SYMPOSIUM ON THE STATE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN EAST
AFRICA
ORGANIZED BY MAMBYA PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION.
Theme: How can art be used to promote
Human Rights?
Held on Friday 10th
.March.2017
At 04:30 pm
Uganda National Cultural Center, National Theater
PANELISTS
FAIZAL KIWEEWA
JULIAN NABUNYA
JULIUS LUGAAYA
MODERATOR
SARAH NSIGAYE
The
symposium commenced at 04:30pm with the MC directing the panelists to their
seats.
The
MC invited the Moderator (Sarah Nsigaye)
and she requested the panelists to introduce themselves. Laterthe MC invited
the Robert Ssempijja for a
performance which was an elegant one of its kind.
The
MC invited the founder of Mambya Performing
Arts FoundationMr. Ssenyonga Oscar
who briefly narrated the journey of the organization as highlighted below.
Mambya Performing
Arts Foundation started way back in 2012,Nansana,
Wakiso with the main aim of letting dance to be able to talk and to tell
stories and now the organization operates at the Uganda National Cultural Center, Uganda National Theater. "The
reason for organising the symposium was to find means and ways of how art can
communicate" he added.
The
moderator on behalf of the audience, gave a vote of thanks to the founder of
Mambya Performing Arts Foundation and also read the agenda of the symposium to
everyone.
Symposium
opened.
Moderator
to all the panelists. Express to us your mind how we can promote
rights in Uganda & East Africa using Art.
Key
points from the panelists’ responses.
·
Talking and saying
what you feel is art. The solution is supposed to be invented by an artist
concerning his/ her rights before being given by another person.
·
Art itself, (The
industry of Art) call for its rights from the government and all the
enforcement agencies.
·
Art has a strong
foundation from 60s and its one of the way to display culture and beliefs in
Uganda, East Africa and beyond. In past, art was strongly respected compared to
the present era.
Moderator
to the Audience. How can art be performed to create a stronger and significant effect to
the public like it was in the past?
Different
people reacted to this question and it was a warm discussion between the
audience and the panelists. Among the various responses that were specified,
the following points were substantial and they were captured from the dialogs.
a.
In Uganda and East
Africa in general, Art is about culture and it takes each culture its way of
arts performance to develop ways of handling rights.
b.
Entertainment vary
with age. Art in line with entertainment,its generational where by tastes vary
in accordance with age differences and art ought to target all age groups.
c.
Artists are supposed
to know what they’re doing and why because most of the times artists carry
crosses for a huge populace whose voices can’t be hard.
d.
Artists ought to be
open to everyone. For example, children,
the adults and the law. And they (artists) should stop creating catastrophe
with fellow artists if art is to rock and boom.
e.
People in Uganda and
East Africa don’t their human rights and can’t really tell whether their rights
are being violated.
From
the discussion, another question was arises from the audience. Who’s
an Artist? This was towards the closure of the symposium and it wasn’t
thoroughly justified. This left an opening question for the next symposium.
The
MC closed the symposium with a prayer and invited the audience for
refreshments.
The audience numbers
Eva
What I heard of Friday's discussion was
interesting - there was clearly no agreement on what human rights in the arts
means, which seemed normal, as everyone has a different perspective on
this. The suggestion about having some preliminary info on Facebook
before the event was an interesting one, but it does assume that people will
look at it before the event (which they might not do). As I was not
present at the start of the discussions, don't know if the panellist’s
introductory remarks tried to set out some initial ideas about how they define
of human rights. There were also some interesting comments on
entertainment V the artistic endeavour - not something
artists want to hear about, but it's certainly true that most audiences for
theatre/dance are looking for entertainment, and do not want to be 'educated'
or overtly influenced. But that should not stop an artist doing what they
want to do, they just need to understand that the response they receive may
differ from what they had hoped.
Helena Burning
The symposium was a good event
bringing likeminded people together to discuss the ways forwards in regard to
the arts promoting human rights. It left me thinking and more motivated that
the arts is an important tool to be used to advocate and be a voice for the
voiceless.
Possibly for future events It would
also be great to have time to go into groups (of people with similar
backgrounds e.g. poets/ musicians/ dancers) and discuss questions to feedback
to the larger group?
Thank you once again for this important
and unique forum within Kampala.
Kerry Bradshaw
The symposium brought together a
great mix of performance and visual artists, journalists, human rights
activists festival organizers and members of the public to explore the role
that the arts has on human rights. It generated thought provoking discussion on
the current human rights situation in Uganda and arts ability to freely
approach this subject in its work - some attendees stating that there are still
many taboo issues which affect the funding and performance possibilities in
Uganda whilst most attendees expressed a relatively high freedom of expression
in Uganda. The live performance was the stand part of the symposium for me -
I'll be looking out for related performances and next year’s symposium! Kerry
Bradshaw awamu.co.uk
Chat conversation end,
Brian Okyani
According to
me the symposium was good interesting, me personally i learn a lot that there
more that can be done apart in arts apart from looking at it only in
perspective of entertainment.
Debate was flowing very well, there was
cooperation between the panelist and the audience, the moderation did very
fantastic job,
the panelist
did very good job, they were well informed and reacted to the questions
according me my self i learnt from them
they quite
speakers and i think have more experience on the topic discussed, would love to
have debated with them more based on their knowledge and experience they spoke
in sincerity and in the right way.
the audience
was cooperative with they responded making them more interested in more of the
dialogues to come, though few participated i think most were not aware of
importance of human rights which i would recommend awareness and make them know
that rights can easily promoted,
The symposium was one of its
kind that should continue with time, the dialogue opened up minds of most
individuals especially directors, think if more were to be done we shall get to
know what kind of morals do we need to impact to the society.
https://www.facebook.com/humanrightssymposium/
www.mambya.org
