PARTY - participatory development with the youth

ME – HERE - NOW PARTY Workshop at the Department of Visual Arts, University of Namibia 24.11. – 27.11.2017 Teacher: Anu Kylmänen Facilitator: Virpi Nurmela Documentation: Marja Ylioinas, Anu Kylmänen, Virpi Nurmela It was beautiful and warm morning in Windhoek. We had huge plastic bags full of wool and other materials when we were waiting for a taxi on the street. I was a little nervous about how to get young people excited about the upcoming workshop and that they would benefit from the workshop in the future. We arrived well in advance to prepare the workspace ready. Accordingly, the schedule, materials and everything all needed were ready waiting for the students to arrive.  The workshop was outdoors. We had long table and everyone had a lot of space for artistic work. First, we opened the workshop with introductions of the leaders and participants as well as PARTY project. Everyone wrote their own names in a piece a tape and stacked it to their clothe...

Producing video for social media with smartphones When the autumn was changing into the long arctic night, I got a possibility to spend one month in the Namibian spring within the PARTY project (Participatory development with the youth). It took me about one second to consider the offer and say Yes, whether I would be interested to go for a month in Namibia to teach the youth how to make video stories with mobile phones. Windhoek and the vast dry plain The name Namibia is from the Nama language word Namib, meaning “vast dry plain”, for Windhoek there’s no one theory how it got its name, the most popular one is that it comes from Afrikaans word wind-hoek (wind corner); indigenous names are related to the hot springs that are located near today’s city centre (Wikipedia). During my stay in Namibia, I also had a possibility to drive around in the country on the endless gravel roads in sand deserts, mountains and bushes – there I understood how honest and descriptive ...