December 30, 2008

SPECIAL "BUTTERFLY EFFECT CAMPAIGN" LAUNCHED BY FOR THE
WOMEN'S PROJECT IN THE INDLOVU COMMUNITY

You can join!

Following the AWID forum in CapeTown, South Africa, the Wings of the Butterfly collective and the artistic team and staff travelled to the INDLOVU Center, located in the township community of Monwabisi Park on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, to develop a cultural exchange and a resonance workshop with women in the community. This involved presenting the Rosa Parks piece of the show and getting to know the women in the community and their struggles. It was coordinated by Nirmala Nair who is assistant producer of Wings of the Butterfly in Cape Town. 

On November 17, We met with the women in the community, and presented the Rosa Parks scene of the show and exchanged stories and testimonies. After the show we did a cultural exchange activity where one of the women sat on Rosa Parks' chair to tell us her story of resistance, while another represented the chauffeur of the bus in which Parks refused to give up her seat.

Voyu, who gave testimony of her own story, also translated from their Xkoshan dialect into English and vice versa. She decided to create a project where the women were to use Rosa´s chair (given to the women of the community by the artists) to sit in it and tell their stories, gather them in a book and hopefully publish them. She also requested the script of the Rosa Parks story to organize a local version of the show in order to motivate women to sit on Rosa’s chair to tell their stories of resistance.

Tragedy strikes

Two weeks after we left the community we received word that the very same community center where we all met was burned to the ground - including Rosa Parks' chair (see side story).

Wings launches the Butterfly Effect Campaign

Wings of the Butterfly has decided to launch the Butterfly Effect Campaign to help rebuild the women´s project and the community center.

• In December 2008 Wings of the Butterfly presented a $5,000 Seed Grant Project to AWID following the Forum in Cape Town:

Intentionalities of the Seed Grant:

Expand the connections and resonances between Wings of the Butterfly and women of the INDOVU Center located in the township community of Monwabisi Park, near Cape Town, South Africa through a Butterfly Effect Campaign to raise funds for them.

 1. Raise funds to provide resources for the women in the community to build their Stories Project in connection with their experience of the Rosa Parks scene in the show, The Labyrinth of the Butterflies.
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2. Enable the Wings of the Butterfly to use those stories to designate the INDLOVU women as “butterfliers” in the project. (See Butterfliers section in our website, www.alasdemariposa.org)

3. Showcase the strategy of popularization and resonance within a popular education/feminist epistemology proposal with a concrete example.

Wings of the Butterfly started the Butterfly Effect Campaign by just giving to the cause though the Shaster Foundation (see www.shaster.org.za) in the Community.

So far we have collected:

• $100 donated by Maria Alejandra Solórzano, one of the actresses in the show.
• $100 donated by Maria Suarez Toro, co coordinator of Wings of the Butterfly
• All actresses have agreed to use the proceedings of one of the presentations in Costa Rica next February to be send to the community.

You can join by sending an email to the Shaster Foundation in order to make the donation directly. Please let Wings of the Butterfly know at info@alasdemariposa.org.

Just Associates has also launched a support campaign which you can join at www.jass.org