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- Title of Abstract:
Paper Prayers ?A strategy for AIDS Action in South Africa (Ref #231)
- Date:
- 30-10-2006 09:33:36
- Status:
-
Accepted
- Rating:
- 8
-
Details:
- The premise of this paper is that the visual arts and crafts can provide a valuable tool for social transformation, particularly in developing countries where literacy levels are low. Visual artists bring a special strength to facilitating the role of the imagination in aspiring for a better future and for healing and well-being.
Arts and culture have a significant potential for contributing to social change and the building of a post-apartheid South Africa.
The Paper Prayers initiative was implemented as an HIV/AIDS awareness programme in 1998,that transferred printmaking, papermaking and embroidery skills to thousands of urban and rural South Africans. This program was originally funded by government as a highly successful visual AIDS awareness campaign that reached thousands of people nationally and has continued as an income-generating program through embroidered craft products.
The second project, Phumani Paper, a national hand papermaking programme for job creation, started in 1999 through a state imperative of funding higher education institutions to implement technology transfer and poverty alleviation. Both programs have demonstrated that grass-roots craft projects that ordinarily go unanalysed in any systematic way are an important research resource in providing the foundation for new knowledge.
The objectives of the project aims to support the members of some of the Phumani Paper rural projects, whose members have been traumatized by the losses and sufferings that have resulted from HIV/AIDS. The Ford Foundation, committed as an organization to innovative links between higher education and community, has funded a program that links creative art, community outreach, higher education, and sustainable development in a complex and multi-dimensional way. The idea is to use Paper Prayers and PhotoVoice as creative methodologies to engage discussion and action to break the silence and stigma attached to HIV/AIDS. The impact of this intervention will be measured through innovative and participatory action research process and will contribute to my doctoral dissertation in the role of the visual arts in promoting change in post-apartheid South Africa.
Applying art as a tool for learning has a history of effectiveness as it promotes healing and growth, self-confidence and imagination. Paper Prayers uses simple printmaking techniques to permit individuals to express their emotions about loss and disease. Students and artists working with the groups assist in demonstrating skills and work with individuals to develop drawings and testimonies of personal experience.
By its nature, this project involves people to the extent that they can see their participation and contribution as part of the solution.
Reviewer Comments: