This past summer, Catherine Hanna, a Seeds For Hope volunteer, organized and ran a 2-day workshop at the Kibera Girls Soccer Academy, called "Poetry For Life". Over the course of the workshop, Catherine, the teachers, and the girls spent time examining themselves, their lives, and their community to create some fantastic works of honesty, beauty, and truth. This work has become part of a greater artistic and initiative by the girls of the school who continue to spend time using their talents, an exercise marking a rise in self-esteem and self-knowledge, and one that will prove to better the community around them.

Catherine Hanna's Report

 

Seeds for Hope Crisis in Kibera Response

In January of 2008, Seeds for Hope initiated an emergency response to
the post-election violence and campaigned to raise money in order to
provide an intervention that would contribute to sustainable healing
in Kibera, Kenya. I have had a relationship with Seeds for Hope as a
volunteer and supporter for the passed year. I was blessed to be given
the opportunity to develop and implement two ideas for programming as
part of the Kibera Crisis response.

Poetry for Life

The first program was "Poetry for Life", which brought me to Kibera
Girl's Soccer Academy, a school for secondary level girls in Kibera
Kenya. With KGSA I worked with 30 girls and three teachers for 16
hours over one week to implement an arts-based program that used
poetry, drama, leadership/community-building games, graffiti art, and
photography to stimulate expressions and discussions about their
lives. In this program I worked primarily as a facilitator, allowing
student-based initiatives in topic and discussion developments. I also
taught poetry as a craft and an academic discipline of
English/Creative Writing. Through the work and the flow of our time
together, the girls each wrote 4-5 poems about their own lives, their
friends and their communities, and created group and individual
presentations for their school community."

 

 

Below is a poem by one of the girls, and is entitled "My Community, My Kibera."  

 

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My Community, My Kibera

Khadijah

I see shops, I see beautiful people, I see leaders working together, eating together, playing together.

I hear hungry children crying. I hear sexually harassed women crying. I hear poor people crying.

I smell Busa, I smell cuauglaa. I smell sewage.

My love home, My lovely Kibera.
I hurt for better education fir the people of Kibera to get employed.
I hurt for the mud houses of Kibera
I hurt for a better future for the people of Kibera, so as to reduce poverty.

My lovely home, My lovely Kibera.
I love the people in Kibera because they are hardworking
I love the people in Kibera because they are united
I love children in Kibera because they are innocent

My lovely home, My sweet Home, My Kibera