Tackling HIV/AIDS through art

Chippa Legodimo | Wednesday October 9, 2013 09:25

 

The organisation's director, Hendrikos Bervoets, last week descended on Botswana to workshop students on how to use art to address their social problems, including HIV/AIDS. The workshop was concluded with the group producing art works to express what they could have learnt at the workshop.

The exhibition of those works at Thapong Visual Arts Centre on Friday was a culmination of learning, sharing and self-expression, according to Bervoets.

'All we did was workshop them and asked them to put down their feelings in the form of art. I have to say I was impressed,' he said.

None of the pieces is directly connected to HIV/AIDS but still translate messages of hope about the possibility of winning the battle against the disease, promoting unity among other things.

'I was asked by some who saw these pieces: where is AIDS in these pictures?' My answer is simple; this is how they felt after the workshop. The workshop was about instilling confidence, encouraging that spirit of openness among the youth and indeed hope that we could win this battle,' he said. House of Yelling Fine Arts whose director Nonofo Ndwapi, told Showbiz that she had been impressed by the methods used by the Canada-based organisation and therefore invited Bervoets.

Ndwapi said that during the Month of Youth Against AIDS (September) she felt her organisation needed to play a big role.

'But I needed to do something different from the usual.  Something that would interest the young people and drive the message better and clearly from the art pieces I feel the trick worked,' she said.  Ndwapi also said that in future they were planning to workshop art trainers so they would meet a larger base of young people.