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Drums, Storytelling, and Local Musicians Support Health, Peace, and Healing in Nairobi

Several drumming events are planned or in the works for Kenya on the weekend of May 6-7th. On May 6th in Nairobi, at the Kaloleni Social Hall, Borderklan Foundation (www.bkfdn.org) and Talent Promotion Center is organizing a number of local musicians who will perform from 10am onwards. For more information, please contact James Ayugi at info@bkfdn.org or call +254-720-250520.

This is the third time activist and educator, Ayugi, has been involved in One World Beat: in 2004 he helped to organize a spectacular line-up of weekend events, this in conjunction with the Grace Center International, and in 2005 Borderklan itself organized a benefit event.

Borderklan Self-Help Group is a community based organization registered with the Ministry of Gender, Sports, Culture and Social Services. Its mission is to mitigate poverty, increase HIV/AIDS awareness and advocacy, reduce the rate of teenage pregnancies and drug abuse, and promote local talents, including in sports and in the arts. Borderklan is developing a community-based talent-promotion center, with a special focus on youth, and has already established successful badminton and volleyball clubs.

In Mombasa, an event is in the making: please contact Halima Mwavumo at ivumo@yahoo.com.

In Nakuru, on May 6th, an event dubbed "Peace in the Ghetto" will feature drumming for peace and healing. The slum is called Bondeni, and this place and region have been chosen because of the high number of child molestation cases, adolescent mothers, and domestic violence. The nonprofit group, REPACTED, is undertaking empowerment activities for these populations.

REPACTED ("Rapid Effective Participatory Action in Community Theater Education and Development"), an arts group working in conjunction with the youth development nonprofit, ANFORD (African Nations Foundation for Rural Development), will engage the youths of Nakuru in drumming, while at the same time they narrate stories of challenges happening in the community. The drums will be the percussion, accompanying the voices of the storytellers, who will conveying messages of peace and highlighting the plight of people affected by violence in the communities, including the inter-clan strife which recently claimed the lives of five members of the Kenyan Parliament, on their way to a regional peace meeting.

A song recently written on Kenya and on peace will hopefully be performed on that day. It was composed by a young woman working with the youth development group, "JUMP (Juveniles Using Media Power) To Change The World" (www.jumptochangetheworld.org), an international storytelling initiative involving youth interchanges and development of joint multimedia projects, on issues like HIV/AIDS. For more on the Nakuru event, contact Dennis Kimambo at kimambodenis@yahoo.com and 254-722-388-275. For ANFORD, see www.anford.kabissa.org. This event will be from 2-4pm.