ARROW (Art: A Resource for Reconciliation Over the World) South Africa

The ARROW project in South Africa works with secondary school learners at Bechet High School, using the arts as a means of local, national, and international interpersonal exploration, with an emphasis on the role that interdependence plays in reconciliation and peace. Activities have included dance workshop sessions in which young people from another school outside the project were invited to teach the ARROW learners Indian dancing, gumboot dancing, Xhosa wedding dancing, and freestyle dancing. Through combining the different dances in the same session, organises say similarities in cultures were emphasised.

According to ARROW South Africa, Bechet High School was selected as it reflects a good cultural and religious cross section of Durban, it is not a previously or presently privileged school, and needs technical upliftment, but still has basic infrastructure. As well, the school is situated in a non-high risk security area accessible to the university. Learners chosen for the project represent a cross section of gender, race, and religion.

As part of the project, organisers workshopped the storytelling production "Enlightening Lightening," which was performed to learners of all ages as well as the community. Another ongoing project "Playing for Peace" builds on the previous peace art work and is based on an oral history methodology using indigenous games as a springboard. Youth engage with creative means of intra- and interpersonal conflict transformation with the emphasis on interdependence and intercultural knowledge and contact.

Organisers say the two-year project continues communication towards understanding and peace between Kwa-Zulu Natal youth and their direct communities, as well as international youth and the elderly from Kosovo, inner-city Plymouth, the United Kingdom (UK), and Palestine. Playing for Peace workshops have been held in other regions of South African and communication between the different ARROW hubs takes place through the internet and via the exchange of visual material.

According to organisers, although ARROW SA was initiated as an outreach project, it was also facilitated research projects. Specifically, ARROW South Africa projects have provided opportunities for teaching, learning, and research by secondary school learners and staff, international students from the UK, and postgraduate students from the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal.

Conflict, Youth

A second phase of ARROW international has been launched in the UK and is designed to to build on the network of hubs from the first phase; address recommendations made in the ARROW evaluation report; develop an ARROW journal; host an international ARROW conference; expand the programme to more schools in Durban; and establish a Southern African ARROW network that would connect South African youth with youth in Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia toward peace and reconciliation.