Lucid Pictures is currently working with Shikaya to produce a 3 hour multimedia workshop for over 300 high schools in the Western Cape, entitled ‘Up2Us’. The project features case studies that get learners grappling with leading a values-based life. Ultimately the purpose of the project is to create a compassionate society.
We’re creating a journey for learners, that takes stories about ordinary south africans who have stood up to peer pressure and apathy to make a difference in our society, infusing it with music, peppering it with life lessons from some of SA’s top celebs (including HHP, Bob Skinstad, The Parlotones and Connie Ferguson) and a dash of wisdom from our elders (including Ahmed Kathrada, Dennis Goldberg and Max du Preez) and shaking it up with a custom single produced by Aron Swartz (formerly of FreshlyGround) and a beautiful animation of ‘Fly Eagle, Fly!’ by Michael Clark, who also did the animation for ‘Tomorrow’s Cities‘.
History of the Project
Shikaya was approached by the Western Cape Education Department to put together a programme in response to the increased number of racially-motivated conflicts and violent incidents in schools. What the education department wants to achieve with the programme is to teach core constitutional values, human rights, and democracy to begin the process of challenging the undercurrents of racism in many of its schools.
The aim of the programme will be to support teachers, schools and surrounding communities, to develop leadership skills and knowledge, to empower learners as agents of transformation, to deal with issues of prejudice and to develop responsible citizenship.
Shikaya has a proud record of working in the field of education and has links with the Facing the Past Programme. Facing the Past –Transforming our Future is Shikaya’s core project.
Since 2003 the project has been supporting teachers to develop a culture in schools whereby young people learn to become active, tolerant and responsible democratic citizens who value diversity, human rights and peace.
Facing the Past – Transforming our Future uses the case studies of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust and apartheid South Africa to help young people connect the past to the moral and ethical decisions they make today.
The Facing the Past methodology and approach allows young people to connect history to the moral questions inherent in a study not only of violence, prejudice and racism but also of courage, caring, and compassion and individual responsibility in a democracy.
In working with personal experiences and choice in these histories, links are made to the issues and moral dilemmas facing young people today.
