April 1, 2003
By Lucille Davie
THE Jewish tradition of learning and passing on traditional skills is being continued in the 1910 Jewish High School building in Wolmarans Street, opposite the Great Synagogue.
School leavers from Hillbrow are being given theatre and life skills lessons in the building, with its tall pressed steel ceilings, wooden doors and floors and large empty rooms, in a project called the Inner City Initiative (CICI), the performing arts element of which is run by Francois Venter. It's a developmental cultural project drawing on the communities of Hillbrow, Berea and Joubert Park.
"We want to take forward the tradition of learning in this space," says Venter.
The Initiative runs for 18 months, ending in early 2004. The main funder is the Poverty Alleviation Fund of the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.
"The aims of the CICI are to deliver skills to youth marginalised by poverty, and to provide hands-on training to developing artists and creative collectives in Johannesburg's inner city through a wide range of workshops," says Venter.
The day I visited the project 20 young black guys were sitting or standing in one of the rooms, bouncing ideas for a sketch around with Venter and his two assistants, John Molteno and Bronwyn Krige.
Venter, a panellist on the National Arts Council, the co-ordinator of a performing arts consortium, a teacher at Wits University and at the Market Theatre, says he was working in the area, and stumbled upon the empty school, just waiting for a group with lots of energy and enthusiasm to bring the space alive again.
The young men were obviously enjoying playing with ideas - doves and angels as symbols of peace and love were discussed as images. Every three months a group completes a course and presents their work in Joubert Park. Last September they held a spring parade in Hillbrow. Several of them have found work with the SABC.
Training workshops in crafts, performing arts, visual arts, marketing and finance are presented. Professionals are called in to train the youngsters, and there's plenty of collaboration between the professionals, with the ultimate goal of creating a network of arts organisations to "support vibrant and diverse community-based cultural activity in the area". Some 100 kids have already been trained.
The CICI is co-ordinated by several other projects in the area:
- the Lapeng Child and Family Resource Service, which provides health, educational and human development services to families and children to those living around Joubert Park in particular;
- the Joubert Park Public Art Project, which works to support the development and regeneration of the Joubert Park precinct, and to link up with the Johannesburg Art Gallery;
- the Greenhouse Project, which is developing the Greenhouse People's Environmental Centre, home for environmental NGOs and CBOs in Johannesburg, located in Joubert Park.
"The response has been fantastic," says Venter. Break a leg, guys.
