Iprotest-Pepa Project: Uganda Women’s Rights: My Body, My Dance! Say NO to Rape Shame! by Elinros Henriksdotter
‘My Body, My Dance!’
Empowering African Women
Survivors of rape, domestic violence, social exclusion, AIDS and poverty
Excerpts from Elinros’ Article:
For FULL Article at http://www.henriksdotter.com
Coming from a place of shame, they have now arrived in strength and hope, thanks to the friendships and the discovery of their own capacity. The women are immensely grateful for the blessing of International attention, compassion and support.
Twenty one rape victims registered with PEPA Human Dignity organization in Kasese district in Western Uganda were invited to rehearse and perform cultural song, dance and theatre on the themes of rape, domestic violence and AIDS, together with three professional dance groups, in the spirit of empowering collaboration, friendship and freedom of expression.
Why dance?
African traditional dance is storytelling and it is therefore a way of going through traumatic experiences in groups consisting of both victims and observers of a range of cultural and social issues. In this manner all participants give support, courage and compassion to the collaborators exposed by actions of cruelty.
The survivors of rape, who were chased out of their communities, are now connecting to a new community full of understanding and acceptance.To understand the challenges the Ugandan rape survivors are facing, it is necessary to understand the cultural consequences; no matter who raped her or how old she is – she is the one to take the blame.
The project ‘My Body, My Dance’ is a collaboration between PEPA (a cluster of 30 NGOs and Human Rights groups in Congo and Africa), writer, artist and light worker Elinros Henriksdotter and the Internationally recognized social entrepreneur and visual artist Cecilia W Yu. The Kasese pilot was funded by Elinros Henriksdotter through GoFundMe.com and thanks to the world-wide engagement of aware minds, ‘My Body, My Dance!’ took place on the 19th of January 2013 in the communion with over 200 innovative and change-making projects worldwide registered for Jellyweek 2013.
The survivors of rape and 40 professional dancers and musicians walked for hours in the burning Ugandan sun to come together for the empowering cultural dance event ‘My Body, My Dance!’ in the fertile hills of Kasese district in Western Uganda.
They all arrived at the event fresh and full of energy, eager to perform their repertoire of songs and plays with their new friends on the themes of rape, domestic violence, AIDS and their gratitude towards PEPA Human Dignity organization.
One woman was raped and impregnated by an old man, and her family forced her to marry the old man, who turned her life into a living hell of domestic violence and rape. A girl at the age of 14 was offered a position as a house girl in the capital Kampala, and was forced into prostitution and eventually thrown out of the house when the wife of the rapist found out that she was pregnant. She is now an AIDS-positive single mother at the age of 16. Each woman has her own bewildering story, and this project has empowered the women to speak openly and work through their trauma slowly but surely in a loving, supporting and creative environment.
‘My Body, My Dance!’ inspired more women to come out of the shadow and speak the truth after many years of silence. When we had enjoyed the fantastic performances and a big meal, with the luxury of meat, matoke (mashed food bananas) and sodas, Elinrós Henriksdotter gathered the rape survivors in a room for an empowering and inspirational talk and discussion.
Since Henriksdotter is a survivor of both domestic sexual abuse and rape, she easily bonded with the women, who opened up and spoke freely about their experiences, hopes and fears.
Coming from a place of shame, they have now arrived in strength and hope, thanks to the friendships and the discovery of their own capacity. The women are immensely grateful for the blessing of International attention, compassion and support.
The goal of the collaborating forces is to assist the women further in their daily struggle, and to expand ‘My Body, My Dance!’ to other places in Uganda and Congo, which is PEPA’s current domains. African traditional dance is educational, liberating and inspirational, and the accomplishments of this project are extremely beneficial to everyone involved and the International audience.
Elinrós Henriksdotter, 22 January 2013
6 Comments on “Iprotest-Pepa Project: Uganda Women’s Rights: My Body, My Dance! Say NO to Rape Shame! by Elinros Henriksdotter”
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Cecilia W Yu
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Small actions that changes initial condition can create the same butterfly effect in daily life.......
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Amazing! What a wonderful way to heal, and bring awareness to such devastation and horrific acts. Thank you Cecilia for sharing this story and these inspirational women who have made the choice to stand up and DANCE!!! XOXO
HILLARY!!! Elinros,you and me will hopefully be singing this about ALL our charitable work! Now I just got to round up a Hip-hop legend to compose it….:) Don’t get me started on who those “Jewish-Asian” Graffiti Artists grew up with in the Beverley Hills “hood” (mega-3ways-injoke alert)! hahahhaha.
Oooo, my new favourite song!
So we will have to corner a hip hop.legend for an updayed version. Lol.
you know i’m all behind you with art and charity. but i’m sorry but i think you should improve the organization of the website. You have great materials but unless people know what they are looking for, finding something is like looking for needle in a haystack.
Hi Carlos, yes it is. lol. How many places do you know are so transparent that they keep their filing cabinets online as a blog and use it as an e-bulletin board?
Those who are part of it knows how to find it by bringing it up in the right search words worldwide, those who don’t can browse and take the time to find it organically. As for the rest….hahaha.who cares? I could have simpler names in the Categories…I know, I’ve been thinking about that but that takes time that I do not have. Too busy living it. X CC