Nurse Namatova Jane discusses the Dewe Project (5:00) MP3
The Dewe School of Art is a community project based in the village of Dewe. The project is a centre which provides an opportunity to develop practical creative skills, particularly for the local community. This helps people in an area where many have stopped education early and there are high levels of illiteracy. The goal of the project in the long run is for the local people of Dewe to be able to run and sustain the project, by producing artworks, foods and other produce using the natural resources available in the local area. The project is mainly co-ordinated and driven by Sam who is a Ugandan, now living the UK. (For more information about Sam and the background of the project, see www.deweschoolofart.com)
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| From Dewe, Uganda |
The project relies on skills and training to be delivered by guests such as volunteers from other countries and various Ugandan based artists who are connected to the project and supported by Sam. Increasingly, regular locally based students of the project are becoming voluntary tutors and helping new learners in the village. During my visit, the students wanted to learn english as a priority so most days, english lessons ran from 10.30 to 18.00 (with an hour break for lunch). Lessons were supported by some of the better English speakers helping to translate.
Dewe is about 15 miles from the capital, Kampala, on the shores of Lake Victoria. It is on Lutembe Road, a dirt track of roughly 6km which connects Dewe and Lutembe Beach to the town of Kajansi. There are remnants of a concrete road (almost totally gone now) laid during Idi Amin's regime as the Lutembe Beach was one of his favourite spots. Kajansi is on Entebbe Road - the main road connecting Kampala to Entebbe, home of the country's international airport. Travel between Dewe and Kampala takes about an hour on public transport, 30 mins at best in car.
The project has a main building - single storey with running water, but no electricity. It has a large room which acts as a space for workshops or exhibitions. There are four other rooms as apart of the building. Two house two of the permanent workers on the project - Molongo and Kizito. The others are used for guests.
There are about three acres of land principally used for farming/gardening. The land grows exclusively organic products such as papaya, jackfruit, cotton, matooke, bananas and pumpkin. The fruits are eaten fresh daily. The leaves from the banana plantation are also used to make baskets, trays and purses. Fig tress in the garden are also being grown to be used for bark cloth - a traditional Ugandan material.
There is also an outdoor theatre and an outdoor seating area used for meetings and lessons. Many activities have run and continue to run at the project. To take a few I observed and/or took part in, there is pottery, baking, textiles, sewing, knitting, weaving, bee keeping, wood carving, music teaching, english teaching, drama and traditional dance. Activities are largely organised by the womens' group. Most men in the area work fishing, sand mining or at the concrete plant during the day but take part in the activities when they can.
Several local groups operate from the project, such as a woman's empowerment group, ADRA (a performing arts group), and a local voluntary counsellor who hosts sessions about sexual education and improving illiteracy. The counsellor is also manager of the local football team Dewe FC.
There is a wealth of potential and some highly talented regular students of the project who create some beautiful products and could be expert tutors in their subjects. However, there are many challenges facing the people including, HIV, eduction provision, illiteracy and communications. There are also many orphans.
There is great opportunity here; especially within Uganda, one imagine there being a high demand for the place both in terms of its produce and being a place to visit. The challenge is communicating and marketing the project. Online methods such as using websites or social media won't get much traction within Uganda as this is still a relatively new and uncommon way of people getting their information. It comes down to old fashioned word of mouth (actual mouths, not twitter mouths) and a bit of luck. Most of the people attending the project are highly talented but they're too nice and humble to get out there and sell their stuff. I found myself thinking, if only they had some of the evil, sociopathic nature exhibited by Apprentice contestants they could be out there flogging their wares easily.
The project is a fantastic resource for the local people to learn new skills and also be tutored about vital issues such as HIV and sexual education. The place stimulates a great deal of positive activity and the people are wonderfully welcoming and good humored. In many respects, Dewe is a fairly typical place in Uganda. The people are poor but are able to keep themselves going through working on the land or lake; there is little to no social mobility and it is difficult to see how they could access new opportunities if it wasn't for the project. It is easy to imagine that there must be thousands of other such communities across the country who are in need but not fortunate enough to have such a project, but there is still work to do to maximise the potential of the place.
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