breaking walls 2015 Cape Town brought together 24 young men and women, ages 12 to 17, for ensemble-building, creative writing, performance and share life experiences. Our 2015 Cape Town artists came from the German International School Cape Town and Rainbow Dreams Trust youth in the Hout Bay,
Khayelitsha and Phillippi Townships.
I am pleased to share the reflections of Livio Alberti and Mziyanda Sonteya.
Dear breaking walls,
What I liked about the four-day initiative was, honestly saying, everything; yet, there are some special things I can point out. I really liked the way our breaking walls team, Merve, Crystal and Dannie, helped the children from different skin colours, cultures, schools and maybe also different personalities connect. They did this by pushing us a little. Example: where they divided all the artists into pairs and made two kids who didn’t really know each other work together. This turned out to be rather successful in most cases, as it made two people, with differences, as I’ve already mentioned, who by themselves wouldn’t have made the step, connect. They also organized all kinds of activities and fun games with special techniques to link the artists. Not to forget how cool the writing triggers were, too. That was the moment where every artist shared openly. It was really cool how openly the Rainbow children expressed themselves and how honest they were. breaking walls helped me share stuff too that I actually wouldn’t have published voluntarily. I learned a lot of other stuff, too.
I learned stuff that could hardly be learned at school. Importantly I learned that the life in most townships is really something not to joke about.That the life in the ghetto is as extreme as demonstrated in some movies. What is shown in most movies set in the ghetto is real and not just a joke. Example: Some kids coming home from school in the townships really do see people being mistreated and shot, something what rich white kids in closed communities couldn’t even dream of witnessing. That’s probably the most important thing I learned.
I also learned a lot about creative writing techniques and basic knowledge of theatre. From Crystal obviously she was a really great director. In my early life I haven’t yet seen a greater director. She really thought of everything to make the play as great as it was.
At the beginning, sadly admitting now, how closed I was — I literally refused to attend. It turned out, that things changed so much that I left the place with watering eyes after the rapid goodbyes after the performance. This made me wish for an extra farewell day, to actually have a chance to say goodbye. The moment which impacted me the most, was when I actually started admitting to myself that breaking walls is cool, and that after all my mom was right once again to have pushed me to come to breaking walls. It changed my attitude towards people, and that allowed me to have all the fun I wanted to have! The only thing that bothered me about the initiative was that I woke up the third and final morning counting 18 flea bites in total. breaking walls couldn’t have done anything about that… or maybe yes?
Thanks!,
Livio
The four days of breaking walls 2015 Cape Town are one of the experiences I will never forget. This experience taught me something that I will definitely use as I make my way going forward with new strength. It is this: “I am here today, tomorrow I am there.”
What I really love about breaking walls is that I had time to get to know more about how the other kids feel about the places they live, because the interesting part about breaking walls is the writing triggers. What I love about the writing triggers is that they were personal and we were free to respond to them with honesty and share them openly.
About the activities that we did, I liked the “Assassin” game and the hike was really fun!
The other nice part of breaking walls is that I learned a few German words that the students from the German School taught me. I just wish that we had more time with each other.
We did a great job with our performance where everyone really gave it their all. The most important thing is to say,
THANK YOU breaking walls,
Mziyanda