Woman Scream 2013 Tanzania

According to Neema Komba, founder of La Poetista and coordinator of Woman Scream International Poetry Festival in Dar-es-salaam, Tanzania, the event was great. Last 07^th of march 2013 at 6 pm, many people gathered in Nyumbani Lounge, at the Tranic Plaza in Ada Estate to say NO to violence against women. The act begun with a regular open mic and the magic words where just said: “We are launching Woman Scream”. We invited a lot of people, and over 150 showed up. Said Neema, and the venue was packed.

An open mic started with people from the audience that performed poetry, and music. Then the director of ILO in Tanzania launched Woman Scream. She introduced it, and shared her experience as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and a series of other abuses when she was older. One time she was raped at gunpoint. She is an author of Joy comes in the morning, an autobiography that also has some poetry.

After the launch, there was an inspirational speech from the national director of SOS Children Village, and she shared her experience as well. She had gone through childhood abuse, emotional abuse and physical abuse from her previous marriage. She shared how she got out of it...how she survived. She touched people as she spoke.

Right after the poetry recital begun, it was the one the coordinator had programmed. “You should have seen it” -Said Neema- “We recorded it, and we had two tv stations that will air it”. People cried. It made an amazing impact.  There was a performance with drums and a piano. It was emotional. The coordinator performed with Nancy and Joy. Nancy is the co- founder of La Poetista. Joy is from a college poetry group called the Noisy Pens, she is from Uganda and she studies architecture at a local college.

Then along came the featured guest: Maya Azucena, her performance was truly amazing. She wrote the theme song for one billion rising called dance revolution...so we showed it at the event, the message of it was to fight violence. People talked about it. And organizations that desk with this now are listening. Also they had a projector going on with An artist from the UK called Adelaide Damoah who sent some pictures from her domestic violence collection, they were powerful images. Neema told how hard it was for them to get support to get through the barriers to make the event, but she said: “We sent proposals and no one would support us. They didn’t know the power of poetry. The team worked hard, really hard. We had no money at all....but it happened”. So she made it with the help of solidary poets and artists that joined the cause out of love (as many things are done in Woman Scream worldwide! As always poetry is powerful, so does love).

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A sencond  Woman Scream 2013 event stroke again in the Nyumbani Lounge at Dar es-Salam in Tanzania with the invited renowned spoken word artist from Nairobi, Kenya called Sitawa Wafula, many people went to La Poetisa on marcj 21st after 6pm to enjoy her talent and to hear the arstist who shared her own experience as a survivor from her upcoming project called Coffee Bean. Sitawa, was very inspiring and many people attended the event to take part of this sencond Woman Scream in Tanzania.

Coordinators of La Poetisa want to thank all the people who became part of this two events and that took WS to their hearts. "We can't wait for the next year's scream" said Neema Komba.

 

 

 

To see more photos and photos of the worldwide events click HERE

To check other countries events go HERE