OYO team gains more skills

 

Each term, the whole OYO field team meets at Greiter's Conference Centre, outside Windhoek, for a week of training. It is an opportunity to reflect on the term that just finished, plan the term ahead, exchange experiences, reflect on difficulties and learn more about HIV/AIDS and other social issues.
The first training of 2007 was different, however, as days 5 to day 9 were allocated to a drama workshop. Fateha Begum, a drama facilitator in the UK, volunteered to come all the way from Birmingham to Windhoek to train the OYO staff, and one of the youth groups with which they work.

Over the last five years, Fateha has been involved with working with young people, using drama as a tool for self expression and learning. Most of the projects she has worked with have involved a lot of devising work, with the young people giving their ideas and creativity throughout the process. She is passionate about the arts, especially drama, as a tool for building up self esteem, confidence and self awareness for the individual. It also helps to bring up issues on social awareness and responsibility. She always strives to challenge the participants in a way that would develop them personally and help them to become responsible citizens.
During the five days workshop, participants learnt numerous tools to help them interact with their youth groups and AIDS Awareness Clubs, and to facilitate the OYO magazine and audio-visual materials. Over 25 games were learned, and they were also exposed to four techniques for devising plays: using geographical areas; characters; themes; and working from an image. Basics of directing were explained, and the group embarked on activities linked to speech, pronunciation and breathing. Finally some of the staff were challenged – their weaknesses were identified and they were put in a drama situation where they had to face those challenges.

The week was considered very successful by all the participants. Ivan said ‘after this workshop I can see myself growing in acting, creating plays in many ways by using many techniques.’ Lesly explained ‘this drama workshop has motivated and encouraged me to keep on trying or learning. It has also given me the opportunity to learn new techniques of drama such as improvisation, devising a new play using a character or a theme.’ Lucia added ‘I learnt a lot of games. Now, even when I’ll go to my schools, I’ll have different ways of facilitation and will make sure the kids understand the issue very clearly.’
Matias Kamati, production coordinator, concluded, saying ‘our groups will be very impressed by these new techniques we will be using with them and I hope they will like them… Now it is up to us to implement those with our youth groups and have quality dramas to show to people out there and pass on this knowledge Fateha gave us.’
On behalf of the OYO team, the director, Philippe Talavera, wishes to thank Fateha for traveling all the way to Namibia to train the OYO staff. It has been a very successful and enjoyable workshop. We hope we will see you again soon on Namibian soil!