Slum youth to perform at the WSF
During the WSF 80 children and youth from the Pumwani slums in Nairobi will be performing participatory theater about life in the slums. The purpose is to illustrate the importance of making your own choices
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One of the groups to perform at the WSF is called 4Change. Here they are in action in the community.
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02. januar 2007
When MS-partner St Johns Community Center signed up for the World Social Forum, the organization needed 90 individual registration forms. 80 of these were filled out by youth and children from the Pumwani slums in Nairobi whose registration fees had been paid by MS Kenya.
According to the secretariat of the WSF such a number of beneficiaries participating in the forum is quite unusual. The idea came from community members themselves, and for St John’s it was evident to bring along as many people from the slums as possible. Bringing community members on board the bus to the venue emphasizes a conviction which is core to St. John’s: If you want to fight poverty it is crucial to involve the poor themselves. So since the WSF is about improving lives of the poor, young people from Pumwani had to be given a chance to participate directly.
Besides, many people in the slums never get an opportunity to get out of their daily environment. The WSF thus becomes an opportunity for them to experience a world outside, and to get to realize that many people all over the planet actually fight for a more just world.
The expectation is that many of the young people will bring home hope and new ideas of how to improve their lives, and that they will be encouraged to speak up about their rights to live a decent life and to demand greater responsibilities from their leaders.
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A great deal of the activities carried out by St. John's target young people.
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The 65 youth and 15 children going to the forum will not only be participating as guests. They have themselves arranged for a three-day participatory multi-media-show about the challenges youth of the slums face every day: abuse, drugs, crime, HIV/aids and unemployment along others.
However the message is not primarily to illustrate desperation and hopelessness. It is rather to discuss how to help the youth break the vicious circle and to show that children and youth in the slums have so many resources that they are ready to use, if only they get a chance. During the event, the audience will be asked to make choices on behalf of the youth, and to follow the consequences.
St Johns Community Center has been working with the slum communities for almost 50 years. The main strategy of the work being done on the ground is empowerment of children and youth as to enable them to take care of their own lives. The programs deal with economic empowerment, human rights, environment, skills training and education of children and youth and with HIV/aids.