User:HUJUMA/Pawa254

PAWA 254 is a hub in Kenya.It is a unique art and cultural collaborative hub through which innovative professionals from diverse fields exploit their creative gifts to foster entrepreneurship and social change. Among the creatives who collaborate in its dynamic space are photographers, graphic artists, filmmakers, journalists, musicians and poets. We also invite promising youth to contribute their ideas in an informal setting and to receive training and mentorship from their more experienced peers.

History
The word "PAWA," derived from the English word, “power,” conveys the energy packed in youthful potential in transforming their country. With unity of purpose, Kenyan youth can harness and channel that potential towards positive social change. Through use of art in organizing, or to use their coinage, ‘artivism’, PAWA Initiative runs a creative hub that houses, fosters and catalyses creative and community-driven projects for social change across Kenya. It is the first of its kind in Africa. Pawa traces its founding to Kenya’s 2007 General Election which ended in a bloodbath, and which Boniface Mwangi bravely documented using his camera lenses to bring into sharp focus the destruction that historians conceded had not been witnessed since the 1950s, the height of the war of liberation. Subsequently, Kwani? and Godown Arts Centre published Mwangi’s collection of photographs – together with those of Japanese photojournalist Yasuyoshi Chiba in Kenya Burning – and which shocked and angered the nation in equal measure. Working with two friends, George Gachara and Caren Wakoli, they organized Picha Mtaani and carried out a travelling street exhibition of Kenya’s post election violence photos. The exhibition was mounted with support from United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Launched in December 2009, the travelling exhibition toured across Kenya till the end of 2013, mounting about 50 shows that drew more than 2 million people. PAWA 254 creative hub was formally established as a centre where diverse individuals (artists and non-artists) could join together as members and visitors to engage, learn and improve on their ideas and skills. Such collaborations would result in artistic productions that increased opportunities for their creators to build their profiles and generate incomes. They would also give rise to ‘artivist’ productions whose messages are channeled towards public campaigns for social change.

Notable Events
It organizes weekly ‘Off the Record’ debates and discussions - a unique space where participants express their thoughts and speak their mind on issues affecting society, strictly off the record; PAWA Salon and PAWA Master Class workshops and trainings that provide professionals and pioneers in the creative industry a platform to share with one another, students and other enthusiasts hands-on skills, knowledge and insights into the creative industry and work; PAWA 254 Film Forum which is committed to showcasing independently produced, often non- commercial work that has little opportunity of reaching the general public; highlighting social, political, cultural and historical realities; and Art Media Hub for Creatives where it offers office space for hire, workshop space for hire, trainings across the country on citizen journalism and state of the art cameras, lighting, and other production equipment to PAWA 254 community for use in studio or on-location shoots at highly subsidized rates, or free of charge to creatives who can't afford to hire the facilities, or pay fees during trainings.