8 minute read
COLLABORATIONS ACROSS CULTURES with Shishani
WITH SHISHANI
COLLABORATIONS ACROSS CULTURES
Shishani is a talented Namibian singer-songwriter much loved for her smooth and powerful voice. Her music is known for its social consciousness, and she has won a host of awards both locally and internationally. Shishani has also spearheaded various arts initiatives in Namibia that focus on social upliftment. She is the founder of ARTNAM, which advocates for the promotion of Namibian arts.
In 2016, Shishani and Sjahin During, members of the Amsterdam-based quartet Namibian Tales, set out for the Kalahari Desert to learn as much as they could about the San community based there. A year later, Namibian Tales produced a critically acclaimed album in collaboration with four women from Namibia’s San community, singers N!ae Komtsa, Kgao Xoa//an, //Ao N!ani and Baqu Kha//an.
Titled Kalahari Encounters, the album recorded and explored the women’s San musical heritage, showcasing the rarely heard vocal harmonies and intricate clapping of the San while merging seamlessly with the sonic warmth, tight ensemble playing and rhythmic drive of the quartet. The album was recorded live at the Warehouse Theatre in Windhoek.
Namibian Tales worked on Kalahari Encounters together with the Museums Association of Namibia (MAN), and received support from the Goethe Institute Windhoek, UNESCO’s IFCD Fund, KLM Airlines, Netherlands Embassy in Namibia and South Africa, the National Arts Council of Namibia, and Fonds Podium Kunsten (FPK) in the Netherlands.
A year later, the quartet together with their San counterparts completed the album release tour in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria, to critical acclaim. With Kalahari Encounters, Namibian Tales has not only paid homage to the San, but also entered into a musical dialogue through an exchange of culture. S: Being woke is basically being aware. And I think it is a challenge for all of us because we are spammed with so much information. We have the Internet, we can access so much information – a lot of it is very happy, a lot of it is very sad. For me, I look at what I can do in the spaces where I’m active, because you can’t do everything for everybody in the whole wide world. It’s so easy to say, “Oh, you know, the
world is so bad and it’s dramatic out there,” but then the guy next to you doesn’t have anything to eat and you ignore him. It’s just about making choices – where you spend your energy and what you do for your
community. For me, staying woke is trying to make that decision every day – to just keep doing what I’m doing, because I try to do as much as I can through the music and musical projects. So, just as part of your daily routine is to wake up, you can also realise that you can be thankful for so many things, and perhaps you can make a change for somebody else, as small as it is – even a smile, just a greeting. I think the main thing of humanity is just being able to look at somebody and be, like, “I see you.” Greet them in the morning, make human contact and you will realise what it means to be woke. If you are not aware, there is nothing you can do. You have to be made aware. You know you cannot blame someone for not knowing, but you can just let them know. It’s our personal responsibility to remind each other – like, okay, we can spend this much money on a cocktail but you can’t spare something for the security guard?
MYD: Shishani, in your own life have you ever suffered dogmatic social norms and been the victim of dogmatic social norms?
S: I think everybody has turmoil and troubles. I wouldn’t say I’ve been a victim because I think I’m on the lucky side of things, to be very honest. But I know if I was born in another area of this country, or in Pakistan, or wherever people don’t
resistance, but other doors open. The moment I dared to
things were not easy. That courage to step out will gain you
have the opportunities that I was given, I would have had a completely different life. I was lucky to be born into where I am now – that allows me the freedom just to live my life.
MYD: In terms of sexual orientation, how can being woke make people more accepting of another’s choices in life?
S: It’s difficult for me to understand why I have to stand up and fight for just being. It’s not even about choices. It’s not like I woke up and I chose to be lesbian, so that people can look at me funny and I can feel unsafe and be a victim of violence or whatever. Why would I choose this lifestyle? This is not a choice – it’s who I am. All these social structures and ideas and religions want to fundamentals on which we based apartheid – saying that some people are inferior, and the Bible says so.
MYD: What would your advice be for anyone who feels that they don’t fit in, that they can’t meet the dogmatic expectations of society?
S: Somehow, when people take the step and have the
courage to go for something, the moment you dare, energetically something happens. You might have just be me, I attracted people who were like me and I found a social network of people supporting me in times when
say that it’s wrong, as if it’s a choice, but these are the same support – maybe not from your direct friends and family, but from other people who have been going through the same things as you. So first know yourself and then be willing to be brave for yourself.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT WWW.NAMIBIANTALES.COM/KALAHARI-PROJECT
ADVERTORIAL
TEACH A MAN TO BUILD A PIT LATRINE
How to win against hepatitis E
Few community-service projects attempted in Africa can claim the measure of success of the Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programme that was implemented to combat the hepatitis E outbreak that has been spreading through communities in informal settlements for the last two years.
The programme serves as an excellent example of what is possible, practical and impactful in addressing the socioeconomic challenges that so many citizens in our country face every day. From collaborating with organisations such as the Debmarine-Namdeb Foundation and other funders, to educating communities on the importance of hygiene, to empowering and restoring the dignity of the residents themselves through job creation in the construction of pit latrines, the CLTS initiative ticks all the boxes.
Sanitation Project Coordinator Rimothy Mbeha and his team have been working hard to train and educate local community members on safe toilet construction, hand-washing, solid-waste management and community mobilisation while liaising with partners and stakeholders to keep the project on track.
“Initiatives such as these are very important. With the 100 volunteers we are currently working with, I have seen the impact the project intervention has had on the lives of the community and their behaviour change.
“The primary goal of the project is to combat the hepatitis E outbreak by using a community-based methodology implemented through a collaborative approach involving many different stakeholders,” Rimothy explains. “Although the project only started recently, the first successes are already visible. In the communities where we work, we see changes in hygiene practice and behaviour, and the construction of new, safe toilets. More than thirty-three households are already building their safe toilets, and a total of 288 residents, most of them children, are direct beneficiaries of the eight sanitation centres currently being used.”
Asked how this project differs from similar programmes, Rimothy proposes that it stands out because it is jointly implemented by different institutions, both governmental and non-governmental.
“It’s a two-pillar project intervention, with one pillar being the construction of sanitation centres in the two constituencies. To date we have constructed eight demonstration centres in both Samora Machel and Moses//Garoeb Constituencies, trained sixty youth bricklayers and established two local sanitation enterprises. The purpose of the centres is to demonstrate to the general public and local residents how to build their own safe toilets based on the designs approved by the City of Windhoek.
“The second pillar is a more social process called communityled total sanitation, which encourages residents to build their own toilets and improve their sanitation behaviour – for example, regular hand-washing.
“We train local community members on safe toilet construction, hand-washing, waste-management and community mobilisation, and they then go around the two constituencies doing house-to-house visits. They demonstrate how to wash hands properly, and distribute pamphlets on safe toilet construction and on hepatitis E.”
As for the long-term impact of this project, he believes that, “Namibians residing in informal settlements will learn more
about the impact and the dangers of open defecation – the impact it can have on them economically and socially. At the same time, people learn more about the massive benefits of proper hand-washing, safe disposal of waste and safe toilet construction. Through the construction of sanitation centres and the training of young bricklayers, more and more local sanitation enterprises will be established, thus creating a thriving business industry that is currently dormant but which has huge potential.”
Background to the Windhoek Sanitation Programme: In May 2018, the Namibian Chamber of Environment (NCE) commissioned an assessment on appropriate urban low-cost sanitation systems in Namibia, implemented by Development Workshop Namibia (DWN). With additional support from the GEF Small Grants Programme, and based on the results of the survey, DWN then initiated the construction of best-practice demonstration toilets. Built in Oshakati and Okahao, the demonstration toilets were integrated in so-called “sanitation centres” that involve local residents and promote good sanitation practices. At the same time, the Ministry of Health and Social Services, City of Windhoek, Constituency Councils of Samora Machel and Moses//Garoeb, WHO, UNICEF and UNDP prepared a major Sanitation Programme in Windhoek. The programme adopted a methodology called Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS). The methodology uses a community bottom-up approach, sensitising informalsettlement residents to the dangers of open defecation and encouraging the construction of latrines according to guidelines provided by the City of Windhoek. The success of the project is due to the combined efforts of the Namibian Chamber of Environment, Development Workshop, UNICEF, UNDP, B2Gold, RMB Foundation, Ministry of Health and Social Services, City of Windhoek, the Japanese Embassy and the Debmarine-Namdeb Foundation.
