During the month of June, four students from the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa and five students from Makerere University in Uganda embarked on the second phase of their daCi twinning project: Our Earth, Our world, Afrika Speaks, in the city of Kampala, Uganda. The project was largely funded by daCi, with contributions from UCT and private donors, and facilitated by daCi members Associate Professor Lisa Wilson of UCT and Dr. Alfdaniels Mabingo of Makerere University.
The team from Cape Town travelled to Kampala during the period of June 8-15 and together they explored and workshopped the issue of climate change in South Africa and Uganda through music, dance, drama and poetry, and generated a performance that was shared with children at a Ugandan orphanage. Through dance and other creative arts, the children and adults learnt about the causes of climate change and some of the African solutions to this urgent matter on both the macro level of industries and government policies and also on the micro level of the individual. The process included the team from South Africa learning Ugandan songs about the forest and water in the Luganda language and the team from Uganda learning poetry written in South African languages.
Both groups learnt movement choreography that they have been working on during the preparation stages. The creative team also engaged in site-specific dance performances at a critical water source to highlight its importance to the people of the community while embodying a sense of custodianship and care for the environment. Uganda is one of the most biodiverse countries in Africa, and it was a delight for us to see, share and interact with the people and the place and to use dance as a pedagogical tool and advocate for the environment with children.