown on televisions/computer screens etc.!

- will take more storage space on your phone

- Smaller resolutions are fine for sending on WhatsApp, Instagram etc.

- consider Your final format!

- Filming horizontally or vertically with your phone?

- YouTube/television/computer screen/cell phone sideways (horizontal)

- Instagram/social phone normal (vertical)

- For most applications, you must film horizontally

- you can film horizontally but keep all action towards the middles of the

screen, this allows you to crop in to a vertical image later.

FILMING WITH YOUR PHONE:

- Clean your lens!

- Don’t breathe or spit on the lens

- use a microfibre cloth if you can, like the ones that come with a pair of glasses

- If you can’t get a microfibre cloth you can use clothing

- Make sure the material is 100% pure cotton and the clothes are clean

- cotton ear buds or swabs are also acceptable

- Tap the screen

- tapping the screen automatically adjusts the brightness and focus of the camera

- this is often called AE/AF (auto-exposure/auto-focus)

- whatever part of the image you tap on the phone will adjust to that

- Tap on a persons face if you are filming a person

- settings lock

- tapping and holding the screen should bring up the title ‘AE/AF LOCK’

- This will stop your phone from trying to adjust settings while you are filming a shot

- If tapping and holding doesn’t work, search your phone to see if there’s another

way to lock the settings

- Tripods/movement

- whenever possible, try and create a ‘Locked off” shot when filming

- try and find a tripod for your phone to do this

- if you cant get a tripod, use a table with books on (or anything that works!)

- prop up your phone so it is completely still while you are filming your shot

- Digital zoom

- zooming in on a phone is called ‘digital zoom’ because it is not actaully zooing on

the lens

- digital zoom causes the quality of the image to become worse

- try avoid it if possible, rather move your phone closer to the subject

- flash

- like digital zoom, it should be used only when absolutely necassary

- great for selfies, but the light is not appealing for your face

- only use flash when you cannot see your subject

- selfie camera or front facing camera

- If your phone has a camera on each side, you should rather use the one that faces

forward

- this camera is always higher quality

- So if filming yourself...

- do a test shot and fix issues before filming your shot

- or use one of your friends or family members as a stand in so you can see the

issues

 SETTING UP A PRESENTATION/INTERVIEW SETUP:

- the subject is the most important thing in the frame!

- Keep the camera eye level with subject

- or slightly higher looking down is more flattering to most faces

- subject looks into the camera lens

- for interviews this does not have to be the case

- for presentations it is common

- make sure you look into the camera lens!

- The headroom (space above your head) should be very slight but make sure the

frame does not cut off through your head

- you may keep your framing head and shoulders or keep more of the upper body in

shot, going wider to reveal the whole body is not great.

- backgrounds?

- busy or flat? a flat wall is nice but visual texture is also an option and contributes a

lot to the message you’re trying to convey

- make sure there is nothing too distracting in your background:

- movement

- bright or contrasting colours

LIGHTING TECHNIQUES:

- Turn camera on and walk around in selfie mode

- This will allow you to see where the natural light of the room is best

- harsh backlighting

- look out for very bright lights or windows behind you facing into the camera

- this will cause your face to be dark

- top down light

- lights directly above the head are unflattering to subject

- off camera lights

- place a light just off to the side of your camera

- ideally it should be a bit higher than your head as well

- this could be a lamp or a window or a laptop/tv screen

- softening the light

- Put a pillow case or any material white and thin over the lamp to diffuse the light

- if you are far away from the light don’t do this as it will make the light too weak on

your face

- be very careful not to let the material touch the actual bulb otherwise it may burn

- if using a window, you can use the voil or thin curtain to soften the window light

- Shooting outdoors

- Can be nice but make getting a good shot much more difficult!

- be wary of sound, outdoor filming can be very noisy

- the sun is very harsh and ‘Top down’ during the middle of the day

- film later in the afternoon for better light

- if you film with the sun facing into the camera, it may make the face much darker

- try have the sun to the side of or behind the camera facing the subject

AUDIO

- the further away from the camera you are the worse the audio is!

- consider having the subject sit closer to the camera

- if the subject is soft spoken ask them to speak louder

Mary of ARROWSA

Angie from South Roots International

The standard of the participants' individual interview videos showed significant improvement and in a follow up session when the participants' reflected on their videos a number of them mentioned how they had applied tips learnt in Devin's session. Above and below are some examples of interviews. See the next post for some more interviews.

Ritisha of SHEF India

Nicole Sacco  and Shanette Martin 
session on personality strengths 

from South Roots International, Cape Flats, SA

(Partially funded by the National Arts Council)

Nicole introduced the South to North and SAUKINIDA teams from ARROWSA, South Roots International, India and UK Indra in an interactive online session to different online resources for personality strength testing. She and Shanette explained the different types of personality strengths and related them to the arts. 

Clifton Strength finder personality test

“A test to discover what you naturally do best and to learn how to develop your greatest strengths into talents”.

 

Strength - the ability to consistently produce a nearly perfect positive outcome in a specific task.

Knowledge - what you know.

Skill - developed ability to move through the fundamental steps of a task.

Talents - our natural abilities uniquely received at birth a natural way of thinking, feeling, behaving.

Your strength is a combination of knowledge, skill and talent.

A weakness in knowledge and skill can be managed with relative ease, but a gap in talent is more of a challenge.

There are zillions of talents, which means it is impossible to name them all.  We therefore put these talents into themes.

 34 themes

Activator, Achiever, Arranger, Analytical, Adaptability

Belief

Command, Communication, Context, Connectedness, Competition, Consistency

Discipline, Developer, Deliberative

Empathy

Focus, Futuristic

Harmony

Ideation, Individualistic, Includer, Input, Intellection

Learner

Maximiser

Positivity

Responsibility, relator, restorative

Self-Assurance, Significance, Strategic

Winning other over (WOO)

                

Shanette Martin then introduced a hypothetical situation for the participants to develop in role play. The team was at the beach and the driver had lost the keys to the bus between leaving the bus and settling on the beach. The participants were divided into zoom groups and each group role played how they would react under these circumstances. When the groups all returned into the main online room their reactions to the lost bus keys was analysed according to personality strengths. Shanette emphasised how important it was for their to be a mixture of people with different personality strengths to address the situation.                 

The session was informative, thought provoking, creative and fun!

Scarecrow Vincent video

AS PART OF OUR SOUTH TO NORTH PROJECT/SAUKINIDA VINCENT OF ARROWSA EXPLORES THE ISSUE OF GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AND CONSIDERS - WHAT IF WE HAD A SCARECROW THAT COULD PROTECT US FROM THIS SOCIAL THREAT? WHAT WOULD THAT SCARECROW NEED TO PROTECT OUR CROPS OF PEACE?

(This project was partially funded by National Arts Council) 

 

The Power of Museums – United Kingdom 

Skills transference workshop by Natalie Crompton (Touchstones Indra) on 5 February (partially funded by National Arts Council SA)

written by Luyanda Makoba-Hadebe, CCMS, UKZN

Natalie Crompton from Touchstones Rochdale (Indra) delivered a thought-provoking workshop that examined the power of a museum and how that can influence ideas of knowledge and culture. ARROWSA South to North arts, culture, and heritage for social change (SAUKINIDA) project transference skills workshop. Natalie is an Engagement Specialist working in both Heritage and Youth Theatre settings and a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Salford. The title for Natalie's workshop was: The Power of Museums,

Natalie facilitating the workshop

A museum is a collection of objects or items of significance that are identified as necessary. It plays an integral role in preserving the history of society. Their exhibits tell us stories about "how our nations, our communities, and our cultures came to be, and without them, those stories could be forgotten”  (Anon., 2019). They also offer a glimpse into the future by showing us our past. They can provide profound learning experiences for museum visitors

Natalie’s workshop skilfully dug into why it is essential to understand that museum exhibits are not without their cultural and societal blind spots. The existence of a museum exhibit existence creates accepted knowledge. This leads to creating what is acceptable as being relevant and vital. Probing questions in the workshop were used to that showed how important the museum exhibition's curator is. The questions she asked were:

·         Has a museum ever had an impact on you?

·         Who decides what goes into the museum?

·         What would you have in your museum?

                   

Rianna of Gorsehill Studios and a participant engaging in the workshop

These questions then become who curates the exhibits and to whom these items are essential. When creating a museum exhibition, the curator makes decisions regarding which objects to choose for display. Natalie used a great analogy to show how important a curator is when she asked the group to curate a biscuit museum. This question's discussion led to everyone agreeing that they might leave out oatmeal biscuits as they do not like how they taste. This is the personal blind spot that can lead to a biscuit that could otherwise be particularly important not being included in the exhibition.

                                               

Ayanda of Bergtheil Museum, eThekwini Local History Museums shares her experience 

The workshop concluded with showing why there is a need for diverse curators with a wider perspective will make sure decisions that are made about what is included as 'knowledge' on a topic are authentic and informed.  There is a need to understand why and how to curate museums in the way that we do.

 

Gendered representations in museums: examples from South Africa 

Presented by Ayanda Ngcobo (Museum officer, Bergtheil Museum, eThekwini Local History Museums, Durban South Africa) on 12/02/2021.

ARROWSA - Indra workshop as part of the South to North and SAUKINDIA projects including youth from South Africa, India and United Kingdom 

One of a series of workshops partially funded by National Arts Council, SA. 

Blog post written by Luyanda Makoba-Hadebe 

 "Most people have little or no say in the depiction of their own history in textbook, libraries and research institutions[museums]. The meaning portrayed about Africans is painful to recall. Our museums represented the kind of heritage which glorified whites' activities and colonial history." – Nelson Mandela, 1997. 

The world health organisation defines gender as a socially constructed characteristic that defines women, men, girls, and boys (WHO,2021). The impact that gender has goes beyond the social parameters that impact one personally—gender impacts who gets seen and how they are represented in history. Ayanda Ngcobo, a master's student and a Museum officer at Bergtheil Museum in Westville, Durban work revolves around women's representation in museums. Ayanda believes that "Museums represented the power holders, their concepts of museology, of public commemoration and society." (Ngcobo,2018). 

Valencia Gushu of Bergtheil Museum, LHM, Durban watches storyteller Dr Gcina Mhlope use storytelling to describe the cultural heritage of the iGwalagwala Cliff archaeological site.

She conducted a skills transference workshop for ARROWSA that gave great insight into how gender impacts how museums. Museums, in South Africa were first established in 1800's. The colonial government of the time curated museums to represent the ideologies that they believed in. Ayanda Ngcobo elaborated on how museums had become a political space during South Africa's apartheid years. 

Voortrekker monument Pretoria

When the political hold of the government started to weaken in the 1980's, questions started to arise about how museums could be more inclusive by The South Africa Museums Association. In 1994 when South Africa became a democratic country, the African National Congress won the election and advocated for racial equality. The government created a new constitution, new policies focusing on the reconstruction of the country. Their main themes were reconciliation and nation building and wanted to impact the cultural landscape. During this time of reconciliation, the government was worked on changing how the country was represented. Efforts have been made with a focus on what dominates the cultural and heritage sector. This included statues of new heroes, like Nelson Mandela, erected alongside white European men's old statues. The statues that were being erected were predominately men. 

   King Dingane, Ncome Museum

Museums and tourism were a field under the apartheid government that Africans were not privy to. After 1994 museums were being opened in townships to represent new heroes and neglected histories. Some women activists in their own right, women like Bertha Mkhize, Charlotte Maxeke have not received the same recognition as their male counterparts. New national heroes were to be identified, the women took a back seat. When women were shown, they were usually shown as: 

 • Domestic related items 

 • Communal 

 • Auxiliary workers 

This brings about questions about how women are represented through one socially constructed domestic lens. Women are seen as the subject and not the main object in museum displays, showing how gender filters into how gender is represented. Ayanda closed her workshop with three questions: 

1. How would women want their stories to be narrated?  

2. What representations would be gender-balanced? 

3. When you think of museums around you, what have you noticed about representations of history and gender?

ARROWSA-INDRA South to North collaborative arts for social change project        (partially funded by National Arts Council South Africa) 15th Jan 2021

SCARECROWS

South Roots International led the 'Scarecrow' session with Shanette Martin introducing her  perceptions of Scarecrows and introducing the history of their origins. Nicole Sacco encouraged the participants to create their own scarecrows out of any materials that they had at hand in their homes and to plant a/some vegetables whether in a pot for the windowsill or in a patch of land. Angela Del Fava then led a visualisation session to encourage the participants to identify their own context that would influence the construction of their artistic scarecrow that would be unique to their cultural and physical context. The success of the exercise was evident in the responses of the participants. 

Sue-Livia van Wyk and her team shared a fun interactive Scarecrow song and dance that they devised. 

We look forward to seeing the unique scarecrows that the participants create!

ARROWSA-INDRA collaborative projects 2020-2021 - planning

(these projects are partly funded by the National Arts Council South Africa)

South to North project team: ARROWSA Bechet, South Roots International, Gorse Hill Studios Manchester and Touchstones Rochdale Indra United Kingdom.

SAUKINDIA project team: ARROWSA, South Roots International, Study Hall Education Foundation Lucknow India, Bergtheil Museum  Durban, CCMS, University of KwaZulu-Natal and Touchstones Indra Rochdale United Kingdom

Planning for the year

ARROWSA joined their South African and international Indra partners to plan a series of skills transference workshops and arts for social change sessions for the first quarter of 2021. It was decided to overlap the South to North and SAUKINDIA projects as time differences would allow as they would both  focus on gender based violence and cultural and male identity.

Bheki Dlamini of ARROWSA Bechet reflects on the importance of the Climate Change project.

Bheki Dlamini of ARROWSA Bechet speaks of the way forward and the focus on gender based violence

Arunima Trivedi of Study Hall Foundation Education Foundation (SHEF) confirms collaboration

.

 ARROWSA/INDRA 

South to North: Arts for Social change 

Climate Change Project 

(partially funded by the National Arts Council of South Africa)

                                       

Our first phase of the South to North: Arts for Social Change ended with a reflection on what online use of the arts was the most effective in prompting the participants to want to take action. The hubs in Durban (ARROWSA), Cape Flats (South Roots International), Manchester (Gorsehill Studios) and Rochdale (Indra Touchstones) worked with the participants on their own and also met online in zoom sessions every second week between July and October 2020 - during COVID-19. A different hub led each zoom session with arts activities of their choice based on Climate Change. At the end of the four months the lead facilitators asked the youth to video themselves responding to three questions: 

1. What was your highlight in the Climate Change Project?

                            

2. What art form was used in that highlight?

3. What action did it result in you taking or wanting to take?

The snippets of interviews were then sent to Vincent who edited them into one video to be found at 

https://youtu.be/xfrHEYgeR1g

The participants' responses revealed the following:

1.  It is important to include a range of arts activities for a social change campaign to be effective.  The following arts activities made the most impact (all activities were followed by a time of reflection and discussion):

1.1 Storytelling: The use of zoom breakout sessions for participants to create endings for a story that was started by the facilitator and then all the groups presented their unique ending of the story to each other.

1.2 Improvised vocal characterisation: The use of improvisation in a zoom meeting e.g. improvised monologues on what was happening in the participant's area due to COVID-19.

                                

1.3 Movement: The use of abstract movement to music led by a facilitating group in the zoom session. The participants in the hubs respond physically, out of their chairs, even though still in front of their computers e.g. the growth and death of a tree due to human intervention.

1.4 Role play: The use of role play and humour to address serious issues e.g. three participants, play the roles of government ministers who are discussing their portfolios and how they relate to Climate Change. They address the participants from the other hubs in the zoom meeting in their roles as government ministers. OR the facilitator plays the role of a quiz host and the participants from the other hubs are asked questions in a zoom meeting as if on a Climate Change quiz show.

                            

1.5 Power Points: Documentary style power-points including video snippets e.g. the participants of the hub leading the session create an educational project at their school, such as a vegetable garden and recycling, and then take photographs and video snippets which they then share in a zoom session with the other hubs and answer questions stimulated by the power-point.

1.6 Videos: Investigative videos that interview community members e.g. a video, that includes humour and narrated in the first person that centers on interviews of community members of different age groups and their views on Climate Change.

                                            

2. The educational aspect of the project was as appreciated as was the art part because the participants were made aware of how little knowledge they had and/or how little they knew about the impact of Climate Change on other parts of the globe. 

3. The online interaction was very important to some of the participants during COVID-19 especially during lockdown in order to counteract loneliness.

4. Global youth interaction is important for finding solutions to global issues such as Climate Change.

                            

 

Climate Change video

 by ARROWSA alumni Vincent Joseph Salanji of Vinnies Vision

https://youtu.be/b1Q7xi7b10I

The video was made possible with funding by the National Arts Council as part of the 

South to North: arts for social change project 

that is taking place between ARROWSA, Durban and South Roots International, Cape Flats SA and INDRA UK, Rochdale and Manchester.

In the video, Vincent engages with youth and the elderly from his community in order to find out what they know about Climate Change and what their views on it are.  Vincent puts his usual humour into a topic that inspires many different reactions.

Go and have a look!

South to North: art for social change

A collaborative project including ARROWSA, South Roots International, and Indra.

Funding towards this project was received from the South African National Arts Council that has a pay it forward policy whereby beneficiaries of their grants give back to the communities beyond the planned project.

Each of the South African hubs worked on how they could pay it forward. ARROWSA management, friends, and family gave donations towards South Roots’ initiative to help feed children during the lockdown, this continued after the lockdown was eased and is still part of South Roots outreach (see South Roots Instagram page). 

Mr. Dlamini of ARROWSA Bechet voluntarily hosted a workshop with students and Bechet high school ranging from grade 10-12 on bio-degradable items, the students were divided into groups so that we were complying with COVID-19 rules and social distancing.

The learners identified types of bio-degradable items and what we can use it for. With all their findings they were encouraged to return and share with the rest of the group.  Because of COVID-19 they were unable to host a massive gathering, so the learners recorded their findings, and these were shared via WhatsApp for everyone to view it. The learners planted a tree on the school grounds. In the second week, the learners started a vegetable garden using biodegradable items. At first, some learners were not interested as they felt the topic was irrelevant to them but the planting of the tree grabbed their interest as they realized the personal investment that they had in something that would impact not only them but learners to come. The experiential learning aspect of the vegetable garden making also grabbed the learners’ interest as they realized that the vegetables grown would be given to disadvantaged learners at the school and/or made into soup for disadvantaged learners at the school. 

Mr Bheki Dlamini created a PowerPoint presentation including videos that he shared in a zoom meeting in October 2020 with the South to North participants from ARROWSA Durban, South Roots International Cape Flats, Touchstones Rochdale and Gorsehill Studios, Manchester, United Kingdom. Below you can view the PowerPoint in three parts. Unfortunately, it doesn't include Mr Dlamini's vibrant narration.

Part 1 #climatechange&education

Part 2  #climatechange&education

Part 3  #climatechange&education

 

 South to North: Art for Social Change

ARROW/INDRA   

Funding towards implementing this project in Durban and Cape Flats was received  from the South Africa National Arts Council

Since July 2020 ARROWSA, South Roots International, Touchstones Rochdale (Indra) and Gorsehill Studios Manchester (Indra) have worked on digital art for social change strategic intervention project initiated by ARROWSA and Indra. Below is a summary of what happened in this project between July and October 2020.

Zoom arts meetings were started informally between the SA and UK hubs in May in order to accelerate the process once the NAC funding was received. From July 2020 to the end of October the hubs met every second Friday except for one Friday break when the youth were on holiday. In between zoom meetings, the hubs met with their youth, engaged with the social topic through the arts, and prepared what they would share the next week. The youth prepared art exercises facilitated by artists for warmups at the start of sessions. These warmup exercises often included engagement with the topic of Climate Change e.g. the SRI tree movement exercise served as a springboard for discussion on human’s impact on nature and how this impacts climate change. The body of the zoom meetings concentrated on the use of the arts for engaging with the social issue of Climate Change.

Jessie from South Roots International makes use of visual arts to provoke thinking on the role

that big funders play within the food schemes in SA and globally.

South Roots International (ARROWSA alumni) Ntombi, Angela, Rachelle and Noluthando 

role-play as Government ministers engaging on 

the role that their portfolio can play in Climate Change.

Different approaches to the use of the arts were engaged e.g. role-play as government ministers in a debate on the topic. The SRI participants decided on characters using the spheres that they are passionate about and they used it to formulate models for how to make our communities aware of the climate change problem and create platforms for them to discover their roles in tackling this matter. They met together as those characters in the zoom session with the other hubs and shared the type of work they are doing and how they have been using their areas of influence to deal with climate change and the health of our people, environment, creation as a whole.  Riana of Gorsehill Studios in Manchester (Indra) incorporated role-play as a quiz master engaging with the youth in a quiz show on climate change. All the groups agreed that the quiz enforced how little they knew about climate change. Improvised monologues were also used that engaged with COVID-19 and climate change. 

The UK Touchstone group led a session on storytelling. A South Roots International participant shares: "We had a time of creating scenarios and using the imagination to tell stories. It was a great way to get to know each other better. We were placed in different groups that allowed for intercultural connection and were a creative use of zoom". 

Visual arts exploration of the representation of climate change and the powers that influence the funding of campaigns for social issues such as climate change. Short music videos made for warmup art exercises to be shared with those who were not present at the session or on social media and public platforms.

The creation of documentary type creative PowerPoints that were presented in sessions and documentary-style short videos on Climate Change that engaged with the community. Short art videos such as the engaging one that Vincent made within his community that engages with the social issue of Climate Change.