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Can the arts impact poverty in a way that aid hasn't?

Can the arts impact poverty in a way that Aid to Africa hasn’t?

Years of aid to Africa has not abated the continent’s poverty. So what’s going wrong? Aid may meet desperate and essential need, but development is surely the next step. There is a strong argument emerging that the arts, through helping regain human dignity, could be the means to breaking an established cycle of poverty.

Not called ‘humanities’ for nothing
Writingin The Times about the recent conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, acclaimed film-director of surprise smash hit, Slumdog Millionaire, Danny Boyle states that maintaining our humanity stretches far beyond merely serving our biological needs. Arts and creative expression, he believes, are the means to regaining a sense of our humanity.

"I am not suggesting that we drop paint-brushes on Goma. But I am suggesting that post-conflict relief should look to means of coping with and expressing individual trauma, and that the arts can play a vital role… it’s not for nothing that the arts are called the humanities; they humanise us."

A dramatic need
Boyle is a trustee of Dramatic Need, a not-for-profit charity founded by ex-actress Amber Sainsbury. Sainsbury, post filming the Poseidon Adventure in South Africa in 2004, taught drama on a farm in Free State and returned to the UK determined to volunteer as a participatory arts teacher. Unable to find an organisation that met her needs, Sainsbury founded Dramatic Need: sending out volunteers from the creative arts to host workshops with children in violent and deprived areas of rural South Africa.

Not importing but empowering
Sainsbury is adamant she is not trying to import arts to Africa, or replace the continent’s thriving and expressive arts movement. Her aim is to empower and enable children to express themselves.

"A generation is growing up deprived and angry and, due to violence, incredibly impoverished," she told Sideways News. "What we’re addressing is how you can stop the next generation growing up with no sense of self or pride in who they are or where they have come from. Dignity, communication and humanity are hugely valuable assets in breaking the cycle of poverty and moving forward."

Regaining dignity
Dramatic Need’s programmes are structured and participatory. Volunteers aim to inspire children to take ownership of their own issues through drama and creative arts. The children discuss AIDS, respect, gender specific violence and what makes their life hard. At the end of the scheme it is the children who write a play, produce and perform it to their community.

"We bring the spark," says Sainsbury, "then they light the fire and burn the house down".

Sainsbury has seen one participant, 18-year-old Seboko, literally break out of poverty, securing a place at Design Republic (Johannesberg’s leading media agency) but cites the smaller examples of children gaining a sense of their own worth through creative expression as the greatest achievement.

Art beyond aid
So can paintbrushes really blot out poverty? "I’m not saying for a second that aid should be ignored," says Sainsbury. "But aid has not worked. People have been giving aid to Africa for 60 years and it has not worked."

The necessities of our human existence - water, food and medicines - may be essential, this is aid after all, but is it development? As Sainsbury puts it: "The big thing in development is development."

Perhaps this is the second stage of aid - breaking a cycle of poverty through regaining a sense of humanity. For this reason, Dramatic Need - soon to start work in Rwanda - is modeling a concept that could be used anywhere in the world. True development because it’s about the development of hope. And hope does last.

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