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 10^th .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.

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