We’ve been busy at Ferment Collaborate working on projects with Sri Lankan communities in Brisbane and of course in Sri Lanka. We hope you can help us continue this work through your donation of any amount
over $1.
About Lanka Stories...
In January 2013 we aim to use film to talk with community facilitators in Sri Lanka about their work and about being Sri Lankan. This is part 1 of our Lanka Stories project which aims to connect communities
in Sri Lanka and Australia through multimedia storytelling and letterwriting and to then turn these conversations into a theatre piece, by a Sri Lankan performance group, for presentation at the 2014 World Theatre Festival in Brisbane.
We’ll be traveling around Sri Lanka with Manoj Siriwardena, a young film maker from Kandy, to gather these stories. Manoj will be learning digital storytelling and engagement techniques and will help us
to connect with artists, facilitators and community workers from around the island.
Since our last fundraising in August...
In August 2012 we held a crowdfunding campaign, also through Start Some Good, to raise funds for the first Art and Social Change Symposium, organised by us in collaboration with several established Sri
Lankan arts and cultural agencies. The Symposium was attended by over 50 community workers from around the island.
At the Symposium we posed the questions ‘Why work together?’ and ‘How can we work together?’ as ways of defining opportunities to encourage collaboration, cultural exchange and meaningful approaches to
engagement and development.
One of the main responses we heard from those attending, reinforced through conversations we’ve been having generally in Sri Lanka, is the need for a network that can support cultural facilitators to collaborate
with each other, learn new skills, connect with international cultural development movements, access support resources and to showcase leading practice work.
Building networks...
Cultural development or community cultural development (CCD) describes the philosophy, practices, intentions and outcomes of community-based cultural and artistic practices. It is through the things we
do together as groups and communities that we gain a sense of collective identity, a sense of place and a sense of belonging. Cultural development is an approach to community building that empowers grass roots facilitators and agencies to work with local people
based on appropriate cultural practices.
While we understand that establishing this network is the way forward, our next steps must start with defining exactly HOW this network should be designed and established. As a foreign agency, located in Australia, we see our role
as being that of a facilitator, working with Sri Lankan arts, cultural and community agencies to support local participation in the design, management and activation of such a network.
Support us and become an active member of our work...
So, please support us with a donation here. You’ll be helping us begin our Lanka Stories engagement project as well as talking with people in Sri Lanka to determine what the Cultural Development Network
should look like, how it should function and how they can be involved.
By making a donation you become part of our network and will be kept up to date with our activities and the outcomes of the work we do. Thanks again for taking the time to read this.
For more information please contact us at
[email protected] or visit our websites or Facebook pages:
http://www.facebook.com/FermentC?ref=hl
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Venesa-Matram-Program/439576339404793?ref=hl
