Yo, what's good people??!! I usually stay far away from posting about stuff that I get up to, preferring, rather, to use this magnificent platform to share, expose, and perhaps liberate heard and unheard voices. But, like everyting else in life, I experience tangential moments - maybe because the event influences me in a very strong way - and decide to share what it is I get up to. Note that this by no means meant as a statement downplay nor demote some of the other things I get involved in. For this post and the next one, I shall be sharing what it is I get up to.
The person who sent me the mail I have quoted below is a strong, beautiful Venda woman who goes by the name Masana Mulaudzi. Apart from studying, she is a noteworthy poet/performer/writer (amongst many things), who believes very firmly in her work, and in the power and ability of a Higher Being to provide for whatever it is humankind may want, given that the very same humankind asks humbly. Read through it, get schooled, hate, deliberate...it is all up to you really. Pace!
This is a personal invite to each and every one of you to be a part of our Empty Tin Can Arts Showcase and Fundraiser next week Saturday, 18 October.
I have met all of you personally and find you to be amazing performers, writers, artists, actors, story tellers, photographers, musicians, poets... The list of your infinite God-given talent is humbling. You have leadership skills, are initiative takers and vision makers and this is a call to you:
Empty Tin Can, founded June 2006, is an organisation committed to reconciling artists to a need in the community. It is based on the saying "the empty tin can makes the loudest noise" and is a social commentary on artists with so much things to say and too little of a platform to do anything. And here is the opportunity to fill the empty tin can by helping us reconcile the Cape Town community with skills, hope and arts.
To date we have been working under Young In Prison, with Sent, for a few months with awaiting trial young women, bringing in artists every friday to have a skills exchange. This has proved fruitful and inspiring - the depth and magnitude which arts reaches is beyond what any Life Orientation book can teach. However, it is not enough that we as artists stop there, there is a whole world of people with creative juices flowing within them and hopeless circumstances in need of you, as skilled performers to show them how to put hope, vision and initiative into what they do using arts.
For too long, art has been the "poor man's" life, with little or no pay and indeed money pays the world to spin on its axis... But we hope that by merging life skills and career options (in partnership with an organisation called Sent) that we would not just teach people how to use arts but to make arts work for them.
At the same time, this organisation is committed to growing and expanding the vision of you as artists and what you can do for those around you. Not just painting visual images that might fade with time, or speaking words that will drift beyond the ears of men, but rather for you to make use of the canvas of young people's lives and help make an everlasting artwork.
I hope I have you all interested!
The Arts Showcase is going to be on 18 October 2008 and will serve as a fundraiser for our expansion next year: still working under Young in Prison, we hope to work in the juvenile male awaiting trial and sentenced section and the female juvenile awaiting trial section. We will also be working in two homes, one for boys and one for girls. And we need to raise money and on top of this we need volunteers to work with our participants and share in their lives as role models.
We need artists to perform at the showcase, who will also be interested in helping Empty Tin Can as a family reach into those communities, to perform and help us raise funds.
We also need a team of comitted leaders to take ownership of Empty Tin Can and be a part of its leadership, held accountible to the participants, the performers, the community and God. The posts available are Chair, Deputy Chair, Treasury/Finance, Logistics, HR, Curricula, Public Relations and Fundraising. These are volunteer posts and need application in the form of a CV and letter of motivation. However, volunteers are not judged by what they have already achieved but by what they aim to achieve.
If you are interested and would like to hear more please reply to this email, drop me an sms or a call back or ANYTHING (smoke signals maybe?) and I will get back to you.
Also, I know all of you, so on top of that, I will probably follow you around begging and pleading for you to help us help others...
Finally, there will be a meeting this week Thursday between 2pm and 3pm as a debrief and a QnA session on Upper Campus UCT. More information will be sent tomorrow as a confirmation.
I look forward to hearing from ALL of you... otherwise, please expect my phone call.
Be blessed,
Countless Regards,
Masana Mulaudzi
Founder, Empty Tin Can
For more information regarding the activities:
mldmas002@uct.ac.za
empty.tincan@gmail.com
