Katwe youth will undergo street art training

Feed a Million Mouths International (FAMMI), a Ugandan social enterprise, has started the “Kartwe Street Art Project” in Kampala’s Katwe neighborhood to teach poor children and youth art skills and alter the city via public art. (Katwe youth will undergo street art training)

Hundreds of Katwe children and youth will participate in three art classes every Saturday for the next ten weeks, after which they will organize an exhibition and compete in a competition in which the five finest street art designs will be implemented throughout the neighborhood.

“We believe that the people, especially the children of Katwe, need a chance to live with and grow up with hope, dignity, and a platform for their creativity,” Mark Montgomery, the Director of FAMMI, said at the launch held at Central Primary School in Katwe. “We believe that by introducing art, color, and beauty into the community, we can change the way people think of and relate to their surroundings.”

Katwe, formerly a bustling informal community populated primarily by artisans, craftsmen, technologists, and entrepreneurs, has now become a breeding ground for crime, disease, and poverty, as well as a haven for a huge number of street children.

According to the Police Annual Crime Report for 2020, Katwe is one of Uganda’s top criminal divisions, with 2,797 instances reported in that year.

“Boy With Kite,” a 150 square meter mural painted alongside local youth who were offered an alternative life away from crime and drug gangs in one of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, is one example of how public art has been used around the world to impact individual lives, transform public spaces, and ignite change.

FAMMI also hopes to inspire the community to preserve cleanliness in order to prevent diseases like tetanus and typhoid through the Kartwe Street Art Project.

FAMMI will also address hunger and malnutrition by serving low-income children maize and soy-based porridge — an immune-boosting supplement that offers 100% of the required daily requirement of vitamins and minerals and can be used as a meal substitute – throughout the art classes.

“We’re nourishing the mind, body, and spirit,” Montgomery continued. We are instilling in these children the belief that they are creative, valuable, and capable of achieving perfection.” (Katwe youth will undergo street art training – celebrity jazz ug )